Good morning! It is currently 15 degrees Fahrenheit where I am (that’s about nine below for the rest of the world), so I’m trying to think warm thoughts. To that end, I decided to look for cheap convertibles for today’s Showdown, and stumbled into a really silly idea for the week, which I’ll explain later.
We finished up Friday with a couple of old ’80s-90s classics with deep red interiors. Many of you preferred the interior in the Plymouth Voyager, but its mechanical needs put you off, and the ready-to-go Ford Taurus cruised to an easy win.
I serviced a bazillion of both of these when I worked at the garage, and it’s probably a toss-up between them, mechanically. The van is a little easier to work on, but the Taurus will probably need less tinkering to keep it happy. I think I’d take the van, despite the woodgrain. Installing all the new parts that the seller is including would be satisfying, I think, and ’80s Chrysler seats are way more comfortable than they have a right to be.
Oh, and just a quick note: The headers for each car are links to the ad for that car. Always have been. They just don’t look like links. I apologize for any confusion this has caused. But yeah, just click on the header, and it will take you to the ad in a new tab.
Now then, for this week’s silly theme: In my search for cheap convertibles, I stumbled upon a car for sale in San Diego that has been listed for three weeks, and I can’t for the life of me understand why. It’s cheap, it appears to be in good mechanical condition, and it doesn’t even look that bad. But it’s a car I know a lot of you dislike. The question for this week is: How much do you dislike it? I’m going to put the same car up against a bunch of challengers this week, some serious, some ridiculous, and see how it fares.
1987 Cadillac Allante – $1,300
Engine/drivetrain: 4.1-liter OHV V8, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Hollister, CA
Odometer reading: 155,000 miles
Operational status: Runs rough, won’t pass smog, but technically drivable
Did you ever want a two-seat Cadillac convertible? How about a car that was built half in Italy and half in Detroit, with a long airplane ride in between? Do you like lots of buttons to push in your car’s interior? Then have I got the car for you: a first-year Cadillac Allante, available now for less than two and a half percent of its original purchase price.
There must be a catch, you’re thinking. There is – in fact, there are several. Chief among them is that the “High Technology” 4100 V8 engine runs like crap, and there’s a giant red light on the dash that says “ENGINE CONTROL SYSTEM FAULT.” That can’t be good. Obviously, a clean California smog certificate is a pipe dream for a car like this, though the seller seems to indicate you could limp it home, at least. And hey, it’s too old to have a Northstar, so you won’t have any head gasket issues. Except the HT4100 had those too. Never mind.
The Allante’s interior was pretty cool in its day, with a digital dash and push-button controls for everything. I think that’s why cars today don’t have buttons for any of the controls; GM cars used them all up in the 1980s and ’90s and created a shortage. At thirty-nine years old, there’s no telling how many of those buttons still work. I guess you’d have to push them all to find out.
This car appears to have been parked out in the sun for a long, long time. It’s so bleached and chalky that I bet if you rested your hand on it, you’d leave a handprint and your palm would come away reddish. It looks straight, though, and all the trim is there. The seller says the soft top won’t latch in place, and the removable hardtop is nowhere to be seen.
2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser GT Convertible – $1,000
Engine/drivetrain: Turbocharged 2.4-liter DOHC inline 4, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: San Diego, CA
Odometer reading: 221,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
By now, you have probably figured out that a faded, poor-running Cadillac is not my idea of a perfect cheap used car. This, however, is a mid-run Chrysler PT Cruiser convertible, in turbocharged GT trim. It has a salvage title, which almost certainly has something to do with its slightly mismatched body panels. But it’s also only a grand.
The GT version of the Cruiser has a bit more power under its hood than other versions, even other turbocharged examples. It features the same 215-horsepower engine as the Dodge Neon SRT4, along with bigger brakes, wheels, and tires, and a lower, tighter suspension. Either a five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic was available; this one has the automatic, unfortunately. The seller doesn’t say explicitly how well it runs, but they do say the air conditioning works well, which pretty much requires a good-running engine. And a photo of the dash with the engine idling shows no warning lights.
It has the early interior with the color-matched dash inserts, which is cool, and a big rip in the driver’s seat, which is less so. But a seat cover will take care of that. All the power stuff works, including the top, and it has a new aftermarket stereo with Bluetooth.
Whatever happened to cause the dinged title happened to the right front corner, and it looks like it was fixed with junkyard parts and a rattle-can. It doesn’t look terrible, especially for the price, but it isn’t going to win any trophies at a car show anytime soon.
You might get sick of seeing that blue PT Cruiser. You might already be sick of it. But I’m curious to see what it can beat, and what it can’t. For today, however, it’s either Chrysler’s cheapest retro-mobile or Cadillac’s faded flagship. What will it be?
Well, you got me to vote for a PT Cruiser, so there’s that.
