Welcome to what is going to be a weird week here at the Showdown! I’m currently sitting in a fancy-pants hotel room in Fort Lauderdale, and in a few hours I’m going to board my first-ever cruise ship. I decided not to pass off my duties here to someone else for the week, because frankly, I expect to be bored some of the time, and this will give me something to do. But I don’t know when in the day I’ll have time to write, so I won’t be able to check results. Instead, I’ll just wait until a week from now, when I’m back at my own desk, and next Monday we’ll go through all the week’s results.
There is a theme for the week, and one of Friday’s competitors would almost fit it, but we’ll get to that theme in a minute. We looked at two Chevrolets from the bad old days, and it’s clear that not everyone shares my opinions on Camaro styling. Whatever; just know that you’re wrong. Without the “both” option, the vote may have been closer, but as it stands, the big-block Suburban by itself has won the day.
Suburbans are cool, but I just don’t have any use for it. The Camaro, on the other hand, is my kind of car, and it would also allow me a sort of redemption for a past sin. Back in the 1990s, when I was broke and had shitty credit, I went through a string of dirt-cheap cars, one of which was a clean, almost completely rust-free 1978 Chevy Nova Concours coupe. It looked good, and ran OK, and I murdered it in cold blood. It had the same 305/TH350 combo as this Camaro, and I decided to soup it up with an ill-advised combination of a too-big carb and a shift kit in the transmission. The result was nearly undrivable and not any faster than stock. Being kind to this Camaro would make up for that horrible mistake.
Now, for the theme this week: I recently sold a 1971 MGB GT, after determining, nine years and several thousand dollars in, that it just wasn’t the project for me. It was a hard blow, because it was one of my dream cars from when I was a kid, but I just wasn’t getting anywhere with it (figuratively or literally). It went to a good home, so I’m not worried about it. It does leave me with only one extra vehicle to tinker with, however: my trusty old Chevy pickup, which either runs perfectly or completely shits the bed and requires lots of work; it’s never in-between with that thing. I can foresee a future where I want another cheap car just to putter around with.
So that’s what I’m looking at this week: not these specific choices, but potential ideas for a future “park it out back and fart around with it when I have time” car. I have broad and eclectic tastes, as you all may have noticed, so these are going to be all over the place. We start out with a mid-engine sports car and a slowpoke diesel sedan.
1985 Pontiac Fiero GT – $3,650
Engine/drivetrain: 2.8-liter OHV V6, four-speed manual, RWD
Location: Winfield, IL
Odometer reading: 128,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
It seems to be a universal truth that the stuff that comes out when you’re between ages ten and eighteen sticks with you for the rest of your life. The Pontiac Fiero has definitely stuck with me; I’ve wanted one since the first time I saw one, at age eleven, in the tiny showroom of Detzler Pontiac in my hometown of Oswego, Illinois. I’ve driven a few, and built models of them, but the right car has never coincided with the right time and the right pile of money to put one in my driveway.
There are good Fieros and bad Fieros, and this one seems to fall somewhere in between. It’s a 1985 GT model, the first year for the GT, which has a strange combination of features. It’s a V6, which means it’s far less prone to catching fire than the first couple years of four-cylinder Fieros, but it has the sloping nose of the 1984 Indy Pace Car version, which personally I don’t like as well as the standard early Fiero front end. It also has a four-speed gearbox, rather than five, but at least it’s a manual. The seller says this was a kid’s project car, but the kid got a job and now has no time for it. We’ve all been there. It runs fine, but that’s about all the details we get.
This is the only photo of the interior, but it looks pretty good in there. It’s not trashed, and it’s not that drab institutional-looking GM gray. It could use a good cleaning, but that’s true of just about any old used car. As long as it doesn’t smell funny inside, you’re good to go.
I didn’t recall dark green being an original Fiero color; I thought it was just red and white for 1984, with black and silver being added for ’85. And it looks like I was right. This one’s color change was done completely, but not well; the door sills are painted, but the green paint is flaking off the original white finish in a few places. Oh well; it’s a good excuse to try a cheap homebrew paint job. The lack of the original wheels is disappointing, but the ones that are on it aren’t terrible.
1986 Volkswagen Jetta Wolfsburg Edition Diesel – $4,500
Engine/drivetrain: 1.6-liter OHC diesel inline 4, five-speed manual, FWD
Location: Bemidji, MN
Odometer reading: 251,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well, but starts hard in the cold
This car I know well, even though I never experienced one exactly like this. We had a VW Dasher with a diesel engine when I was a kid, and my second car was an ’85 Golf with a gas engine. Put them together, add a trunk, and voila: diesel Mk2 Jetta. We never had anything as fancy as a Wolfsburg Edition, however; my dad never would have sprung for it in those days.
The old fable about the tortoise and the hare could have been written about an early VW diesel and almost any other car. Note that in the description, I did not say turbodiesel; this car’s engine is naturally aspirated. It makes just 54 horsepower and 74 pound-feet of torque. Zero-to-sixty is measured in Led Zeppelin songs. But it will get there eventually, and these things will happily cruise along at speed all day long, and do so for hundreds of thousands of miles. This one has a quarter of a million miles on it, and it’s still going strong. The seller says it could use new glow plugs, because it starts hard in cold weather.
