Random Thoughts... [Automotive Edition]

It's San Francisco. That's cheaper than an apartment there. Larger, too.
 
It's San Francisco. That's cheaper than an apartment there. Larger, too.

I assume you mean 'cheaper than a month's rent for an apartment' rather than the purchase of an apartment... even so a (very) small flat costs more than that here and you can still get much, much better cars for that money.
 
I assume you mean 'cheaper than a month's rent for an apartment' rather than the purchase of an apartment... even so a (very) small flat costs more than that here and you can still get much, much better cars for that money.

No, cheaper than two weeks rent in a closet in some parts of SF, and not necessarily the better ones. Also, it's legal to live in your car in SF.

I'm not even going to pretend that thing is a car, but it is a viable domicile in SF. You can park it outside one of the shelters there (like apparently quite a few do) and use the shelter's plumbing facilities. :p
 
I must admit I enjoy seeing you guys play "CL scavenger hunt" every time someone needs a cheap car.


86 LTD is going to have the early AOD. Can be hit or miss. Other than that, might not be a bad choice
Fox isn't going to be horrible, but 4 speed manual. Also, parts availability in the US is pretty bad.
The Caddy has the 100K-throw-it-away Northstar version. I would avoid it.


This amuses me to no end since I could buy parts for it pretty much anywhere.
:rofl:
 
This amuses me to no end since I could buy parts for it pretty much anywhere.
:rofl:

Yup, they made them down there. Up here? They never sold that many to start with and the VW dealers have all forgotten they ever sold them. Parts are cheap by mail order, but many parts stores don't even have entries in their catalogs for them. :p
 
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I must admit I enjoy seeing you guys play "CL scavenger hunt" every time someone needs a cheap car.





This amuses me to no end since I could buy parts for it pretty much anywhere.
:rofl:

The little girl selling lemonade on the street corner has a box of Fox parts under the table?

Whatever happened to Wiesmann?

Seeing as how the last few pages of RT have been posts about what Rick should get next, I was half expecting this post to be something like "shame you guys didn't get the Panda in the US"
 
Seeing as how the last few pages of RT have been posts about what Rick should get next, I was half expecting this post to be something like "shame you guys didn't get the Panda in the US"

But Rick only buys awful cars. ;)
There is at least one Panda in America.
 
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Considering the situation, there are way too many cool cars available. Makes me disappointed in my choice of first car when I could have had a land barge :lol:
 
Yeah, check that Celica over for rust very, very carefully, especially the underside and rockers. That will be the 115hp 3S-FE on top of the A140L non-electronic transmission, so it's going to be slow but it should at least average about 25-30mpg even with the automatic. If the automatic suddenly starts being able to engage only first and reverse, the governor gear inside it (plastic, cheap to replace) has disintegrated but it is easy to fix - you don't even have to remove the transmission. In the US, it's unique to the Celica. Also, the back seats are best regarded as "upholstered parcel shelving." So, in other words, decent commuter box for one or two people, but not much more.

Will do!


I'll take a look at those listings in a second, thanks! I've talked to a guy selling a 93 Chevy Corsica: http://harrisburg.craigslist.org/cto/3882857707.html

He's willing to hold the car for me. Anything to look out for with one of those?

300m guy hasn't returned my call. When i called about the fox, i got a recording that the phone line was disconnected. Waiting on a return call from LTD guy.
 
The paint will literally start to fall off the Corsica, but other than that I don't know them to be particularly unreliable.
 
The paint will literally start to fall off the Corsica, but other than that I don't know them to be particularly unreliable.

Well the car's inspected until 10/2014. Not that paint peeling would likely fail inspection (i think...) but that's comforting.
 
I know three people who had them, I don't think paint peeling alone will fail inspection but you'll want to keep it patched up to avoid rust. Easy if you don't care if it looks good, of course.
 
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