For $5,500, Get Shorty insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® For $5,500, Get Shorty

When it comes to automotive excitement, Toyota usually comes up short. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Corolla wagon however is long on being different, but you’ll still need to if its price is short on value.

Dang, I’m guessing that a LOT of you watched the Wacky Races when you were a kid as that's the only explanation for the happy dance reaction to yesterday’s Shala Vette custom buggy. Dick Dean would be rolling in his grave with glee (he passed away in 2008) knowing that it managed a respectable 60% Nice Price win. The question is, who's going to tell him?

Okay, so maybe you were on the other side of the fence on that one, its styling a little too non-traditional for your tastes. Maybe it was just a teeny-weensy bit over the top to gain any traction with you, and in that case today we’re going with a candidate that has a reputation for stoic stability as well as for appliance like personality.

That of course is the Toyota Corolla (ta-da!), which in today's instance is at least a rear-wheel drive 1980 wagon, which nostalgia and poor short term memory have imbued with some desirability and personality.

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If that’s not enough to light your fires however, this one has also had most of its mid-section excised turning it into something that could draw a crowd at the local Japanese Car Show in the morning, and then serve as a Shriner’s parade ride in the afternoon.

Powered by what looks to be a wildly over-carbureted 1.8-litre four and 5-speed stick, this truncated Toyota must also have a driveshaft that’s shorter than a Kardashian marriage. The ad claims it has a custom exhaust and, I mean, why wouldn’t it? There’s hardly enough room in there for for a regular muffler so thankfully it is 100% fart can free.

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The two doors marry the A-pillar leading edge of the former fronts with the wheel hump incursion of the rears, and if you’re looking for something that’s ADA compliant then this is probably not your beast. If however, you are looking to experience a bordello without the onus of shelling out money for sex with a sweaty impatient woman who reminds you of your mom, or being told to move along, this ain’t a lending library, then this is the place.

That’s because this Corolla isn’t just shortened, it’s also been tuck and roll over Beethoven'd. Sure, the rear bench is now the driver’s perch, but think of the time and effort it will save getting your date in the back.

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While small, the appearance is that now expense was spared in the lap banding of this Corolla. The merlot paint looks decent in the pics, and the velour interior is as rich and inviting as the parlor at your grandma’s - you remember her, she was so high class that everybody called her madam?

Factory wheels and a funky grille/headlight treatment add to the cool, and the cherry on this Corolla’s short cake sundae is its Englishtown Car Show trophy. We got ourselves a winnah here!

Of course winning comes at a price, and in this case the seller of this custom shorty Toyota is longing for $5,500 to take it off his hands. What do you think about this custom Corolla for that price? Is $5,500 a fair price for so crazy a custom? Or, would you have to think long on that?

You decide!

Central New Jersey Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

H/T to Civardi for the hookup!

Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a fixed-price tip, and remember to include your commenter handle.

For $5,500, Get Shorty

For $5,500, The S2002 Has A Touch Of Klasse insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® For $5,500, The S2002 Has A Touch Of Klasse

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Originally called the Neue Klasse, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe BMW brings even more neue with its rev-happy Honda mill. Will its price however make you want to tell it to blow it out its klasse?

Yesterday’s 1987 4Runner came away well respected, but the same can’t be said of its price. Falling in an 81% Crack Pipe loss, it’s pretty obvious that there’s low tolerance for nice - and correspondingly priced - crude trucks. Maybe if the 4Runner wasn’t so tough, making even crapped out examples still drivable, it would have seemed more worthy the high asking.

Do you know who Maximillian Hoffman was? No, he wasn’t Dustin Hoffman’s dad, but he was the father of a bunch of cars you surely know. Hoffman was the Austrian-born auto importer who gave a start to a number of European marques here in the U.S.. So influential was Hoffman that when he suggested a company bring over a production model or create a special package for the yank market, the builders listened.

Hoffman was responsible for Mercedes' Gullwing 300SL road car, as well as the creation of both the BMW 507 and the Porsche Speedster. Impressed yet? He was also the guy who told BMW that the U.S. should get a 2-litre edition of the Neue Klasse 1600, thus creating the seminal sports sedan, the 2002.

Max Hoffman didn’t come up with today’s car however.

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This 1968 Neue Klasse is a 2-litre, but where the original was a hot for the sixties SOHC four, the Honda mill now in residence is a mad hatter rev addict that pumps out more than twice the original’s quotient of ponies.

You might remember the F20C from such popular sports cars as the S2000 and... well, that’s pretty much the only place they dropped it. Displacing 1,997-ccs, or two less than the original BMW four, the Federal spec’d twin cam put out a balls-deep 240-bhp at 8,600 rpm. Not only that but the VTEC kicks in at six grand, yo.

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Here in the wide open expanses of the BMW’s engine bay the little redhead looks a little bit lost. Everything does seem to fit however, and there’s Honda’s snick-snick six speed along for the ride too. You’ll need to fiddle with that a lot because while the F20C makes a lot of ponies up north, it doesn’t do so down low in the rev range.

Along with the motor and gearbox, this BMW also looks like it gets the S2000 IP, which snuggles down in the Bimmer’s cowl behind the big four-spoke wheel. Stock seats front a custom and very simple tranny tunnel extension, and the whole interior seems very serviceable if a bit incomplete.

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On the downside the ad notes in a kind of cryptical fashion that the car was in a front end shunt and presently “needs some work.” Whether that’s purely cosmetic, requiring a couple of trips to the junkyard, or more serious, demanding a session on a dedicated bench (is it safe?!) to keep it from crabbing down the street goes unexplained.