For a thousand bucks, turn up the wick on the turbo until the engine or transmission lets go. It shan’t be long with 220k on it, but at least you’ll have fun.
The Allante is just too rough, baked, and offers no other redeeming value.
The Allante seems like a fantastic way to set your money on fire and still not have a car to drive.
I’ll take the PT Loser Cruiser.
I remember the Allante when I worked at a dealership in 91-92, fun to drive when pristine but seemed like plenty of issues back then. I remember everything squeaked. This one? Huh.
PT Cruiser for $1k I could junk if needed and have the SRT engine for another project? Yup.
Man, that Allante is SCORCHED. And it runs “rough”?
Buying that would give me the same level of regret I’d feel if I was on vacation and fell asleep in a lounge chair on the beach the first day, and ended up as burnt as that car.
PT for me.
I have no interest in a perfect Allante, never mind one that you need up-to-date tetanus shots to touch and has engine issues with an engine that is notoriously terrible.
So I will take the PT Loser that’s lost it’s roof. At least it’s the turbo version, and bits for it are far cheaper than the Transatlantic disaster from Cadillac.
The Allante price ceiling is low. Here’s a much, much nicer example with the 4.1, and they were still only able to squeeze $5000 out of it. $1300 seems a bit high for this sun-murdered Craigslist example.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1988-cadillac-allante-19/
This car MIGHT be a decent parts car, if it has any decent parts left.
I realize that an HT4100 engine that hasn’t died yet is probably going to be fine, but they’re such turds that any car with one is pretty much never going to get a vote from me.
Aw damn, even if it came with the Bundy Bounce I couldn’t vote for that particular Allante. Whatever work it needs to pass smog is more than any reasonable person should put into it.
I’ll have to go with PT LOSER today, half-assed collision repair and all.
It’s currently 3° below zero where I am (that’s -19° to all you sane metric people out there) and I’m really in no mood to shop for a convertible. That said, a road trip to California to pick up a car sounds like great idea.
I’d blow more in gas than either of these cost, but hey, Cali.
Fortunately I live in a non-smog state, and the Allante is the one I’d rather own.
The Allante is, at least in theory, a far more interesting car than the PT Cruiser could ever hope to be. But this Allante’s a dog.
It’s a shame the PT isn’t a manual because with the droptop and turbo it would be really cheap, disposable fun. It’s still the better choice today. I like Allantes, but not this one. I wonder if you could even source parts to fix it anymore. At least the intake would make an interesting piece of garage art.
I’ve often clowned on the PT Cruiser, but it’s clearly the correct choice here.
$1K, for a salvage title, relatively clean car with AC seems like the winner.
Mark, your first sentence started my day in a foul mood. America’s unwillingness or inability to convert to the metric system royally pisses me off. (I know Celsius is not metric, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than water freezing at 32 and boiling at 212.) I know it’s a political thing where the right thinks it’s “Un American”, but they conveniently forget it was Gerald Ford who signed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 into law. Reagan, of course, killed the damn thing.
My day is ruined.
As someone raised on the metric system, I have never understood the bizarre attachment to Fahrenheit. There is no logic to it whatsoever.
I actually find it useful for weather. 0F is about as cold as it gets and 100 is about as hot. Going beyond both requires real caution. And to boot, it’s actually based on metric measures, not British Imperial ones, because Fahrenheit was German. That being said, Celsius is better for engineering measures, like vehicle engine temp (let us hope we never see a 100C day) and Kelvin far more useful for Scientific ones.
0F is definitely not as cold as it gets where I live. We had a day in December where it felt like -58 F with the wind chill factored in.
Ah, this does help confirm a suspicion: that being tied to one system or another for everything you do is as much nationalist sentiment, since “we’re not them” is a big factor in how many systems have standardized over the ages. After all, it’s not IS, it’s SI.
Fahrenheit is a humanist temperature system between what was felt to be the typical human body temperature and the freezing point of a very specific, SI-unit defined brine. It’s useful for temperatures within the realm of human experience for much of the world. Engineering and Chemistry especially love Celsius because water is a near constant in chemical reactions. And much of SI is based on water, largely because at the time it was formulated, chemists were the cutting edge of science. When physics moved into the atomic and space age, Absolute Zero became a better reference point for many calculations, hence Kelvin. Not everything works for everyone, but I think the argument between measuring systems has more to do with the relationship between the different countries standardizing on those measurements – going both ways, mind – and less on which scale is better for what.
And in this case, it’s probably Canada-US relations, and I’m sorry, I didn’t vote for him, I don’t know what happened.
It’s an interesting point – although in my case it doesn’t have much to do with Canada-US relations. You are correct, though, that Kelvin is probably the scientifically ideal scale. If we were perfectly rational, we’d equate a lovely summer temperature as being 300 K.
