Welcome back! We’ve got another pair of ugly but good-running vehicles today, both from the Heartbeat of America. One is like the car that every jerk in your high school drove, and the other is like nothing you’re likely to have ever seen before.
We looked at a couple of impromptu “Harlequin” cars yesterday, from Mitsubishi and Ford, and I guess I’m not surprised that the Fiesta ST took a huge win. I’ve never driven one, but I’ve heard they’re a riot. I have driven several Eclipses of various generations, and the only version I really like is the first. Everything after that, including this one, sits too low and has too tall of a beltline; it feels like you’re driving it from the bottom of a well.
Oh, and kudos to commenter V10omous for picking up my Foreigner reference in the headline and running with it, even though I completely forgot to include the second half of the joke later. The title of the poll was supposed to be “Which one would make you a Gearbox Hero?”. Not sure how I forgot to include it; maybe I had double vision or something.
All right, let’s check out a couple of ugly Chevies. One was obviously a Gambler car, and the other doesn’t seem like a terribly safe bet either. But they both run and drive fine.
1985 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 – $3,700
Engine/drivetrain: 5.0-liter overhead valve V8, four-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Tacoma, WA
Odometer reading: 53,000 miles (almost certainly rolled over)
Operational status: “Fun car to drive”
I feel sorry for the Camaro. It’s a cheap, good-looking, fun car built from dirt-common parts, with almost endless upgrade potential. But it always gets portrayed as the bad-guy car, from Buddy Repperton to the boyfriend in that Wheatus song. And because of that easy modifiability, too many Camaros end up really tacky, or half-finished, or – like this one – both.
1985 was a big year for the third-generation Camaro: the sharp edges were softened a little bit, the infamous IROC option package for the Z28 became available, and some decent power was finally back on the menu with a tuned-port fuel injected 305 V8, which pumped out 215 horsepower–but was only available with an automatic. The seller claims this is an IROC, but it is not. It is, however, a Z28, and according to the VIN, it does have the TPI engine. All the seller says is that it has a “fast” engine, which may or may not mean it’s stock. You’d have to look under that ridiculous aftermarket hood to know for sure.
The interior is where old Camaros tend to suffer the most, and this one is no exception. It’s missing a door panel, the seats are just plain gross, and I don’t think I even want to know what that is on the carpet. Replacements are available, so it can be fixed up, but it’ll cost you.
The outside actually looks pretty good, except for that stupid hood. The front spoiler is broken, a victim of some curb somewhere no doubt, and there are a few other blemishes, but nothing terrible. It has T-tops, and comes with one extra – though the seller doesn’t specify left or right.
1987 Chevrolet Astro – $1,200
Engine/drivetrain: 4.3-liter overhead valve V6, four-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Seattle, WA
Odometer reading: 250,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives great
The Gambler 500 is part of a larger automotive movement in recent years, a movement towards having fun with cheap cars, along with the Lemons race series, car shows like the Festival Of The Unexceptional, and –I like to think, in some small way – this column. The emphasis is on having fun with what you have, or can buy for cheap, rather than spending a ton of money. It’s automotive democracy in action, and I love it. Even better, the Gambler ethos is all about leaving the woods better than you found them. The same cannot, however, often be said about the cars.
Gambler cars are supposed to only cost $500, but that’s really more of a guideline. This old Chevy Astro van could certainly have come in under the wire when it was first purchased for the task, fresh off a life of shuttling someone’s kids to soccer and ballet, and having no idea what its future held. Somewhere along the way, it lost most of its roof, and had a rear window and bulkhead installed behind the front seats, turning it into what the seller calls a “vuck,” a portmanteau of van and truck, but also probably a fair representation of what most people say when they see it, preceded by “what the.”
The Astro’s stout mechanicals are a good choice for bashing through the woods, and the seller says its 4.3-liter V6 runs like a top. In fact, it just had an oil change and a full tune-up. Some concessions have been made for Gambler use: the rear diff is welded, and the exhaust is straight-piped, so it’s loud and doesn’t turn very well on pavement. The interior, what’s left of it, is a mess, as you would expect after untold romps in the woods.
The modifications outside aren’t limited to the removal of the roof; a pickup-style roll bar has been installed in the bed, along with one of the old rear bench seats turned around backwards. There’s a big light bar on the roof, and a big winch in the front, both of which are important out in the boonies.
