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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! We saw the '49 Rolls Silver Wraith hold its own against the obviously unbeatable burn-victim Countach, gaining a respectable 41% of the vote in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll. Today we need to contemplate a couple of Porsche 911 projects; sure, we see 928s here on a regular basis (for obvious reasons), but it's pretty tough to find a real 911 for a PCH-worthy price. Today we've done even better, with a pair of turbocharged 911s, each priced in used-Honda-Civic territory! When most of us try to sell a car using an online classified advertisement, we do our best to take a useful photograph or two and write some sort of description laying out the good and bad facts, if only to avoid having to answer the same questions from every single potential buyer. When you're trying to sell a Porsche 911 , this becomes way more important, because...
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Sometimes you look at the price of a car for sale and you ask yourself, "Is that a pretty good deal, or would I have to be smoking the rock to pay that much?" That's what Nice Price Or Crack Pipe is all about, and we're going to follow up yesterday's high-buck factory-racer '63 Pontiac - which 65% of you felt went for way too much green- with another Detroit classic. This time it's a super-cherry 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis, a car with just 4,054 miles on the clock. This has got to be the nicest '78 Grand Marquis in the world, and it's got all the options: 460 engine, power everything, cruise control, even the 8-track player. But fifteen grand? What do you think? galleryPost('NPOCP78GrandMarquis', 6, '1978 Mercury Grand Marquis For 15 Grand On eBay'); [eBay Motors] , thanks to Mechimike for the tip! 15 thousand bucks for a 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis? ( surveys )
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Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Today we're going to check out a 30-year-old Detroit car that's an honest-to-god daily driver and parks in the heart of Alameda's downtown. It's got its share of bumps and bruises, but it's managed to survive the hoonage that has killed off most of its second-gen F-body brethren by now. It's also managed to survive the owner's temptation to build a phony Burt Reynolds-esque Trans Am clone, and for that we should be thankful! It's not a Sky Bird Esprit , just a plain ol' Firebird. In '78, the price tag on one of these with a Buick V6 was $4,545, which $1,254 less than the Trans Am's price. That's quite a bit of money for a few acres of decals and- we're not kidding here- just 75 additional horsepower over the V6. I've always liked these Pontiac rally wheels, because they look very similar to the...
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Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. It had to happen, sooner or later; somewhere on the island, a Cordoba was waiting- soft Corinthian leather and all- for my camera. Now that day has arrived, with this '78 located in the 1950s-vintage part of the island landfilled into the Bay. Generally, houses in such neighborhoods have garages, which means the DOTS pickings are much slimmer than those in the neighborhoods full of houses built during the 1880-1910 period, but this Chrysler still lives outside after 30 years. First, we must watch the Ricardo Montalban ad that started it all. In Cordoba, I have what I need! Plastic "gold" Cordoba medallions may be found all over this fine personal luxury automobile. Weighing in at a portly 4,021 pounds and motivated by a thirsty 318 or 360, the Cordoba wasn't quite the ideal machine for a time of fuel-price insecurity. By '78...
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With the optional VW/Audi four-cylinder (same engine as the one in the Porsche 924) under the hood and its snazzy faux-convertible landau roof, you'd think this '78 Concord would be worth keeping on the road. Apparently not, as I spotted this very solid-looking AMC being prepared for a stint on the stands at a local self-service wrecking yard. After that, it'll be Crusher time. galleryPost('DOTJ78Concord', 6, '1978 AMC Concord Down On The Junkyard');
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Now we're going to head west, way west, to New Westminster, B.C., where this Malaise Firebird still makes the ground shake with its 145-horse 305 (or 105-horse Buick V6). Thanks to Anthony , who also brought us the Datsun 710 wagon . Make the jump to read Anthony's description and see the complete gallery. galleryPost('DOTSBENWFirebird', 9, 'Malaise Firebird Down On The New Westminster Street'); Thanks for posting my pictures of the Datsun 710. Attached are the long promised pictures of Jim Rockford's Firebird. This is a 77 or a 78, I don't know which, but I know where Angel hid Jim's car! The car is in New Westminster, BC in the Queens Park area, a neighbourhood of Victorian era heritage homes.
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It's pretty tough to beat the most menacing assemblage of Lucas Electrics ever put in one $150,000 package when it comes to Hell Projects, and even a horrifically hooned Skyline GT-R couldn't come close to the Lagonda in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll . In hindsight, probably nothing short of a Citroën SM could have made a stand against the Aston Martin; lesson learned for next time! Today we're going to put on our W.I.N. buttons and our boogie shoes and check out some classic Turbo Malaise Hell Projects (not to be confused with Turbo Mullet Hell Projects)... 135 horsepower from a sub-2-liter engine was pretty good in 1978, and that's what the Saab 99 Turbo managed that year. In a car weighing just 2,600 pounds, 135 horses gave a power-to-weight pretty close to what you got from a '78 Corvette... at a price tag $500 higher than the top-of-the-line Chevy. Thanks to the magic of depreciation, however, it's possible to get a Saab 99 Turbo project for a fairly...