This interior is eerily familiar to me; it looks exactly like my old Golf inside, right down to the color. I look at it and I remember all those VW-specific quirks: the headlights shut off when you shut off the engine, but the radio does not; the lock buttons cannot be pushed down when the door is open (to prevent locking the keys in the car); the turn signals have only one indicator for both directions. I haven’t had a VW product since that Golf, and looking at this car makes me a little homesick. It’s in good condition, too. The seller says the air conditioning doesn’t work, but honestly, you’re better off without it. It takes up too much of the engine’s already-meager power.
Outside, it’s rust-free, but missing some trim. The seller says it’s all included, though. I can’t decide if I like the aftermarket wheels on this one or not. VW (and Audi) had some great factory wheel options back in those days, and I think I’d rather have any one of them. But these aren’t as terrible as they could be.
With their age and condition, either one of these would be better suited as a third or fourth car, rather than a daily driver. But they’re not really projects in the typical sense, either. Instead, they hit that middle ground that I enjoy so much: you never have nothing to do, but you can still hop in and go for a drive when you want. Which one do you all prefer?
Well, I’m pretty surprised the way the vote went on this one.
My son’s mom (now an amicable ex-wife) had an ’86 Jetta while we were dating and it was a fun, lively car to drive. Hers was gas powered, but with a stick and just really a lot of fun.
Married to her, I put 165K miles on a 2001 Jetta TDI 5M, and while not the most reliable car I’ve owned, it was also fun to drive. Except when it couldn’t.
Now she has a Mazda and I have a Honda and are no longer married. Life happens.
For tinkering? Jetta 100% if only by means of access. Wrenching on a mid engined car sucks.
My friend in college had an MK3 Jetta, that was pretty cheap, fairly reliable, and could have been extremely nice if he was willing to tinker on it (the front windows never worked). It had a VR6, straight pipe, and 5spd and I loved that car. Today was purely emotional, but I miss good Volkswagens.
A VW, a diesel I wouldn’t even want with a turbo, and ugly ass wheels? You’d have to leave a bucket of fish guts and grind a turd into the seat fabric, then leave it in the sun for a few days with the windows closed to make it any less appealing.
I believe Mercedes will agree with me, the TDIs were quite lovely to drive. At least my ’01 Jetta, 5M was. For 165+ K miles. But I also like my ’17 6AT Honda Accord V6. Two very different cars, to be sure. But both very good cars in their own ways.
I do miss the blue backlighting of the IP in the Jetta. The very monochromatic lighting in my Honda reminds me of a M-B taxi I rode in in France around 20 years ago. Not a horrible look. Just meh compared to the Jetta’s. I hate orange and red IP lighting. I know it’s supposed to better at preserving night vision. But it’s just ugly to glimpse at when you’re not watching the road.
People like all kinds of things that I find strange. Enjoying diesels and VWs are on that list, but are very minor examples. Also, this isn’t a TDI, it’s N/A, so it’s completely gutless to go with the horrible sound, foul smell, and emissions.
I spent 16 years in that TDI Jetta. Now, I’m eight years into something very different. A V6 Accord. Both fun, but in very different ways.
I hate diesels in road vehicles, but I mostly liked them when I worked on boats as diagnostic was super easy, the number of issues were small, and the fix was simple. What I hated, though, was that sailboat owners seemed to feel using the engine was cheating, so they wouldn’t run it and then the fuel tank would be overwhelmed with bio growth and sailboat fuel tanks were almost never designed to be removed.
My dad had a couple of commercial salmon fishing boats with small Detroit Diesels. And they were super reliable. It spent time moored in Vallejo across from Mare Island. The guy in the slip next to ours had a smallish sailboat he lived on.
I had an uncle with a 42-foot sloop. He and his family sailed it from Los Angeles, to New Zealand, then to Japan and then back up to Hawaii where they sold it. He retired in LA as a professor in structural engineering at Cal Tech. He did a lot of engineering to make buildings in those areas to be earthquake resistant.
All the sailing was done with my slightly older cousins. They also spent time in Afghanistan while my uncle and aunt were volunteering with the US Peace Corps. At my uncle’s memorial, they related how cool it was to see luminescing little sea animals lighting up in the wake of their boat. I imagine that would have been very cool to see.
They were an interesting couple. While visiting in college from UCSD, they were living in a condo in Pasadena. My aunt had a V8 Camaro in the mid 70s. She had fun surfer sunglasses. I think he took the bus to Cal Tech. While I was driving a Datsun 510. Lol. Sadly, they have both passed, but left plenty of great memories and good works done,
Nice story! In another life, I’d live off the ocean.
Okay, here me out: the TDI motor IN the Fiero.
It’s a lateral move in terms of power, but a vertical move in terms of cool factor.
I like this idea. I had a 2001 Jetta TDI, and it was nice and tractable around Seattle.
However, the diesel on the chart today, is not a TDI.
Derp.
You’re right.
Regardless, unless it’s an NA VW diesel it’ll still make about as much power as the stock Iron Duke. After watching Jimbo at Robot Cantina swap a Kubota diesel into a Honda Insight and a VW diesel into an S10, I can only conclude that we must small diesel swap the world.
So a high mileage VW or burning to death in a Pontiac. I guess I will go VW. Should be reliable as it certainly could not have been beaten with 54 hp.
And I find a block heater works wonders on a diesel in cold weather. Sure new glow plugs might help on starting but a block heater you have heat instantly
Yes. My ’01 TDI took a while to start blowing warm air in the winter. OTH, the bun warmers in the seats were the best I’ve ever had and came up to temp almost immediately. Better than my wife’s X5, subsequent MDX and my current Accord.