What Should I Buy? – ’90s Cars!

Our panel has come prepared with some options, but Mark set out his ‘90s car shopping criteria. “I grew up going to car shows looking at American muscle, usually modified. It occurred to me that a car from the 90s today is the same age as those 60s muscle cars I looked at in the 80s and 90s. I’d like something representative of the 90s car culture, that is a good platform for tuning and personalization. It has to be able to be built enough that I can get it loose in most gears and generally be a hooligan. I’m kind of OCD about cars so I want to get this into very good condition with a total budget – all in – around $100k.” 

and much, much more!

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports.

Awesome and awkward all at the same time. That’s how I like to describe the nineties a time when bands like Nirvana, sublime and Green Day were all we would talk about. And the cars we salivated over had exotic names like Supra Rx seven in G T R. That’s right Brad. And tonight our special guest is fellow car enthusiast, mark s Shank, who has called upon our panel of esteemed Petrolheads to answer the question we’d love to ask, what should I buy?

And in this case, nineties cars. So we wanna welcome Mark to the show and our panel of GTMs that’ll be here with us tonight. So welcome Mark. Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me on. I’m excited to talk about this. I’ve been thinking about this project for a while, uh, where I kind of go with my next car, and I think I have landed in the nineties, so I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanna do before we dive down this rabbit hole.

[00:01:00] Mark, why don’t you tell us a little about your car history? and what’s your driving today? Mm, car history. So, uh, I’ve, I kind of, I’ve kind of been all over the place. First kind of fast car that I had was a 94 Z 28 Camaro. It was unfortunately an automatic, that was what I could afford at the time. The transmission went out on it and was able to put a shift kit in it, which was a lot of fun cause it would kind of break transmission mounts on an annual basis.

It shifted so hard, you could definitely break it loose between gears had a 98 eclipse, G S T, which I absolutely loved. 2000 6, 3 50 z 2006. E 46 73 with the, with the manual. Let’s see. Uh, and 1985 Porsche nine 11 Carrera that I picked up in 2009 that I used as a daily, uh, in Southern California. So I grew up in Frederick, myself as well.

Lived in San Diego for about six years. It was such an awesome place for air cold nine 11 s I mean, the, you, there were so many great [00:02:00] shops that could work on them. They were like, I had this thing that was out in the desert. Its whole life. It didn’t have a square centimeter of rust in it anywhere. I love that car.

Was in mint condition. Spent a ton of money. Kids came, had to get rid of it. So I got a a, a brand new, I ordered and did the track day pickup for uh, uh, what is it, an F 85, A 2015 M three, which was the four door. Cuz now I had a kid in a car seat, but I did get the manual in it. I, I do think everybody should own a four door manual car.

It’s a rear wheel drive. It’s a lot of fun. And then I, I turned that in. I got a 20 16 9 11 career, I guess that was a 9 9 1 0.1. And I have a BMW X five V eight for a family hauler. The, not the M version. And my, my fun car is behind me. 9 9 1 0.2 GT three with, uh, six speed manual. Uh, you thought this was a, an image background behind me?

It’s not. It’s my actual car. , which I’m, I’m sitting here looking at like having anxiety over how close that is to the, the garage door from this angle. . [00:03:00] I, I u I’ve kind of was like a two car person rotating cars around. I do think I’ve married that thing behind me. I just love it to death. So I think I’m, I’m, I’m with that one for a while, but I can, I can get a lift and, uh, I’ll just put something, um, underneath it or above it or something.

So in addition to that, you’ve actually done some autocross and track days with, uh, PCA and some other groups, right? So you’re not just a collector or a connoisseur. You’ve been on track as well. A little bit. I, I do not want, do not want to over-represent my track experience at all. I’ve done a couple bmw uh, driving school events with the, with the, the M three side, you know, some autocross.

