Willkommen bei Scheißebox Showdown! For your entertainment today, I have found two cheap(ish) and cheerful little cars on Mobile.de, Germany’s self-proclaimed largest online vehicle marketplace. They’re both old enough to import, if you took a shine to one of them.
For yesterday’s Showdown, we were visiting our neighbor to the north to check out two familiar-but-different vehicles. It was no contest: the ruggedly handsome old Mercury pickup won by a landslide. I’m not surprised. That little Acura is basically just Honda’s version of a Cadillac Cimarron. (You know I’m right.)
I’d take the truck too, for what it’s worth, though I’m generally not a Ford truck guy. But you could bring that truck down here to the States, do a little mechanical work on it, and sell it for a tidy profit, I’m sure. I’ve seen rougher trucks that age go for twice as much in recent years.
I’m not sure the concept of a true “shitbox” exists in Germany. Sure, you can get old cheap cars, but registering them requires a TÜV inspection, and as we know, getting an older vehicle through that gauntlet is no mean feat. There’s no way you would ever see something even as rough as my old Chevy, which runs and drives just fine and is as safe as I can make it, on German roads. They’d find some little thing, or a dozen little things, to ding it for. The other side of that, of course, is that if you’re shopping for a car to bring over here, a German car with a current TÜV inspection should be a fairly safe bet. Let’s check out a couple of fun options I found for not much money.
1988 Volkswagen Polo GL – €1,950
Engine/drivetrain: 1.3-liter OHC inline 4, five-speed manual, FWD
Location: Ingolstadt, Germany
Odometer reading: 50,000 kilometers
Operational status: Runs and drives “flawlessly”
Volkswagen’s “small” cars here in the US have never been all that tiny, really. A Beetle or a Rabbit is a small car, but it dwarfs something like an original Mini or a Smart. The Golf has grown considerably over the years, and Volkswagen now sells two cars smaller than the Golf in its home country. This was the first, the Polo, introduced in 1975. Our example here is a Mk2 Polo, in the “Steilheck,” or “steep tail,” bodystyle. We’d call it a wagon – or, if you really want to get fancy, since it’s a two-door, you could call it a “shooting brake.”
As you can see from the dashboard, which should look very familiar to anyone who has driven an ’80s VW, this car hardly has any mileage (kilometrage?) on it at all. 50,500 kilometers is only about 32,000 miles. It’s powered by a 1.3-liter four-cylinder making 54 horsepower, which, believe it or not, is the largest engine available. This car weighs next to nothing, though, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. It runs and drives “flawlessly” and has been “very well maintained,” according to the dealership selling it.
It’s pretty Spartan inside, which is what you’d expect from an economy car from the ’80s, but someone has replaced the front seats with seats from a fancier VW, and they have a really cool pattern on the fabric. There’s an ill-fitting aftermarket stereo in the dash, too; I guess some cheap-car things are universal.
It’s faded and tired-looking on the outside; I’m guessing this car has never seen the inside of a garage. I’ve seen this color on a lot of Golfs and Foxes here in the US, and it almost always looks slightly dull like this. If it’s like my old dark blue Golf, though, it’s a single-stage paint so it should shine back up with a little elbow grease. There’s no rust on it, at least, and the only damage I see is a little wrinkle in the tailgate.
1997 Opel Astra converted to a ute – €4,000
Engine/drivetrain: 1.6-liter OHC inline 4, five-speed manual, FWD
Location: Worms, Germany
Odometer reading: 197,000 kilometers
Operational status: Runs and drives well
We’ve all seen pickup trucks made from station wagons before. Hell, there are companies who have turned such conversions into a business. Plenty of backyard engineers have done their own conversions over the years, too, of course. But it’s not the sort of thing I would have expected to find for sale in Germany. This first-generation Opel Astra probably started out as a two-door panel van, but it now sports a pickup bed with a fancy diamond-plate cover.
Power for this unlikely contraption comes from a 1.6-liter overhead cam four and a five-speed manual transmission. It’s related to the engine used in the miserable excuse for a Pontiac LeMans sold here in the US in the late ’80s and early ’90s. But don’t hold that against it; it’s actually a pretty good engine. This one has almost 200,000 kilometers on it, and I’d be curious to know how many of those were acquired after the truck conversion. It must run and drive fine, if the seller is offering test drives, right?
It’s in good shape inside, though of course it ends abruptly behind the seats. At least the new back wall of the cab is nicely finished. This one has a janky aftermarket stereo in the dash as well, but the stock Blaupunkt tape deck is still there. Maybe it could be hooked back up. Then you just have to find a Kraftwerk cassette somewhere.
