My buddy was into Pintos and went and ordered a new Rallye version as shown below - last year of the Ford Pinto.
After he modified it over time it sold me on little cars. It got me away from drag racing and more towards road racing. He would tell folks how awesome his Pinto was and most laughed and asked about it blowing up.
I love the advertisement; cool guys who work on Cobra's might daily drive the rallye Pinto.........brings a lot of credibility.
This whole mess - Oldsmobile fixed up the 1977 Delta 88 and had James Garner drive it as the pace car.
AJ Foyt won that year and was the first to win four 500's so it was a big deal.
Big old Delta 88's compared to the current Corvette pace cars?
For 1991, Audi put their 20v inline 5 turbo engine (in 3B form) in the 200 Quattro. Not many were brought to the US, and most were used as drivetrain donors for the small chassis cars.
As much as I love the later ur-S cars, these are the ultimate 5 cylinder for me.
When was the last time you saw a Buick Lesabre T-type?
A coworker bought one of these new, in black, and I always thought it was a rather handsome automobile. I remember it looking lower and sleeker like this one
Never driven one, but has always held my interest: Isuzu Impulse turbo AWD.
Mr. Peabody said:When was the last time you saw a Buick Lesabre T-type?
A coworker bought one of these new, in black, and I always thought it was a rather handsome automobile. I remember it looking lower and sleeker like this one
I have the GN badges off one of those I found stripped in Thompson Brother junkyard in Kankakee Illinois.
Cooter said:This was a unicorn that I couldn't get out of my head for a few years.
1980-81 Dodge Diplomat coupe (during the first two years of the "new" square M-body body style MoPar offered a rare wagon and a seldom seen coupe)-
The same year range LeBaron coupe has been haunting me, as well, with an overpriced one in Iowa tempting me this week. (I know Duster would approve of the wheels)
Of course, this weird obsession with odd versions of the '80-89 M body led me to grabbing this odd California only 318/4bbl plastic-wooded single horned beauty from the west coast. (with our own Synthetic Blinker Fluid ably enabling me by going 10 hours out of his way to drag it home for me in the middle of winter)
Ill buy the wheels. $350.
My two unicorn submissions:
First gen neon acr. Heres mine.
The other: 2003.5 mazda protege5. No roof rack or sunroof. The best of the breed, but the rarest. Especially nowadays. Ive owned one. In white. Shouldn't have sold that one....
I'll take Focus SVT for $800 Alex.
though a good one in the market today would likely be $5800.
Or a base 3door duratec car with an fswerks turbo kit and a proper diff.
And a bangin stereo. For me tunes.
I've always wanted to screw around with the 2 year only LTD LX. It's a Fox chassis sedan and it's just begging for some headers, a FMS cam and Cobra intake.
In reply to TheFlyingClutchman :
My parents had one of those.
That's how I learned about head gaskets.
In reply to ProDarwin :
Omigosh......someone else that knows about these !! I had a '90 for 12 years before reluctantly selling it, never got over it. Still, I love my current '90 TT, LOTS faster.
In reply to Number1Gaza :
Oddly enough, a GRM'er just posted and sold one on the forums last month.
3000GT VR-4 too common? Opt for the '95-96 only hardtop convertible. Production numbers were low, but a neighbor down the street had one rotting in his driveway for the better part of 5 years.
Daily Turismo had one a few weeks back. Remember the Thunderbird Super Coupe? Not unicorn enough? Who remembers that you could also get the supercharged 3.8 and 5 speed manual in a Cougar XR7?
What a Cougar interior looks like with a stick shift.
The owner claims this is one of 435 - I'm not sure if that is 435 XR7s or one of 435 with the supercharger and 5 speed. But it sounds quite believable.
St205, also easily applies to the previous gen 165 and 185s.
Mirage turbo/Colt GT. Basically a 1.6L version of the 4g63. Friend had one with a proper 4g63 swap plus and FP red turbo that basically never hooked or had traction.
MadScientistMatt said:Daily Turismo had one a few weeks back. Remember the Thunderbird Super Coupe? Not unicorn enough? Who remembers that you could also get the supercharged 3.8 and 5 speed manual in a Cougar XR7?
Holy side bolsters Batman!
Brian said:
This car had an outsized impact on me. I remember seeing one at the local Chevy dealer, and compared to the Impalas and vans that I was used to (thanks Dad), it seemed so light and nimble. The idea that you could take a little economy car and give it a peppy engine and better suspension was genius to me, I thought all cars makers should do that. And for a while in the late 80's and early 90's, most did. Chevy had the SS, Ford had the SHO and SVT, Dodge had the R/T and Honda had the Si. I was smitten.
I was working a classic-car event sponsored by The Roadster Factory and one event was an autocross. A club from Pittsburgh was there to run the event, and one of the members had this exact car, in white, with sticky slicks on it. It CRUSHED the TR-3s and MG-TCs and even some IROC Camaros. I knew then and there that I had to autocross someday and I have now been a member of that club 20+ years.
There is one car that would tempt me. A real sleeper that almost no one will recognize.
tinyurl.com/uanh9rrz
Some other unicorns from that era came from the AWD craze. Did you know that AWD Camrys are nothing new? Or that the precursor to the Fusion Sport AWD was the Tempo AWD? or that if you liked the Chevy Celebrity Eurosport, you could get the Pontiac 6000 version with AWD? Well now you do.
In 89 I managed to roll my parents 83 SAAB 900 being stupid 3 days before I graduated from HS and for some reason my dad took me with him as he shopped for a replacement. We went to a Chevy dealer to try a Lumina Euro and my dad was not impressed at all, but on the used car lot they had a Dodge Lancer Pacifica and I fell in love. I tried for weeks to talk him into that car but we ended up with a cheap 85 Mercury Marquis.
wspohn said:There is one car that would tempt me. A real sleeper that almost no one will recognize.
tinyurl.com/uanh9rrz
Weren't those popular cars to be stolen by smash and grab thieves in the UK, since they could outrun anything on the road, and a lot of what was in the sky?
In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :
Every AWD Tempo that I've seen (maybe four-five) had the rear axle shafts removed. The U joints were not replaceable and axles were not available from Ford, so the fix was to cut the U joints out and remove the shafts.
You may wonder why the rear axle shafts had U joints and not CV joints. Bear in mind, they made the AWD system by replacing the transmission pan with a gearcase. The differential was exposed to the pan, so they just made a case that drove a power takeoff pinion off of the ring gear.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
Still better than the Zune.
Mercedes C55 AMG. 2005/2006 only. 362hp, 5.4L AMG V8 in a C-class.
Back when I was car shopping a few years ago, that, a CTS-V, and a Pontiac G8 were on my list. Test drove them all, it came down to which one had both the low miles and price I felt was reasonable. The few C55's I found were either too expensive or too high mileage (there is nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes), the CTS-V's all seemed to be flogged hard, I went with a G8. But that Mercedes was sweet.
The Mercedes-Benz C55 AMG Is the Forgotten, Awesome AMG C-Class - Autotrader
You are probably aware of the Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, but the first one was a rare beast. According to Wiki:
"A new trim level was offered for 1989, a limited-edition turbo coupe that featured an ASC/McLaren turbocharged version of GM's 3.1 L V6 (Only 749 were produced). Output was 205 hp (153 kW), 65 more than the previous year. A four-speed automatic was the only transmission offered."
Yep, you can own a McLaren-engineered car for pennies.
You'll need to log in to post.
