This next car isn’t a museum piece or a rusty barn find…no, it is neither — it lives somewhere in the seedy underworld of automotive purgatory. This half-fixed classic needs someone to expunge its past sins and prepare it for automotive Valhalla or sell it for scrap. But for $1500, you could go either way and break even. Find this 1972 MG Midget offered for $1500 in Cuero, TX via craigslist.
I’ve never owned one, but have had the opportunity to go for a ride and drive a Lotus Caterham Seven (this was a late model kit car with a 300 horsepower turbo 4-cylinder modern engine) and it was exhilarating to say the least. No, it was terrifying, as a passenger or as a driver. But that was a kit car, and I prefer my cars to come with some history, some patina, some sweat equity needed, like this 1971 Lotus Seven S4 offered for $10,500 in Southeastern Arizona via craigslist.
I love a good challenge as much as the next guy…and I do enjoy assembling an occasional jigsaw puzzle with my kids…but this “Land Rover” is the jigsaw puzzle equivalent of taking 16 different 1000 piece-puzzles, mixing the pieces together, throw half of the pieces away, and stuff the remaining pieces inside of a raw turkey before baking to a crispy 165 degree internal temperature and then attempt to assembled the puzzle on a windy Thanksgiving afternoon wearing a blindfold and being pestered by a chimpanzee driving a skid-steer. However, I can’t think of a better way to spend 5 grand. I think I could rent a chimp and a skid-steer for that much. Find this 1973 Land Rover Series III offered for $5000 in Los Angeles, CA via craigslist.
When somebody says “kit car” I instantly think of Cobras, 550 Spyders, 356 Speedsters, Lotus things, and Kustom Fieros made to look like Ferraris…but I have never really thought about Jags. Particularly XK120 looking Jags from the 1950s that just need an injection of V8 to get going. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re […]
I’d always rather buy a nicely restored or original condition survivor than a car that has had a cheap respray or is a pile of parts…but this next car appears to be a running/driving example of an unusual classic that just needs a paint job and some TLC. How bad could it be? Find this 1967 […]
The Lotus Europa has always been a favorite car over around these here parts — we DT writers love its lightweight composite chassis, mid engine high revving powerplant and cheap entry price. Time has driven the nicer examples to higher prices, but you can still get nice cheap Europa for the price of a 911 […]
Most of the automobiles features on these pages are inexpensive classics or late model maniac machines…with an emphasis on cars you can drive and enjoy on the cheap for years on end. However…there are sometimes cars that cross our path that offer a combination of exclusivity and cool factor at an economy car entry price…BUT […]
I know, I know. I hate to be a pessimist. I hate to be yet another voice on the internet that laments how all the cheap fun cars have been purchased by stamp collectors who’ve inflated their values to the detriment of everyone but the wealthy elite who can afford them. And the collector car […]
People claim that something is -est all the time. The fastest. The meanest. The leanest. The beastiest. The cheesiest. The frostiest. The greenest. The chipotlest. The cleanest. The best. The sportiest. The raciest. But they are usually wrong — sometimes on purpose, sometimes through hyperbole, but I’m going to drop an EST on y’all that’ll be […]
I hate getting other people’s half baked projects. It never ends well. It always starts with a simple — hey I’ll adjust the timing, air up the spare, and drive it…but ends with crap, where the blazes can I get another a double cardan constant velocity u-joint for a Simca? The ONLY reason I’d ever […]