The nose pic doesn’t show any significant damage to the shark prow, just missing grilles, bumper, and turn signals. The black steelies are a nice touch. Above those, the car seems to be several shades of psychedelic frog so figure a trip to the Earl of Scheib into your valuation calculations.

And you can start the abacus beads clacking at $5,500 as that’s the asking price for this kustom Neue Klasse. Do you think it seems kind of worth that? Or, is the ad a little too cursory to come up with that kind of cash?

You decide!

Seattle Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

H/T to Civardi for the hookup!

Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a fixed-price tip, and remember to include your commenter handle.

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For $7,400, Go 4 A Run

With its two-doors and removable cap today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe 4Runner brings the old school SUV style. You’ll still need to decide if this… Read…

For $5,500, The S2002 Has A Touch Of Klasse

For $5,200, How Much Polish Do You Have? insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com

insuranceinstantonline.blogspot.com ® For $5,200, How Much Polish Do You Have?

In the 1880s Oklahoma’s Cimarron Territory was the scene of a flood of squatters, each seeking to claim land prior to local enactment of the Homestead Act. In contrast, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Cadillac Cimarron is a car that typically few want to claim, but perhaps this one’s price will make it squat-worthy.

I noted yesterday that I thought this was a good time to snap up Porsche 944s, owing to my feeling that they are rising in both interest and value. Unfortunately for the seller of yesterday’s 1989 S2 model, a narrow 52% of you felt that at its price this particular car would make an unwise investment.

And now, let us join Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman - quiet you - for a journey back in time. We’re going all the way back, about 70 million years, to the Cretaceous period, and to a vast forested plain in what is now Canada’s Saskatchewan region. Here, by a river’s edge lumbers one of the world’s all time bad-ass predators, the ginormous and terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The massive beast steps into the silky soil on the riverbank, its huge claws sinking deep in the warm mud. Despite the high oxygen content of the late Cretaceous atmosphere, the immense carnivore's breathing is quick and labored. That’s because just a day or so prior, the Rex had gorged itself on an aged and sickly herbivore, and now that meal is not sitting right.

Standing in place on the bank, the Rex raises its huge tail to balance its now-lowered head, and slowly closes its eyes. From the imposing animal arises a sound that instills dread in the hearts of every lesser beast in the forest, like air escaping a balloon through its pinched opening- Fweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep-pup-pup-pup-pup!

The Rex sighs and slowly shakes its head lamenting for the moment its incredibly acute sense of smell. Then, with a slight raise of its torso, and a furrowing of its brow, the great beast bears down again, sending a shiver from its broad nose all the way to the pointy tip of its tail. With a great and squishy whoosh its brown recluse opens like the Lincoln Tunnel and disgorges a huge, steaming, and bone-laden turd which proceeds to plop listlessly into the silt below.

Opening its eyes and feeling like it could breath again, the Rex raises its head and gives its body another shake. Owing to toilet paper having not yet been invented, nor possessing arms with the reach to use it had it been, the beast then trudges off to a nearby deep pool to cool the friction burn in its back door, caused by its digested meal's explosive departure.

The predator’s poop however remains behind, unwanted by the Rex, but a vital and disgusting part of the food chain for almost everything else from bacteria to the shrew-like nasties that would one day become people. In this case, that was not to be. This particular poo, through happenstance, became covered and protected from both snack attack and weather, eventually having its organic matter replaced by minerals over the ensuing millennia.

Eventually, - in 1991 in fact - it was discovered by the descendants of those shrews, in what is now the East River Valley. Called a coprolite, the fossilized feces is now one most prized possessions of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum. Being one of the only carnivore coprolites known today, time and rarity has truly put a shine on this T-Rex's turd.

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I bring this up as a point in consideration of today’s candidate which is. . . well, you figure out the connection. This 1986 Cadillac Cimarron D’Oro is said to be a one-owner car, and with less than 38K on its clock, the 2.8-litre V6 powered compact Caddy is likely to be one of the best examples of the marque you could find.

But why would you go looking?

Oh sure there’s the kitsch factor- owning the tarted up Cavalier being akin to being engaged to, say Amanda Bynes or Charles Manson. I mean people would be scared of you because you obviously just don't give a shit. The thing of it is, as dreadful as these cars were, they weren’t particularly unreliable, and in fact their J-car base is generally considered to be pretty rock solid.

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This ’86 is of the second generation, which was an attempt make the car a little more fancy. They got a longer nose, flush wrap-around lights front and rear, and an available 2.8-litre V6 in place of the original’s wheezer of a four. This is also has the D’Oro package with its goldilocks grille and whatnot.

The exterior looks good, the interior less so, the leather there looking craggy and much like our T-Rex friend in need of a crevasse cleaning. The plastic inside is several shades of brown and the styling is typical ‘80s GM rectilinear.

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The seller of this one-owner Cimarron is not shitting you when he says he expects to get $5,200 for this car, likely in his mind a price again set based upon its condition and rarity.

You need to determine if that’s an unreasonable price for what’s generally considered a turd of a Cadillac. Or if, like that Canadian Coprolite, this Caddy is worth that simply for having stood the test of time.

You decide!

eBay out of San Diego, or go here if the ad disappears.

A tip of the lid to Hardibro for the hookup!

Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a fixed-price tip, and remember to include your commenter handle.

For $5,200, How Much Polish Do You Have?