But, uh, I, I want to do more with the Porsche Club. I actually have a neighbor out here as. Pretty active in it as well. I want to do more in that space. For me, it’s, it’s been a time thing. My job is tough and you’ve got little kids, so I’m hoping, you know, a little older, a little more independent and, you know, they can run around on a Saturday without harassing me all day.

Uh, but yeah, you know, I, I, I would absolutely love to get to a track [00:04:00] a few times a year now, and then hopefully when I’m a little older, do that more. Since we got a little bit of background into your car history, and I, I know, and I know in talking with you, you have a , you have a very good knowledge of cars and whatnot, and we kind of had a precursor conversation to this about cars in the nineties.

And so, you know, as we get into our basically main event here are what should I buy panel, you know, a bunch of us that come prepared with some options for you about going about and buying a nineties car. What we’re really interested in is getting your shopping criteria. You know, what you’re looking for, price range, some things you’re not interested in, some things you may be interested, et cetera.

So why don’t you lay that out for the panel so we can better focus on some of our suggestions. Awesome. I think the panel will be fun because I love a lot of things and you know, I’m, I’m really kind of open, so a couple things, right? I’m, I’m kind of O c D, so I want something that I can get in really that it doesn’t have to get it in really good condition, but I have to be able to get it to really good condition.

Right? And so sometimes, you know, that [00:05:00] can be harder with some of the older ones. I want to have a very nice car and I’m, I’m fine with paying the money to get it there, but, but I like, you know, just clean and tight. No rattles, no no excuses. Really good shape. The, there are so many kind of different.

Aspects of nineties car culture. You know, I, I loved all of it. I love the Japanese unobtainium that you played on a PlayStation one. Right. So I’m born in 81, so I’m in high school and graduated in 99. So, you know, kind of grew up through that. But I also grew up my entire life going to car shows, which was mostly American muscle.

You know, I’ve, I’ve always thought about kind of different things that might be fun there. So I’ve really enjoyed, you know, the Japanese sports Scar side, the American muscle. I want something also that I can. pretty fast, right? I mean, not, not, not fast in a, in a zero to 60 time or fast in a, like a particular lap time.

But I want something that can feel fast, overpower, its traction for most of its gears, and that [00:06:00] you can be a general hooligan in. So we were like having that debate. Like to me that kind of crosses out like a Ferrari 3 55, although those things are probably, I’m not sure they’re worth the price at this point.

Super unreliable too, but hey, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Those generation V8 s I think one of the thing I, I did enjoy about it that I should mention, like the idea of kind of customization and modification, right? So I’m not in this to get something, leave it bone stock and hopefully sell it, you know, for some money later.

I don’t care if I’m devaluing it, I’m doing this for me. I’m not doing it as an investment or something, something stupid like that. So I, I do, you know, as , you know, this, this is a little bit of the 12 year old kid who had the nine 30 with the whale tail on the wall. And, and that’s why I didn’t get the touring package on my GD three.

And I don’t give a shit if the touring package was the cool thing to do, um, , it didn’t have a giant, it didn’t have a giant slow on the back. And my nine 30 poster did, uh, yeah, I mean, it’s a little juvenile. I don’t care. I’m doing it for fun. I think that modification and [00:07:00] customization part of it is definitely a part of that.

Cole Karcher that I, that I really enjoyed. And I think you said something just to, you know, kind of round out this thought before we turned it over to the panel to start throwing up their suggestions. I think one thing that was really almost prophetic in a way was when you and I were talking and you said, you know, looking back now on a car from the nineties is the same as when I was a kid, looking back at some of those cars from the fifties and sixties, it’s the same time gap.

It’s that same generational gap, and then it makes you feel super old when you realize that a nineties car is 30 years old at this point. Right. So, pretty crazy. It it is. You’re, you’re absolutely right. So, you know, growing up, and I’m looking at American muscle in the late eighties and early nineties, that’s how old these cars are now.