I realize there’s a big price difference between these two, but one is also a lot further gone than the other. The Camaro is probably restorable, if you wanted to, but the Astro is just a toy, unless you rip the stuff out of the bed and use it as a pickup truck. So which one interests you more – the quintessential 80s muscle car, or a cheap and interesting bushwhacker?
That bar across the ass of the Astro is an excellent idea, but could use some triangulation.
If that Astro were local or had an open diff I’d get it.
The first thing I would do is take it to the local coin op steam clean place to do the interior.
Normally I can find something redeeming about one of the cars in the showdowns, but in this case, I cannot. You couldn’t pay me to take either of these, unless it was to take them to the scrapyard. (Former Astro owner here)
Normally I would have immediately picked Astro since we had the exact same model year growing up. But if I remember right these were kind of a semi-unibody construction having larger suspension modules bolted to the rest of the body. As such, removing the whole back portion makes me think this thing will flex a lot. And in general I can’t imagine this be worthwile other than beating it to death for fun. At least the Camaro could be cleaned up or made into a usable car on the road.
“One is like the car that every jerk in your high school drove”
Ha. Yeah, it made for good car-casting, especially with the SO COOL license plates, with the jerk boyfriend played by Bradley Whitford in the 1987 film Adventures in Babysitting: https://imcdb.org/i067021.jpg
What’s funny is that reportedly the Camaro was in fact Whitford’s own car and the license plates were genuine and his own. Whitford was 27 and wasn’t altogether comfortable about playing a high school student dating another high school student (even though Elisabeth Shue was in fact already 23) so the director, Chris Columbus, had him use his own car to put him more at ease.
Since the film has achieved cult status there are websites that sell reproduction SO COOL license plates; hopefully whoever gets that Camaro will give it a new red paint job & get such plates, Ã la the BTTF DeLorean and its OUTATIME license plates.
It’s interesting to see stuff from an environment that doesn’t actively destroy discarded junk. Here, if that Camaro hadn’t suffered the same fate as all other Camaros (wrapped around a tree/telephone post/stoplight/down an embankment/on cement blocks in trailer park) corrosion would have done the final coup-de-grace by now.
Yet, this one still exists, defying the indifferent engineering, assembly, and ownership care that characterized this sort of domestic car. It’s one step away from death, but one could probably hoon it into the grave, mullet flapping in the breeze. But dear God, $3700 for that? Ick.
The Gambler 500 Astro is like paying for a used condom. Everyone else has had their fun with it. You get….something….that you probably don’t want to use personally.
So, $0 poke in the eye > $3700 one step from death Camero > $1200 used condom Astro.
[Jack White voice]: “Maybe Gubbin does the astro…”
The Astro is worth the junkyard roll bar, used winch and whatever you can get if you drive it to your local Pick-n-Pull. If the diff weren’t welded I could use it as a parts-runner while I handle all the deferred maintenance on my regular parts-runner.
That Camaro is aimed at some fresh face at JBLC with access to the shops, and we can leave it for them. As enlistment-bonus ripoffs go, it’s pretty mild.
I’m sure the Z/28 has been horribly thrashed and the interior has been host to many unspeakable acts but I’ll still take it over that monstrosity of whatever is left of the Astro Van.At least the Z/28 can be cleaned up a little and that’s what they all look like after 40 years anyway.
I think both are overpriced a little bit, but I’d take the toy Astro and give it to my bro-in-law up in Alaska and he could have some fun with it.
My 2nd car was an 82 Cutlass Supreme with T-Tops, I’d love to have T-Tops again so it has to be the camaro.
Frankly if the astro van was just an unmodified astro van that ran well it would be a no brainer as a great “truck”, camper, or transport for very large dogs (mastiffs).
The van-turned-truck is pretty cool… But that Camaro would be awesome, and way better than the vruck, with some visual fixes.
Make mine the vuck.
Help me out here, folks: “53,000 miles (almost certainly rolled over)” — does this mean the bitchin C only went to 100K and then flipped to zero and started again — or that it logged a million miles before flipping?
American cars back in the day had only 5 barrels on the odometer for miles, plus one for tenths of miles. So, the odometer would roll over at 99,999.9 miles. Detroit didn’t plan on their cars to last that long, and they were generally right because the fenders would be rusted through and there would be plenty of blue smoke out of the exhaust.
And even the best-cared-for American car from the ’80s has no chance of traveling a million miles unless it was strapped to a rocket and sent into cislunar orbit.
yeah, it only went to 99,999. Only had 5 numbers. I had to double check, cause yeah a million miles would really be something.