The conversion looks pretty well done, actually, but then I guess it would have to be to satisfy the inspectors. It looks like there might be a little rust starting along the rocker panels, but it can’t be too serious yet. The graphics suit it well, but I don’t think this vehicle needs any extra attention drawn to itself.
If you were going to actually import a car from Germany, I’m guessing these two would be pretty far down your list. But you have to admit, they’re right up our alley. One is a humble economy car that’s barely broken in, and the other is a former delivery van that’s been turned into an unlikely pickup truck. Assuming these were your only two choices, which one would you put on a boat and bring over?
I went back and forth about correcting the Astra being called a first gen.
But yeah, wiki says it’s the first model that Opel called an Astra.
Even though Vauxhall was already calling it an Astra for previous models that Opel called a Kadett.
Generally, I see them called either as Astra Mk3 or Astra F.
Only reason I care is I’ve got a 95 Astra convertible here in NZ and have to look for parts from various foreign markets.
And yes, the concept does exist, but ours are usually maybe a bit nicer than yours. Still, you can have a car with a year left until the next HU (“Hauptuntersuchung” or principal inspection, which is the proper name for what is colloquially still called “TÜV”) that can be pretty rough.
That would be “Scheißkiste” (that’s the literal translation of “shitbox”) or “Dreckskiste” (Dreck being dirt) in German. And we do use these words to refer to cards, especially to cars that have at least temporarily given up on carring.
We do use the English word “box” occasionally in German, but I would never use it in reference to a car.
I’m liking this weeks theme.
Both are worthy but half the kilometers at half the price the polo is a no brainer.
I do wonder are used or even new car dealers shit around the world or just here in the good old US OF A?
There’s no rust on it, at least
And there better not be, or else it’s not gonna be bahn bahn bahning on the autobahn.
Polo fur mich.
I’m not chomping at the bit to own either one of these, but that polo does nothing for me other than trigger my PTSD related to owning 20+ year old VWs. So I chose the Astra even though I don’t want/need/lust for it at all. If it runs, at least I can use it as a small truck, so that would be worthwhile.
I suppose you could just remove the cover, but with that thing installed the Opel is now just a worse version of a van. You can’t access the cargo from inside the cab.
Also, while I know why it’s used, I’m tired of diamond plate on most pickup conversions.
It hurts me to vote Polo today, but I just can’t get behind the someone-else’s-make-a-ute project.
Opel! I see Ute, I vote Ute. That thing looks like a lot of fun and would be a blast to cruise around in, especially w/ stick. I love the color and graphics. That Polo is pretty cool, but it’s not a Ute. I had that same maroon on my ol 84 Jetta and it was in about the same shape. That car was fun to drive too.
Marco? Marco? Marco? Polo!
Polo. Never in my life have I seen a car that needed window tint like this one.
The trailer hitch on that Polo strikes me as being a bit… optimistic.
It is perfectly capable of towing a European type “camping trailer” like this: https://www.erdetrailersuk.com/product/mp69122-erde-122-trailer/
Note that this isn’t a trailer for camping in (that’s a caravan in British English, not a trailer), but rather a trailer for transporting camping equipment (tent, stove, etc.). Such things are very common in Europe – after all that Polo doesn’t have the luggage capacity to carry a decent tent plus personal luggage.
Hey have you ever seen the amount of crap they can put on a motorcycle in Asia? I bet there the Polo would be carrying enough bricks to build a house or enough groceries to stock a bodega
You can fit four people, all their camping equipment, and enough beer for a 5 day festival in a Polo. I know because I did it many times.
As an El Camino owner, I’ll go against the grain and vote for the little ute today.
But that wagon’s pretty sweet, too.
Wish there were a ‘both’ choice today, as this would make a great garage combo.
Polo for me… I’ve driven the updated version of that Polo (a 1990 model) and it’s a decent little car. It’s way slower than most new cars today, but not as slow as a old air-cooled VW.
A Polo like this is exactly the kind of VW you want… basic with few options and the manual transmission. Far less to go wrong than on modern VWs.
Plus I’d rather have a wagon over a car converted to a ute for twice as much money.
You can also transport surprisingly large items in them. I mean, not quickly, but you can move some Stuff with it.
They made a version of this generation of Polo with a G40 supercharger, or if you prefer DIY, plenty of Golf bits will fit with a bit of effort.
Even if the odometer were rolled over, I’d rather have the Polo. Flip the prices, and I’d still vote for the Polo.
If I wanted to import a little Opel ute, I’d look for a Corsa “bakkie” from South Africa and have the confidence of a factory build. I think they even sold those as Chevrolets in Mexico.
they did. Optimistically called a Chevy Pickup
I’ll take Opa’s Polo over the “Bitte, halte mein Bier” Astra. Doubly so if it’s a car to use over there, I can’t imagine what it would take to get someone else’s project through the TUV.