Right. And I’m going through with my dad and he’s telling me about, you know, my dad owned a ton of muscle cars, uh, back in the day. He, I grew up with. and quarter mile bikes were like his gr our garage. We never had any cars in our two car garage. It was full of motorcycles. And so, you know, there was a lot of motorcycles, but he loved cars, [00:08:00] you know, was always talking about the American muscle.

And so yeah, that, that epiphany, I, it was literally just kind of dawned on me one day. I’m like, wait a minute. I am the same distance from those cars. Now it’s a tribute to the quality of the cars that they’re not all completely rotisserie restored like they were back then they had, right. Cause they’d fallen apart twice over by the time you got ’em to 1990.

But, but at the same time, people are just starting to think about, how do I restore this car? You’re finding them still unrestored. I don’t wanna get into this 10 years later and the market is kind of already defined and I wanna get in front of it and be able to do something before the market tells you what to do.

And, and people, yeah. You know, start kind of figuring it out. Let’s shock the panel a little bit because you just slightly went there, but then didn’t say what your budget was. Oh. And so from a price range, I think all in. With like getting the car and, and you know, I’m not, I’m not gonna do much work myself.

Right. So I’m paying somebody to do work on it. I, yeah. So all in, uh, call it a hundred grand . [00:09:00] All right guys, thi this is, this is the mission now. All right. Car from the nineties fully restored. It’s gotta be a who hooligan car, a hundred grand or less. How about we go to Mike? Well, so you mentioned having owned a, uh, a Z 28.

If you I love Mustangs, by the way. I, I love Mustangs. But the Camaro had so much more power in that generation. I think you’d have to be a little silly to pick the , the five liter stock , if you’re looking for that more muscle Cari look, I would actually pitch the, the Camaro’s cousin. Oh, specifically the WS six.

Yes. WS six. Yep. I was always infatuated with those cars when they came out. They were, I mean, a friend of mine had a 92 Camaro, but it was only the, the Rs, but the Firebird WS six with that big, uh, evil Ram air hood. Yeah. And the commercials they had were. The evil commercial was awesome. And then they had, when it first came out, they had Chris Tucker driving one in one of his buddy cop movies.

Like, you haven’t seen Chris Tucker in a movie [00:10:00] in 25 years. For the last one you saw, man, he’s driving a WS six route. So I had the opportunity to drive a stock one, and I got to drive Mike Snyder’s, s e c a pro solo car. And Brad remembers that Trans Am. And I tell you what, when you mod a WS six and you’ve really straightened out that suspension and get it dialed in, that car is a handful, but it’s also a hell of a lot of fun.

So mad props to Mike on that suggestion. I actually hadn’t even thought about the WS six. Yeah, the second he brought up Camaro, I’m like, Ooh. You know, it just, it struck a memory of that car. And plus, since the WS six went with the LS motor, you have the whole LS aftermarket to go with. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. Big, big turbos. Big turbos. Yeah. Yeah, mine, mine was an LT one. It was prior to that, but yeah, towards the end they dropped the LS in it. . So is, is the GOAT an option as well, or is that, no, the goat’s later. Right, so that’s a two thousands car, so that won’t work. 2003, two. Well, hang on, hang on. Okay, so this is a good point.

This is a good point. You know, I guess this is up to me. I think some of the best cars from the nineties were made in the early [00:11:00] naughties. Right? They had matured it. They figured it out. Like the NSX you want is one of those last couple, I’ll give you that. Yes. This’s like the best car from the nineties, but yeah, sure it’s from 2002, but whatever.

I don’t care. I’m not picky. Right? You’re E 39 M five s. There’s a lot of really great, I think if you look at its contemporaries at the time, in the early two thousands, they’re like, Ooh, you know, like, okay, it’s still solid. Axels still doing this, it’s still doing that. You know, Mustang had that brief flirtation with independent rear suspension in the cobras, but when you compare it to the nineties cars that it was the mature version of I, I would totally accept, I will totally accept early naughty cars, but it has to be representative of the nineties.