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Now, this fine luxury two-seater's glovebox probably doesn't have a big bag of Quaaludes and the Disco Handbook inside, but it should! The Opera appears to be a '78 Seville with shortened passenger compartment and lengthened hood, courtesy of Cotellis Custom Coaches of (where else?) Miami, and this one has been bid up to a mere $2,250 at the time of this writing. Thanks to Chillyncincy for the tip! [eBay Motors] galleryPost('CadSevilleOpera', 3, '1978 Cadillac Seville Opera For Sale On eBay');
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newVideoPlayer("78_Honda_Civic_Hatch_476.flv", 494, 410,""); No car illustrates the concept of Long Term Model Bloat better than the Civic (for a good example of Short Term Model Bloat, compare the 1970 Mercury Cougar with the 1974 version). Here's Honda boasting about the ability of the '78 Civic hatch's ability to swallow four shopping bags. The '78 Civic hatchback weighed 1,708 pounds... about 1,000 pounds less than the '08 Civic sedan .
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newVideoPlayer("78_Mercury_Cougar_Cheryl_Tiegs_476.flv", 463, 387,""); While Farrah Fawcett merely allowed a cougar to sit on the roof of her car in her '75 Cougar ad , Cheryl Tiegs lets a mountain lion ride shotgun in her '78 (equipped with the hyper-Malaise "Midnight Chamois" option package). Not only that, but her hair totally out-feathers Farrah's, and her haunted mansion gives her more of an air of mystery. Did we mention the 134-horse 302 that came standard in this 3,800-pound car?
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It's got a 360. It's got glasspacks. It's got dogdish hubcaps. It's got a huge skull painted on the hood. In other words, it's fully optioned! This is the car designed for Ricardo Montalban's evil twin brother, Raul, who was serving 10-to-20 for manslaughter in a Madrid jail cell while Ricardo pitched the nice Cordobas. Those of you still shopping for a car for the Toledo 24 Hours of LeMons race, take note: this '78 Cordoba is for sale for an asking price of 500 bucks and it's just a few hours' drive from the track! Thanks to 1300CCsofFury for the tip. [ Craigslist Chicago , go here if the ad disappears]
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You have to love single-model car aficionados; thanks to their devotion, you can just tap a few keys and get yourself the complete Saudi-market 1977 Mitsubishi Galant Owner's Handbook, scanned and laid out with loving care by the Sapporo-loving folks at MSapporo.com ! After seeing the glorious Oregon Sapporo a while back, I found this site's collection of brochures, photos, and manuals to be quite addictive. [msapporo.com]
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As everyone predicted, the Triumph GT6 obliterated the Porsche 914 in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll . British Leyland versus VW? We've been gearing up to have an epic Britain-versus-France PCH Superpower Showdown ever since a Lotus knocked the crown off top dog Italy's dome , but it's only fair to give PCH SuperBeaucoupPower France a warmup round against Germany, just as the Brits got. Thus, we have today's matchup, courtesy of PCH Tipster (and T-shirt winner) Anaxomander . We saw a Hell Project Mercedes-Benz 6.9 just a couple weeks back , but when you run across a JFG car for just $1,500... well, you know it's PCH material. This 1978 Mercedes-Benz 6.9 (go here if the ad disappears) is such a car. Just a grand-and-a-half? How can you go wrong here? This car's Craigslist ad features one of our all-time favorite descriptive lines: "Has mysterious problem." Just ponder that one for a moment; is there any problem that such a fiendishly complex machine...
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newVideoPlayer("78_Fiat_Ritmo.flv", 463, 387,""); After seeing a Fiat Strada as today's Down On The Street car, it seems only right that we should see an ad for its European sibling, the Fiat Ritmo. Naturally, car buyers of the time were eager to buy vehicles made by Italian robots , and who can blame them?
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What was it with Detroit and the word Brougham? GM, Ford, and Chrysler each slapped their share of "Brougham" emblems all over various crypto-upscale models of the 1960s and 1970s, apparently believing that buyers would feel that the elegance of 18th-century horse-drawn vehicles would rub off on their gasoline buggies. This '78 Dodge has all the Malaise Brougham features, from its vinyl top to its lo-po powerplant, and there's some puzzling Fury-ness to it to make things interesting. Brougham just plain means class! But where are the opera lights? It's always fun when I find multiple DOTS cars on the same block; here we have the 1942 Pontiac Torpedo across the street and down the block. And maybe you Mopar experts can tell us why this car seems to have '77 Fury taillights. Bumper swap? Perhaps the Plymouth hubcaps came from the same donor car. Alameda has a good climate for keeping rust at bay, but vinyl tops tend to fare badly in the harsh sunlight. This top is...
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