If you’re a fan of the Cleveland Browns, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Cadillac won’t just show your team spirit, it’ll carry off its corpse of your hopes as well. That’s only of course if its price doesn't send it into sudden death overtime.
While Subaru has built a respected name for the WRX, and Mitsubishi is probably known best for the EVO line, Mazda’s little 323 GTX, which kind of started it all, is almost so gone that it’s forgotten. That wasn’t the case yesterday, and in fact 63% of you thought that 1988 323 GTX with its modded mill had an unforgettable price as well.
Oh the ignominy of being Cleveland Ohio. It’s hard to live down history and having had both its mayor and river catch fire on separate occasions - the latter event having been immortalized in song by Randy Newman - you start to wonder what other shame could possibly befall this once downtrodden rust belt metropolis.
Well, there’s the Browns.
For those of you outside of the U.S. who are unfamiliar - first off, hi there - we have this game here called football which is nothing like the game you call football. Over here, what you know as football we call boring.
Anyway, real football is a brutal game of land conquest and engenders manic support for the various city-based teams by their fans - a word that is derivative of fanatic. One of the things fans like to do - especially in northern cities like Cleveland where mid season's biting winter cold can send testicles scrambling upward and create nipples that could put an eye out - is to engage in a pre-game soiree known as a tailgater.
The name - tailgating - derives from the use of a pickup truck’s dropped tailgate which is used as a buffet for all means of potato chip dip, goopy chicken wings, sliders, meatball subs, pizza pies, and of course fine social lubricants like Pabst Blue Ribbon, Miller High Life, and Colt 45 malt liquor- which interestingly enough was named after former Baltimore Colt Jerry Hill (#45) and not after the hand gun.
If you want to get an idea of how rabid football fans get, especially those stoic - or insane - enough to brave the weather and get liquored up before a game by partying in a freaking parking lot, watch Big Fan.
If however you are intrigued by the concept of drunken mayhem, and are always looking for ways to support the underdog, then you might just be interested in this 1983 Cadillac Fleetwood Hearse, which has been painted up in the colors of the Cleveland Browns.
Now, the Browns have such a pitiful record - 5 and 11 last year - that their fans resort to bemoaning their terribleness even in death. You could help that guy out!
Remarkably the Browns primary color is burnt orange and not tighty whitie skidmark brown. This massive coffin carrier has been thusly hued in the color in search of a rhyme, as well as the secondary brown for the padded vinyl roof and the rear door racing stripe.
Racing stripe? You know, I think the last thing a hearse needs is a freaking racing stripe. What this Brownswagon does need is a new set of rubber as at least one has been as flat as Cleveland's offense for some time. Additionally it has a busted off-side rearview, a victim of some pre-game hooliganism. Oh, and I should probably mention that it hasn't run in a couple of years, a fact which the seller so humorously compares to the Browns too.
The ad says that the hearse has a little over 94,000 miles on the clock, however its not the rolling but the parking that makes this thing interesting. Also, while it doesn't actually have a tailgate - it's a right-hand swinging door - the floor is set up with casket rollers so your cases of beer will be easy to access.
So, break out the white shoes and belt, it's time to go full-Cleveland. You need to decide if this Cleveland Browns war wagon is worth $2,000 and the time it would take to get it back on field. Do you think that at price, and with god as your witness, you could make this turkey-team mascot fly? Or, is that too much to be down with the brown?
You decide!
Cleveland Rocks Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Deadspin Tim, Chaptal, and Chris Zimmer for the Hookup!
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For $2,000, Take One For The Team