Spring has finally sprung where I am. I got to drive around a bit this weekend with the windows down and the sunroof open, and it got me thinking about convertibles again. And as luck would have it, Stephen Walter Gossin and I were talking about convertibles via Slack as well. He’s selling one of today’s cars, and suggested the other one.
On Friday, I showed you a couple of ’70s coupes that have been sitting around far too long. I expected the Datsun 200SX to do better, but its condition, lackluster handling, and face only a mother could love were no match for the tiny Italian doorstop. The Fiat X1/9 won this round handily, despite being more expensive.
I can’t say I disagree. The X1/9 is another one of those cars I’ve loved since I was a kid, and this is the best example I’ve seen for a reasonable price in a long time. Yes, it’s irritating that $8,500 is a “reasonable price” for an X1/9 these days, but that’s where we are. I should have bought that $600 one back in college. Ah well.
In this age when increasing complexity and encroaching rules make it ever harder to take care of your own stuff, us DIYers have to stick together. So when my partner-in-grime Stephen suggested that I feature another one of his cars in order to boost its signal a little bit and maybe help it find a buyer, I was happy to oblige. And lest you think this is another case of me picking a fall guy to put up against one of Stephen’s cars, he picked the competitor this time, not me. Though I must say, if I had a little more time and money to play with, it’s something I’d consider as a toy for myself. Let’s take a look at them.
1986 Chevrolet Cavalier RS convertible – $800
Engine/drivetrain: 2.0-liter OHV inline 4, five-speed manual, FWD
Location: Youngsville, NC
Odometer reading: 222,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives, but needs a battery
I have a checkered history with the first-generation General Motors J platform. I’ve had some good experiences with them, and some not so good. But overall, I’m fond of the little buggers, and I always enjoy seeing one, especially since they’re getting really thin on the ground these days. This Cavalier convertible never was all that common of a sight, certainly more rare than its steel-roofed bretheren. But it’s practically a unicorn now, especially in functional condition for a price this low.
Since this Cavalier is an RS instead of a Z24, it has the “little” engine: a 2.0-liter inline 4. It’s not powerful, or refined, but it gets reasonable gas mileage and it’s tough as nails. I spun a rod bearing in one of these engines, and dropped a valve in another, and they both still ran – poorly, obviously. This one has a lot of miles on it, and it has been sitting for a bit, but the seller says it fires right up and runs fine. It does need a new battery, though; right now you have to jump-start it. On the plus side, it has the good transmission: a five-speed manual, a rarity in the convertible.
Also, since it’s an RS, it has a bit of ’80s coolness: a digital dash. It also has power windows and locks, and a power top, and it all works – except for the HVAC blower fan. That shouldn’t be too hard to fix. It has covers on the seats, dash, and steering wheel, so there’s no telling what kind of condition they’re in. But it looks livable inside, at least.
The seller chose to take photos at night, so it’s a little hard to tell what condition it’s in outside. But it’s an eight hundred dollar car that runs and drives; how much does it really matter? The seller says there’s a small hole in the top, but that’s what duct tape is for. As long as it isn’t rusty underneath – and it shouldn’t be, where it is – you’re in business.
2003 Mercedes-Benz SL 500 – $5,995
Engine/drivetrain: 5.0-liter OHC V8, five-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Wilmington, NC
Odometer reading: 67,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Just in case you’re new here, allow me to introduce you to one of my co-contributors: Stephen Walter Gossin. Stephen buys, fixes, and sells a lot of cars. Many of them are suffering from some minor but labor-intensive malady that would otherwise have sent them to the junkyard. He fixes them up, sells them on, and repeats the process. There’s an environmental and altruistic aspect to this, keeping materials out of landfills and providing someone with a good cheap set of wheels, but I think mostly he just enjoys the process. He must – almost every day in Slack there’s a new crop of junkyard photos featuring a smiling Stephen pulling parts off some derelict car. This Mercedes SL500 is one of his more recent finished projects.
The Mercedes SL is a tremendously complicated car. It has a five-liter V8 engine and a five-speed automatic transmission, and a fiendish and failure-prone self-leveling hydropneumatic suspension system that Mercedes calls “Active Body Control.” That system was the thing that grounded (no pun intended) this car, so Stephen yanked it out and replaced it with traditional coil-over shock absorbers. Sometimes old ways are the best ways. It now runs and drives fine, though it occasionally throws a code for a lean condition, which may just be due to old gas. If so, it should take care of itself; a lot of cars that have been sidelined for a while could benefit from a good “Italian tuneup.” Even the German ones.