It can’t be like a, uh, You know, like a 9 96 turbo or something, which is like cool, but that’s definitely not a nineties car. Yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha. So mountain man dance. Since we’re talking Gia Mountain Manan. Hi. I’m on board with Mike’s suggestion of the WS six. And for that particular one with the Ram Air was 98 0 2.

So those were the years that they [00:12:00] made that particular version of the WS six. And I’m all on board with that suggestion, Mike. Huge kudos for that. But a question I had for the budget, is that number you threw out the initial purchase? Or does that include modific? No, I want, I want that to be, I want that to be all in.

Right? So it kind of excludes something like an R 34 because it’s not gonna work. Right. But you could do an R 32 and restore it and build it up and you could do a really great, super powerful car for that kind of money. If that’s what, if that’s what you wanted to do. I, I don’t mean to make anyone go discuss, I will not do an Impala ss I’ll tell you that.

Do I can’t do it. But this is the wagon. This is the wagon. What, what’s the callway? It’s the wagon. So you don’t wanna, you don’t wanna drive an upside down bathtub, is what you’re saying. Dax. Dax. I think Shepherd has the, the, the problem was, I think the problem is, is that the SS was really cool for grown as adults in the nineties.

I wasn’t a grown ass adult. So I’m thinking of something that I thought of as [00:13:00] cool in my more informative years of which absolutely the WS six. Well, if we’re, if we’re still talking GM then, you know, we, we were actually debating this internally and it was like C4, Corvette or C5 Corvette, and I’m like, well, the C4 Corvette, the only one in the nineties is any good as the Z one.

And it’s still a C4 Corvette at that point. So what about the C5 Vet zero six as an example? Zero six didn’t come out until 2001. I mean, I could, if he’s talking about his nineties cars Yeah, yeah. Early two thousands. So the, so I wonder if the C5 is maybe the inverse of my prior rule. So my prior rule being like you’d take a mature car that, you know, stretched into the naughties, but if you had, I think of the C5 as a naughties car that came out a couple years, started early years.

Right. And so, you know, not as much, do you have enough chest hair to drive a Corvette? , yes. I’m, I am, I am. And New Balance I have. If I didn’t shave, I would have hair from like here down to my ankles. So it’s totally fine. , um, the, [00:14:00] um, the, my, so I will say, cause as, since we’re on American cars, I have two problems, which I’m gonna have to figure out how to get over if I’m gonna do it.

One is a solid re axle, and two are, the interiors suck in, like, particularly, you know, like a, a c4, even a c5, Corvette. Like, I look at the inside of them and I want to throw up. And the funny thing is, is like, I, you know, I’m not, I don’t mean to be German biased, I love American cars, but like, you can look at an 85.

3 25 b m bmw, and it’s nice, clean, minimalist interior that is totally damn reasonable today. Like you can look at it 40 years later, it’s totally fine. And you look at like a word Americans are doing in the eighties and they have these crazy LCDs, like it all looks like night riders, animations and giant blob buttons, and like some kind of weird sci-fi fighter cockpit interpretation.

I struggle with it a bit. I I’m gonna be totally honest. I I really, the worst that Ted had a c4 and yeah, that giant green bar that went up and went across the dashboard. [00:15:00] Cheap plastic, the thin, thin little crowd, cheap plastic, the buttons. Ugh, that’s, well, even the c5, you think you’re in a trailblazer.

You’re like, what the hell is this? ? No offense to the Corvette owners, I’m just saying it’s not the best until the C six s and seven s when they got their act together. I mean, it was not the best of interiors, but Mount Manam, you had a comment. Chimed in saying that basically they were made with such cheap plastic that if you find something where something inside’s not broken, that’s a diamond in the rough cause.

Whether it be the mounting spot for the switches or something, they always broke. But one thing I was gonna ask is if we’re going for sports stuff and something that was quick on my totus out there, it’s not a car. I knew it, I knew it. I. What about like the typhoon or the cyclone? The typhoon, you can still throw the, in the magazine.

