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kingkarmann
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Joined: November 05, 2003
Posts: 4111
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 Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2023 9:00 am Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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My gut tells me someone paid waaayyyy to much for this.
Convince me I'm wrong.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1992-volkswagen-golf-gti-16v-7/
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steve244
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Joined: March 18, 2022
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Location: GA
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mj2k
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Joined: May 26, 2022
Posts: 402
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2023 9:28 am Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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| steve244 wrote: |
| TDCTDI wrote: |
| mj2k wrote: |
is your gut feeling about a car ever wrong? And if it is, would you admit it to yourself?  |
The real question is
Is your gut feeling about a car ever right?  |
As a purchaser, new, of both a Chevette and a Tracer, I validate this post. |
We had the Chevette in the UK too, and though ours was a bit better (no aircon to steal it's few wheezy horses and a better looking front end) and we had a race homologation version called the HS2300 which is actually quite desirable nowadays, the normal Chevette was nicknamed the shove-it.
As in "You think I'm going to buy one of those?! You can shove it where the sun don't shine"
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super) |
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steve244
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Location: GA
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hobthebob
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Joined: December 08, 2021
Posts: 375
Location: Austin, TX
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2023 6:11 pm Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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Those old cars are worth whatever anyone's willing to pay, I guess. At least you don't have to wrestle with complicated computer diagnostics and bank-bustingly expensive piece of crap plastic parts that break due to planned obsolescence.
The appeal to an old car like that is easier to fix, provided you can find parts to fix them! I don't know about the chevette, but I'd wanna stock up on some of the known wear parts or get a donor car or something... |
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mj2k
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Joined: May 26, 2022
Posts: 402
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| Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2023 7:28 pm Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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| hobthebob wrote: |
Those old cars are worth whatever anyone's willing to pay, I guess. At least you don't have to wrestle with complicated computer diagnostics and bank-bustingly expensive piece of crap plastic parts that break due to planned obsolescence.
The appeal to an old car like that is easier to fix, provided you can find parts to fix them! I don't know about the chevette, but I'd wanna stock up on some of the known wear parts or get a donor car or something... |
Or if you're in the UK / Europe, get the remains of a rusted out Vauxhall Victor 2300 (GM UK's long-standing American-styled saloon, renowned for rusting instantly and released in it's biggest, heaviest form with it's largest ever engine just as the 70s fuel crisis hit), and build one of these from the Chevette instead
I'm totally dumbfounded by the prices of some quite boring 70s-80s cars now, a Mk2 Ford Escort (different to the US version, but basically a less exciting squared-off version of the 1960s UK Escort, even the 'hot' RS2000 was just the 2 door saloon with a Chevette-style slanted nose and a dull 2.0 Pinto engine under the hood; the Mk1 RS had Cosworth or Lotus engines!) in decent condition now costs around 50x what it was worth in the 90s!
All i can think is it must be rarity and nostalgia driving up the prices - if you owned a non-entity like a Mk2 Escort, a Chevette, an AMC Pacer or whatever as your first car, when you get a bit older and have some disposable income, you might be willing to pay whatever it takes to get one of the last surviving ones. These sort of cars never fall into an enthusiasts hands when they're still plentiful, so it's pot luck if one survives (most just end up in the crusher once the repair bills get to more than the cost of replacing them with something else cheap), meaning any survivors are likely to be extremely rare, and possibly worth stupid money to someone who actually wants one a few years later.
Still, I guess I'm exactly the same - if I hadn't owned a rotted-out 1971 Type 3 Fastback in my teens I wouldn't be spending quite so long trying to save a rotted out Super...
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super) |
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mark tucker
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Joined: April 08, 2009
Posts: 23937
Location: SHALIMAR ,FLORIDA
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| Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2023 1:36 pm Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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what you may need to ask is.... IS A GUT FEELING ABOUT A CAR EVER RIGHT!?!?!?    |
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mj2k
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Joined: May 26, 2022
Posts: 402
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| Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2023 2:42 pm Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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| mark tucker wrote: |
| what you may need to ask is.... IS A GUT FEELING ABOUT A CAR EVER RIGHT!?!?!? |
It was with mine, I had a feeling there was a rustbucket hiding somewhere under all that pretty paint, and there was
Though I don't know why I'm grinning about it, that gut feeling being proved right is like having the nagging thought in the back of your mind to be careful of that cup of coffee on your desk in case you knock it into your lap, then thinking "yay, my gut was right!" as the hot liquid sinks through your pants... (been there, done that, though I didn't think "yay", I swore and jumped about a lot instead)
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super) |
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Abscate
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Joined: October 05, 2014
Posts: 22641
Location: NYC/Upstate/ROW
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| Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2023 2:35 am Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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Buying power today of its 1977 5k price tag , approximately $ 24,000
Was it the Chevette or the Monza that was going to get the Wankel engine , and then got either the horrible steel/aluminum 4 or a crammed in V8?
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steve244
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scottyrocks
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Joined: August 19, 2016
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| Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2023 10:22 am Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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| Abscate wrote: |
Was it the Chevette or the Monza that was going to get the Wankel engine , and then got either the horrible steel/aluminum 4 or a crammed in V8? |
The Monza was offered with an optional V8. The Chevette was not.
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mj2k
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Joined: May 26, 2022
Posts: 402
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 4:53 am Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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| steve244 wrote: |
| Abscate wrote: |
Buying power today of its 1977 5k price tag , approximately $ 24,000
Was it the Chevette or the Monza that was going to get the Wankel engine , and then got either the horrible steel/aluminum 4 or a crammed in V8? |
Pacer. |
Pacer was a strange one, could have been very interesting if it got the rotary engine (though the Citroen GS would have been a far more interesting home for one, if the Comotor disaster in Europe hadn't left Citroen penniless and without a decent engine). But though the GS sold reasonably well as a quirky, futuristic French car even with a cruddy little motor, the Pacer dated veeery quickly without it's correct engine. And making one door larger than the other was a sure fire way to ensure both that it looked weird, and also that it couldn't be sold in right hand drive markets.
I think it's predecessor the Gremlin was a better looking car which dated far less quickly, though the Pacer did play quite an important role in Wayne's World 
One of the last surviving Citroen GS Birotors in action:
https://youtu.be/IH5iFRTUwac?t=20
(Looks fun, but what an unusual engine noise! Peugeot, who took over the bankrupt Citroen, recalled and scrapped all the Birotors, so any which dodged the crusher are a real rarity)
Out of interest, the other half of Comotor, NSU (one of only 3 companies to see a rotary engine through to production, the other was Mazda) went bust too, and their rotary engined RO-80 bodyshell was 'de-futurized' and made into the K70 when VW took them over. Though I guess they had to do that to distance themselves from the ailing NSU brand, I wish they'd left it looking the same; the RO-80 hardly dated at all and still looked like a new car in the 1990s! And if they'd lost the chrome I suspect it could still have held on into the 21st century; hard to believe this thing was designed / sold about the same time as the Super:
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super)
Last edited by mj2k on Tue Feb 21, 2023 6:21 am; edited 7 times in total |
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mj2k
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 5:53 am Post subject: Re: Is a gut feeling about a car ever wrong? |
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...And now I'd better stop geeking about old European cars, and get on with repairing my old European car
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"I looked for silver linings, But you're rotten to the core" - Devo: Gut Feeling (they must have seen my Super) |
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steve244
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