It looks pretty good inside, and the air conditioning is nice and cold. It also has an aftermarket stereo with CarPlay and all that good stuff. The power locks do not work; they’re vacuum-operated as on a lot of German luxury cars, and known to fail after a while. But it’s a two-door. Just lean over and unlock the passenger’s side manually.
It wears nice AMG wheels with new tires. The paint isn’t great; it has some chips and faded spots. It’s one of the problems with a black car: every little blemish shows. You can have someone touch it up, or wrap it, or just live with it. One other thing to consider, and it’s a big one: the power folding top is not currently power-operated. You can raise and lower it manually, but there’s a leak in the hydraulics. Stephen is working on it, and should have it sorted out soon.
I know this is kind of a strange comparison, but it’s also an interesting thought experiment. On one hand, you have a cheap and simple car that’s never going to be very nice, but won’t take much to keep it going. On the other, you have a very nice car that has the potential to need quite a lot of care and feeding. Is one really worth seven and a half times as much money as the other? That’s what you have to decide.
I’m a sucker for a Mercedes SL.
When I was a kid, my best friend’s mom had a 1986 Cavalier Z24 Convertible, and I thought it was the coolest car in the world, and that his family must have been loaded in money. LOL
Had the same thought of my friend’s mom who drove a Merkur.
This was a tough one. I wouldn’t daily either. And I’m not a fan of convertibles… especially convertibles that have holes in the top… and likely faded plastic windows where you can’t see out back with the top up.
But with that Mercedes, if you just leave the roof (that has no holes) up, you can ignore any issues the roof mechanism has and just treat it like a coupe… which is what I would do.
Plus, even though it has a slushbox, that V8 makes up for it compared to the high mileage OHV 4 cyl lump that Cavalier has.
And since this would only be a fun weekend car, the fuel economy penalty isn’t that big of a deal.
And the fact that this has had the air suspension deleted is a big plus to me. Air suspensions are more trouble than they’re worth.
So in this case, the Mercedes gets my vote… but that’s also due to the Cavalier having the wrong engine and wrong body style for my purposes.
My father has now had 2 early aughts SLs and having seen what he spent on convertible top hydraulic repairs and general maintenance (trying to address known failure points before another leak sprang forth), my recommendation is to stay far, far away from any semi-modern convertible Mercedes Benz not under warranty.
OR… leave the top up and just treat it like a coupe. If you never use a given feature, does it matter if that given feature is broken?
Exactly! I have just approached this car as a “hard top coupe” in my mind since owning it. I dig your style, Manwich Sandwich.
UV rays aren’t the best for light-skinned dudes of Irish descent such as I anyway.
I’ve had it for sale for a while though and 9/10 messages that I received are all the same:
“Does the top work?”
Well to be honest, being a cheapskate, I would hypocritically use the issues with the top as an excuse to drive down your price.
LOL
It’s sort of ok—even if you don’t care about it, you know others will and hence you’ll get less out of it when it comes time to sell. Assuming it survives long enough.
Gotta go w/ that slick Merc… it’s much nicer and I much prefer it to the Cav even though that is still neat as a vert/stick. I would be very happy to buy any car from SWG!
“It has covers on the seats”
Oh, good for having sex in then…
too bad it’s not a Z24, right Mark?!
Ha ha
“Active Body Control.”
I guess the Merc is great for that too…ha ha
oh boooo on the car ad posing as a shitbox showdown … actually really major boo …
No posing, both of these vehicles are legitimately, currently for sale.
It’s all just for fun; we’re not curing cancer here. Just a trivial, goofy, silly comparison with fake internet money.
Stick shift?
Not looking like a rich person?
Not looking like someone who wants to look like a rich person?
Simple mechanicals?
Thousands of dollars of budget for repairs?
Yep, the Cavalier wins it today!
There is a bit of a masquerade with the Merc that you don’t have to pretend in the Crapalier.
The $800 cavalier is obviously going to be way way cheaper to run and maintain. But the benzes aren’t that bad. I’d definitely have the SL, but I’m very familiar with MBs, owned a bunch alongside all of the prerequisite diagnostic tooling. ABC is expensive but tbh Arnott repops aren’t the worst option, run like $500 a corner. Coil springs are the easy button, also good and the whole kits usually go for about $1500 or so.
Crapalier.
It’s cheap to buy, cheap to fix. And expectations will remain low.
I’ll go with the SWG gem here. I know he’s honest and will be upfront about anything that still needs to be sorted, whereas that little Cavalier has been punched in the face, and had photos taken at night to hide the other flaws (no photos from the rear?), and any efforts to improve the poor thing is just money down the drain.