Ooh. Ooh. I love those ideas. I love those ideas. So what fastest could be up until recently for trucks from the factory? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they, they did, uh, four and a half seconds, zero to 60 on the GM C Cyclone, and that thing, that record lasted [00:16:00] until like, like the last Raptor or something. I mean, it was crazy.

So, yeah, I, I love the cyclone idea. I think that’s a ton of fun. I believe that had the Grand National motor in. 3.8 turbo. Yeah, that 3.8 turbo, the inter cooler. So I, I love, I love the grand, I love the Grand National. Uh, I love that motor that realizing the Grand National is a little eighties, but that’s a great way to bring that power plant into the nineties.

So, yeah, no, I love that. The Grand National was a 3.8 and the cyclone, uh, and the typhoon were 4.3. I thought they were three eights. They were the same over, did they just, you like bore or stroke the motor or was it a different power plant? The 4.3, the easiest way to explain it is the three 50 missing two cylinders.

Ah, okay. And everything is just six instead of eight cylinders. And even like front components and everything bolt up the same. One of the four, three off of the three 50 i I seen Mike is back checking. Oh, we’re googling this. Mike’s always back checking right now we’re Googling. It’s the four three. He is right.

Oh wow. He’s Dan, of course he. GM get, you can’t argue with a mountain, [00:17:00] man. I gotta finish this Chevy conversation and just get us off that train before we go down a road. We don’t ever, we can’t ever get back from, it’s true. It’ll become a Chevy episode. I’m gonna go with the 3000 gt. I like that Chevy.

It’s my personal favorite. Everybody says the super or the RX seven, which yes, they’re on my list as well. But the first time I ever saw a 3000 GT in a parking lot, I was like, oh my God, that is a beautiful Ferrari. I had no idea. I was like 12 years old or whatever. I don’t fucking know. Save yourself some money, get a stealth.

It was really, I was thinking the same thing. This is beautiful. It’s just a good looking car. All-wheel drive. You can get the VR four, you can turbo the hell out of ’em. I love this idea as a kid, you read the car magazines, which I read religiously. My parents couldn’t get me to read a religious text, but I would read Car and Driver and MotorTrend every month that had came to my house and they would always do the big three comparison, right?

The 300 zx, which is another car that was a nineties car came out in 89 or whatever, right? A little before it’s time. It was huge. Right. But they’d like a [00:18:00] 300 SEC zx, a mark four, 3000 gtv, or four twin, you know, turbos and everything and RX seven. And they do the comparison. And I always wanted the VR four to win, cuz I thought it was the coolest looking car of the group by a mile.

And it always got its ass kicked. It was always the fastest in grand charisma though. The gto, . Oh my God. But it, it would like always lose cause it was so fat. The car weighed like 800 pounds more than all of its competitors. But it’s supposed to be a great GT car is supposed to drive really well. It’s supposed to be a great driver’s car.

I I, I definitely like that idea. I wonder if the Dodge stealth is a little bit of a, uh, of a sleeper choice from our perspective of, you know, kind of not what people are expecting. I don’t think it’s as pretty particularly the late model VR four s. Right. So that’s a late one you show. Yeah, and you know, cause they went away from the pop-up headlights I think in 98, if I remember.

Obviously not. Yeah. This is a 98. Not a Stockinger or 97, not a stockinger cooler than that, but yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I love them. The only [00:19:00] thing that worried me about the VR four s is if you’ve ever seen one under the hood, it’s transverse. That’s the disadvantage I thought it always had against the 300 ZX or the Supra or whatever.

Those being a classic, you know, front mount rear drive layout. The VR four was just like, ah, okay, so, so you wonder if in post life, in, in modification if you could help it get past that. Like, cuz you’re right, it’s a front wheel biased all wheel drive system. Because of that, it’s also got a lot of weight up front.

