3For1: General Disorder Lee: Bricklin SV1 vs Porsche 914 vs Chevy Vega

A DT reader recently sent us the following note:

Dear DT: You guys need to post more orange cars.  Seriously, what if one of your readers is the grand marshal of a Halloween parade or wanted to build a Dukes of Hazzard tribute car, but hates Chargers.  What if, like me, he lives in Orange County and wants a car to properly represent his locale and its long history of citrus trees.  Anyway, please feature more orange paint and stop with all the damn French cars.  Sincerely,  Anonymous.

Who are we to deny the demands of anonymous requests? In that spirit we are proud to present a 3-For-1 post with three orange cars from the mid 1970s.  First, this 1975 Bricklin SV-1 is offered for $8,000 in Placentia, CA, next this 1973 Porsche 914 is in Hayward, CA for $10,000 asking, and finally this 1975 Chevy Vega hot rod is for sale in Sebastopol, CA for $12,500 – all via craigslist..most tips from Kaibeezy.

The Bricklin SV-1 was brainchild of billionaire Malcolm Bricklin and is no stranger to the pages of the DailyTurismo as these gull-winged equipped nightmares are often mistaken for kit cars and sell for pocket change.  This particular Bricklin is seen showing off its top hinged “kill me in a fiery roll over scenario” doors in just about every photo in the sellers collection.  Nice donut marks too!  The Ford 351 Windsor V8 was a great idea to power a low production super-coupe (think Pantera) when the idea was first spitballed across a smooth glass table covered in lines of coke in 1969, but by 1975 when released the Ford engine was smog restricted boat anchor.  The 150 horsepower V8 was forced to lug around 3500 lbs of safety crash structure wrapped in a ‘safety cone orange’ port-a-loo body, making for a seriously uncool ride…and less than 2500 were ever sold.  Today however this makes them ‘rare’ but prices reflect the abysmal driving experience.  For some strange reason, we still sorta want one each time they pop up.  This one isn’t asking a bunch of money for the ‘cool’ factor, but there is a much nicer one (still in safety cone orange, but with the AMC 360 V8) for sale on ebay here for about twice the price.

The Porsche 914 should need no introduction to any classic car enthusiast, but perhaps you will need a re-fresher when it is presented in this shade of day glow orange.  The seller says this is a recent repaint in the original color, and it works quite well on the little mid engined VW/Porsche collaborative effort roadster.  The 914 came with a VW Type 4, 2.0 liter fuel injected overhead valve flat-4, basically an evolution of the original VW Beetle engine putting out 95 horsepower in 1973.  The only confusing thing in the seller’s ad is the use of portrait layout photos when a clearly a landscape would work better and why he has Halloween decorations up in May.  At this asking price this 914 had better be perfect…

The Chevy Vega was a subcompact coupe originally intended to be rotary engine powered, courtesy of a Wankel 2-rotor licensed from Mazda, but the issues associated with engineering qualification meant the Vega launched with an alloy block (and cast iron head?) inline-4 right when the fuel crisis hit…which you would think have been a recipe for success…but leave it up to Gumitup Motors to stab a gift horse in the eye and sell him as Filet Mignon in France.  The Vega suffered from quality issues, recalls, and generally having a rusty bottom.  It is good thing that the builder of this car has replaced most of the factory components with a built Chevy 350 small block V8 and numerous other non-stock goodies.  In its current form it should be a terror at the strip and it also has had a full 5-lug conversion and sports brakes that the seller claims are good at 100+ mph…instead of the 99mph brakes that everyone else uses.

So what will it be?  The slow but ‘look-at-me’ door equipped Bricklin, the zippy apex carving 914 or the strip-king Vega?  Heck, for the price of a new BRZ/FRS you could buy all three…do you have the garage space?

See a better orange car? email us here: tips@dailyturismo.com