I grew up at a time of transition between the Imperial and metric systems, and in some areas am equally at home in both. I live in a weird hybrid where distances are measured in kilometers, areas in acres, volumes in litres and human body weights in pounds. Fahrenheit is the one old measurement that has always seemed awkward to me – the reference points seem odd and arbitrary, although I suppose all systems of measurement are by their very nature arbitrary.
I think what has struck me as particularly odd about Fahrenheit is that it doesn’t seem to equate to anything real-world in terms of its measurements. Why should the freezing point of water (the most obvious substance for most people to envision change-of-state in) be 32 and boiling 212? And if it is human-focused, why then is human body temperature not used as an index point?
I guess where nationalism enters the picture is the way the USA seems to be the only country of note insistent on clinging to this measurement system when almost the entirety of the world has moved on. I tend to be a traditionalist in many things, but this one just seems contrarian to me.
But we’re getting very far off of automotive topics here!
Yes, we are, but it is nice sometimes to stretch one’s brain a bit and open our minds.
That said: Still a PT for Me.
To your human-body point: The story I was told was that when Fahrenheit (the man) was looking for human body temperature measurements to define his 100’F, the best data he could find was from hospitals, and hospitals usually have a lot of people with fevers. Hence a fever is ~100’F, but normal body temp is 98.6’F.
Tying temperature in a too-narrow range to the boiling and freezing point of water makes no sense either. Fahrenheit is far more usable for Earth normal weather temps. 0F is f’ing cold, 100F is f’ing hot, and 100 increments in-between is pretty much perfect.
I remember being in seventh grade (so, 1970) and they started teaching us the metric system and marveling at how logical it all was. Measures, weight, volume, it all just tied together so neatly.
And then the next year they (and the US) just dropped it. It really wasn’t until high school and freshman chemistry in college that I really got to really get re-immersed with it. A unified set of units just made so many of the calculations easy.
I remembered enough conversion factors to make sense of displacements in ccs and speed in km/h to make sense of the articles I would read in the European car magazines. And when I later did work outside of the states, locals would be surprised to know that I could actually relate to “their” units.
PINTA
P(T Loser) Is Never The Answer
LOL at the acronym, but there’s no way that Cadillac with a boat anchor engine and probably major issues is a better choice.
Ooof. That’s a no vote today. That Allante is a heap, and the rattle can paint job on the PT instills no comfort with regards to what happened when it earned that dinged title.
These Allantes have been coming out of the woodwork on Bring a Trailer. No matter how nice of condition, they never seem to sell for much. This one’s too rough to put up with considering the Chrysler seems to run well.
There’s a love for the PT convertible on this site that boggles my mind. It’s the better choice here given its condition, but this is a really dorky looking car and there’s a reason it was chosen to emphasize Michael Scott’s sad chosen life.
Unless you have an Allante (or collection) and need a parts car, I have no idea why anyone would want that car over pretty much anything else that runs and drives.
The PT Cruiser Turbo vert with a stick is an unironically cool car. The automatic sadly knocks it down a few rungs, but still a good deal, especially for $1000.
I always kinda liked the PTs anyway, and that has the turbo, which I think was detuned to 180hp in that car. Yes, it didn’t live up to the Pronto concept it emulated. And this one was wrecked or flooded or something, so thorough inspection is needed. As long as it drives straight and isn’t too wrinkly underneath, I’m good. And even if it is, I’d take it over an HHR.
On the other hand, the Allante is already a rough running pile that has dubious status. I’d still take it over an HHR but not by as much as the PT.
Unironically always wanted an Allante, but not that one. Voted PT.
I think I’ll keep my well maintained and garaged Mercedes convertible with 131K miles, which I’m told is worth less than both of these combined.
Allante is far more desirable, but much better ones are pretty cheap. I guess I’ll have to go with the PT and think of it rather as a cheap turbo convertible for a grand.
Even at those prices I’m running away.Just think what $1300 would have bought 10 years ago.
One of those should have been a Miata! Not only do Miatas offer warm thoughts, their tiny interiors are always a surprisingly warm and cozy place to be when the temperatures are below freezing.
Since that isn’t an option, PT Cruiser. Obviously.
Wow! I can’t believe how bad that Allante is. If you aren’t going to drive a car, get a car cover, people!
That Allante is baked like a freshman in at his first frathouse party. Interior, exterior, everything. Give the poor thing some Cheetoes and go let him sit by the pool for a while till he comes back down to Earth. Realistically there isn’t enough Armorall in the world to bring that thing back. Also, if memory serves those 4.1 V8s were an absolute nightmare to work on in that tight engine bay and this one probably needs alot of work. I’ll pass, thanks.
The PT will be a fun cruiser while it lasts, then part it out and make the $1000 back easy. I could probably get $400 for those rims alone.
PT. If I am going to spend money on a car I really don’t want, then I’ll take the driveable one. And the PT was cool at some point in its life, unlike the Cadillac.
.