So the weight distribution isn’t great, isn’t it? Like if you change the, the gear ratio a little bit between the front and the back, like that’s what they did with like, the focus rs where it was just like, like a, you know, a few percent faster in the back. It puts a lot of pressure on the clutch in the middle, but it causes the power to go to the rear.

Right. Uh, and, and, and you can kind of fix that bias in the, in the all-wheel drive system that way. But like, again, because nobody’s really gotten into these cars yet. We’re just starting to get into this trend of 40 year olds having money and deciding they’re gonna dump it [00:20:00] into this pit of car modification and whatever, restoration.

I don’t think people have really figured that out yet. Like you don’t see any great, well-documented path. The only problem I have with the Japanese cars in this era is that we’ve already listed 80% of the good ones. Right? Because if you, if you looked, I mean, outside of the RX seven and all the ones that we’ve already mentioned, there’s a couple Sylvia’s, there’s some other cars that we didn’t get and things like that, that were Japanese only, but there wasn’t a whole lot of JDM offerings in the us.

There were really that awesome. Oh God. Brad just put one up. Hey, Lou . Oh. Just for Brian. Just for Brian Haw. Who? Yeah. Cause he’s listening to, he’s listening to this screaming, what about the prelude? And I’m like, , there you go. But I don’t know how much prelude, I don’t know how much hoan you can do with that unless you can’t.

Front wheel drive, you got, it’s like 170 horsepower or 200 in the sh. The sh. I remember at the time that they made such a deal like that has a laser that measures the suspension and adjusts. It’s [00:21:00] ridiculous. Was that the one with the four wheel steering or was it the Mitsubishi? Yep. Four wheel steering.

Four wheel. Passive steering was, did they have the four wheel steering in that generation? I know they did in the, in the generation prior. I can’t, yeah. I believe it was in this generation as well. Type R Integra. Like if you’re throwing this up there. Yeah, like that’s, that’s a 2000, 2001 car. But that’s like the pinnacle of nineties.

You can’t get too much power out of those though. Or the civics, the civic type bars from that time. That’s just the money problem. Too much power. You just gotta build this shit out of the mo. Well, yeah. And this all the skylines, right? And the R 30 twos and 30 threes. I’ve been talking to some people, the 30 threes are becoming really popular because they were unwanted to begin with.

The joke I heard was the R 32 skyline is the one you took to the track, the R 30 fours, the one you took to the shows and the drag races and the R 33 was the one you bought your wife. But when I look at the R 33, it’s kind of indicative of the nineties design in general. It’s just kind of this mobious marshmallow on wheels.

Like they’re all kind of look the same after a while. But the one car it brings [00:22:00] to my attention and I thought of, and it’s on my list and it’s kind of the same car, but in, in two different trims. The Toyota, so, which is also the Lexus SC four. All right. Right. So you can hoon the hell out of that thing because it’s basically a two Jay-Z.

Just like a Supra, right? Well the SC 300 is and then you do a two Jay-Z swap. The SC 400 was the VA’s v8. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. But you get so, so yeah, I think, I think the Lexus SC is a great option to to think about. Right? That could be a lot of fun. And they had a manual that you could get with them that would absolutely be really interesting.

And you’re not paying the super tax either, right? You can have the same car, slightly larger, put your kids in it. It’s a bit of a sleeper if you think about it in comparison, you could make 900 horsepower outta that two Jay-Z pretty easily. There’s a flip side to the Supertax though, which is like the Supertax is the, the super is, is really the only one that is like really, I think, really completely mature in regards to like they’ve absolutely figured out every corner of that car, you can get [00:23:00] reliably a ton of horsepower out of it.

You know, it’s gonna fail when you know how to make it work. There are no rabbit holes left or quests to, you know, Don Kioti type things to try and figure out. I mean, don’t get me wrong, like I’ve definitely been looking on eBay or, or Autotrade or whatever and be like, I. Buy this guy’s $150,000 car for 80 grand and you know, that would be pretty cool.

