Look At the Cars, Look How They Shine For You: 2004 VW Beetle vs 2017 Ford Transit

On our second day of this short week, we’re featuring cars that are painted in a color that was once popular for submarines, or so I’ve heard. They’re also the color of everyone’s least favorite stoplight. Which of these minion-hued bargains will earn a place in Friday’s final? We’ll see.

Yesterday’s color was green, the color of the leaves, and we looked at one car that was cool and one that was friendly-like. Or at least, I thought one of them was cool; I missed the fact that the $2,600 price tag on the Camaro “may be a down payment,” according to a note buried in a block of text in the bottom of the ad. I apologize for falling for this sleazy dealer’s bait-and-switch; usually I catch them and skip over the ad.

The Camaro “won,” but I feel like it won under false pretenses, so I’m going to do something I have only done once or twice before, and exercise my veto power. Not only that, but I have flagged the ad, and I encourage you all to do the same. Scummy tactics like this are bad for everyone, and they shouldn’t be allowed to stand unchallenged. Therefore, by the power vested in me by the Grand Charter of Autopia (Jason wrote it in Sharpie on the back cover of a Muir manual, but it held up in court), I declare this result null and void, and award the humble-but-honest Mazda the win.

All right. Let’s put that unpleasantness behind us and look at a couple of yellow cars.

2004 Volkswagen Beetle GLS – $4,000

Engine/drivetrain: 2.0-liter overhead cam inline 4, six-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Indianapolis, IN

Odometer reading: 89,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

If you disliked the retro-styling trend of the 2000s, this is probably the car to blame. Volkswagen introduced the New Beetle in 1997, a few years after showing it as a concept car, and it was a huge hit. More than a hundred thousand people a year bought these things for several years in a row, until the quality and reliability issues caught up with it and cooled sales. This was the peak (or is that Piech?) of Volkswagen’s over-complicated designs, and fans of the original Beetle’s fix-it-with-a-screwdriver simplicity weren’t impressed.

If you want one, though, you’d be wise to choose the engine this one has: the venerable “two-point-slow” inline 4. No turbos, no complex valvetrains, no diesel smell, just a good solid cast-iron four-cylinder. Ideally, you’d want it with a five-speed manual, but no such luck here. This one has a six-speed automatic with VW’s Tiptronic manual shift capability, which, okay, if you simply can’t or won’t drive a manual, is fine I guess. It only has 89,000 miles on it, and the seller says it runs well and has no warning lights illuminated.

The interior is clean, and has been decorated with little plastic flowers in the vents, which I assume are air fresheners of some kind. It also has covers on the seats, but those could be there just because the seats are leather or vinyl and get too hot in the sun. I’d still want to see what the seats look like underneath them, though. The seller says it is “well prepared for all kinds of weather,” which I assume means the top works, though they don’t show any photos of it down.

It’s clean and shiny outside, and this pale yellow color really suits it. That’s one thing I’ll give VW credit for: these were always available in a good range of colors. I still don’t know why you’d choose one over a far more practical Golf, though.

2017 Ford Transit Connect – $4,300

Engine/drivetrain: 2.5-liter dual overhead cam inline 4, six-speed automatic, FWD

Location: Eden Prairie, MN

Odometer reading: 272,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

The Ford Transit is a nameplate that has been familiar in Europe for decades, but only came to the US in 2010, on this compact FWD van, the Transit Connect. When we finally did get our hands on it, it quickly became the darling of tradespeople all over the country, and has been very popular for fleet use as well. Even though the Transit Connect was discontinued a couple years ago, you still see them all over, and probably will for years to come. Despite its similarity in color to the NYC taxi van that has bafflingly found its way into the Autopian’s fleet, this one was actually a DHL delivery van in its former life.

True to its mission as a box on wheels for moving stuff around, the Transit Connect’s drivetrain is nothing special: Ford’s 2.5 liter Duratec four-cylinder engine drives the front wheels though a six-speed automatic, and before you ask, no – it was never sold here with a manual. I have heard of some people swapping in manuals, though, but I’m not sure why you would other than for the hell of it. This one has seen its fair share of the road, with 272,000 miles on its odometer. The seller says it runs and drives fine, and “still has plenty of life to make you money.”

To avoid the 25% “Chicken Tax” tariff on light trucks, Ford shipped the Transit Connect from Europe (Spain, for this generation) with rear seats installed, so it could be labeled a passenger vehicle. The rear seats were later removed before sale. I don’t know what happened to all those bench seats; I like to think they were re-sold as cheap sofas, or put to use in inner-city school auditoriums, or something, but they probably just ended up in a big heap in a landfill. We don’t get any good photos of the two remaining front seats in this one, which I assume means they’re shot. We can see that it has a bulkhead behind the seats, which you may or may not want to leave in, depending on what you want to do with it.

Outside, the red DHL logos have been removed, leaving just a big wall of yellow paint. It looks like it cleaned up well, though. Is it wrong that I really want to start seeing these little vans in full ’70s custom regalia, with murals, porthole windows, and shag carpet? I think that aesthetic needs to make a comeback.

So there they are, your choices for the day: a retro-themed convertible and a hard-working little van. I don’t know what criteria you use to choose between them, but that’s not really my problem, is it? I’ll be curious to see which one you all prefer, though.