As far as post-purchase efforts, I’d focus on useability improvements, the headlights look pretty orange to me, and I’d probably look into fixing the power locks, and eventually the power top. I’d also probably upgrade the audio system because blasting good music with the top down is a necessity. Need to hear the drum solo of In the Air Tonight, in all it’s glory over the wind noise after all.
One shouts “I’m poor, but generally a good time”, the other shouts “I’m poor but I want to tell you about my plan to buy a duplex to rent out, it’s all about that passive income baby!”
Perhaps you have some NFTs you’re willing to part with.
That Benz will bankrupt me but it’ll be fun while it’s running at least.
And for the love of God and all that is holy polish those headlights Stephen!!!!
Strangely enough, I have, twice now! I had a buddy that owns a body shop attempt with an electric buff wheel and I attempted manually with sandpaper and they never seem to clear up.
I’ve polished a fair number of headlights in my dealings, yet these two really are confounding. I don’t get it. replacing them with an aftermarket set is actually pretty cheap on these cars – I’m guessing Mercedes used those headlights units on multiple models.
Good eye for detail though, StillPlaysWithCars!
I spent some time driving an ’86 Cavalier Z24 hatchback back in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
It was a fun little car.
I voted Cavalier today.
This is the strongest endorsement I’ve read: person who owned the car would buy it again.
TBH, I didn’t own it. It belonged to my GF at the time. But I drove it quite a few times over the few years we were going together.
With the 2.8L MPFI V6, the water pump and rear spark plugs were a little challenging, but not impossible, to change IIRC.
I really liked the digital dashboard.
I would get the chevy: convertible, stick, lower cost than my student loans, what not to like.
Frog Eyes for me. I spent part of high school in my buddy’s Cavalier and I refused to do it again as a choice. Plus, I like those older hard tops. Leave it down for the sunny days and raise it back up for the winter. Don’t need to fix it.
Cavalier, then use the price different to buy a Cimarron and convert the parts over.
100% the Benz. I was actually thinking of moving on it, but after talking to my hopelessly responsible 16 year old, she says she “doesn’t want a gas guzzler.” Ugh.
I’ve owned one 86 Cavalier, that’s enough.
I’ll take the Cavalier and tack on all the Cimarron sliding. Really confuse them at RadWood.
I don’t want to be the one to keep that Benz running. Plus it will bug me to have things that don’t work exactly right. I would rather not have those things in the first place then have to look at non-working versions of them. Plus the Cavalier is actual pocket money.
Call me insane… I’m going with the Chevy. That Mercedes? Its gonna’ be like every other German car where adding washer fluids means removing the engine, transmission, the entire exhaust system and you MUST use THEIR washer fluid for their highly advanced high pressure windshield sprayer system- which also breaks down often and costs $5,000 to fix. That versus the Chevy where you go out in the back yard and see what rough chunks of iron laying around that might fix the iron duke in it.
If only it had the needlessly over-engineered Super Wiper (I’m sure it has a real name, and refuse to learn what it is)
The Cavalier would be a good, fun beater first car at that price. Who cares how it drives for someone with few points of comparison. Especially for a kid who’s spent large portions of their childhood being hauled around in slow, characterful shitboxes anyway. What say you, Jason and Otto?
isn’t this the Merc missing the cats?
That’s the other Mercedes that I’m currently working on/selling!
https://www.theautopian.com/nightmare-mercedes-and-dream-garages-you-know-how-we-do-only-fanbelts/
ok I change my vote then! (if I could lol)
Well the good news is the local Humane Society has plenty of cats available for adoption for cheap!
If you tell them you’re planning to bolt the cat in between two rather hot metal tubes under your car, the Humane Society tends to reject your offer of adoption
Well the solution there is to use the cats for patting and affection… while you look at the Mercedes sitting on blocks as lawn art in your front yard!
Just remember to use the model-specific metric blocks.
Benz for me. I don’t actually need another convertible, but a V8 2 seater is different enough from my current ride that I’ll have some fun.
Hard pass on the Chevy. 80’s GM is not on my list.
I’m sure the Benz will break down and be impossible to fix on my budget, but at least it will be fun while it lasts. The Cavalier just isn’t worth that price because the junkman won’t give me as much for it and I certainly have no interest in driving it.
Yeah, that’s pretty much where I am, I’ve daily driven a newer Z24 convertible, I’ve never driven a V8 RWD convertible, or a Merc!