And, and, but then that’s somebody else’s build. I mean, exactly right. But like, you know, you’re, you’re getting it for 50 cents on the dollar and yeah, you go in and you fix whatever you gotta fix to get it sort out. It’s not gonna be perfect when you get it by any means. Uh, you’ll certainly save a lot of money going into it that way.

Buy somebody else’s money pit and then get it sorted. So what is the goal, intent for the vehicle? Is it gonna be something you street, something you track? Great, great question. I don’t see it being a racetrack car, so maybe, maybe quarter mile not to see that on like, trying to, you know, make a nine second car or something.

But like, I think, I think it might be fun to take outta the quarter mile, but [00:24:00] yeah, no, I mean, mainly street drive around, have fun cars and coffee type thing. Take, take, take the kids somewhere, go to cars and coffee, remind them what cars used to be like my kids. I mean, not cars and coffee. They know . Um, and uh, And, and and ha just have some fun.

Hooligan is, I believe the word I picked at the beginning. That’s true. I’m throw it out there. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be good for carrying the kids around, but a two 40 sx, there’s a ton you can do with those. I loved those. And the, and the little infinity variant of that, I forget what they called it. A G 20 or something maybe.

Yeah, the two 40 and the infinity version absolutely will be. Well the problem is for a hundred grand he can buy about 37 of those cuz there ain’t worth the damn so . But they’re all missing their front bumpers cuz they fell off at the drift circuit . A hundred percent. Right. Those are the ones they slow.

They put the solid axles in . Yeah, exactly. And it’s a 43 0 2 under the hood. The two 40. The problem is they’re so expensive cause of the guys drifting. [00:25:00] Totaled them and wrecked them and destroyed them. But if you do wind up with a two 40, I just happen to have a body kit there. Ooh, that’s fun. , he said rolling his eyes.

So going back to a, uh, good old American car that fully, if it’s, the criteria is it’s at least not the, the, the early SN 95. So the 1999 Ford Mustang Cobra, which was the first year of the more squared off design. So that’s a SN 95. Right? But then there’s also S 95 with the new body. There’s also the 93.

Cobra, s v t, which is the last of the fox body. So you kind of have it on both ends of the nineties, right? Depending on what you’re into. But even if you buy a Fox body, I think you’re in the same camp that, like Bobby Parks is in, you throw the 3 0 2 in the trash and you put an LS in it and built like a 1200 horsepower monster.

Well, but at least that one, the, the Cobra specifically comes with the independent rear. That’s true. No, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re absolutely right. That’s a, that is a great car. I think it looks really. . [00:26:00] I think that’s a great option. I do like that it has independent rear suspension and, and that it’s, it’s gotten it.

It’s funny how they went away from that later, right? In the later, uh, GT 500 s, they, they put the solid axle back in. It’s a good move by forward, in my opinion. Bracer, Ron’s on the panel. Do we want to get some input from him? So, um, I think you guys have a lot of really great ideas. You’re throwing a lot of good stuff out there.

The situation is balanced between how nice a machine you can get up front. It’s not lowly wrecked like a A2 40 is gonna be trash period. I mean, they just, and a lot of this you get from Japan is trash too, right? It just is. They’re all used up. So that’s totally out of the picture. But think of American iron is not a bad way to go.

A lot of perspectives, you know, the least of them being, you can usually find someone to actually work on. It’s, um, without spending a hell of a lot of money because the Supras, that’s a specialty guy. You know, BMW guys are never real cheap, but, Doesn’t sound like you’re really gonna go the BMW direction.

So I, I would definitely underestimate thinking about America . I mean, I would [00:27:00] definitely be thinking strong about American art. I like the GT 3000. I think it’s a good car. I think the, the W Series are also good cars. They’re complicated though, and they’re not cheap to work on either. Absolutely. So, um, yeah, it’s a tough call.

You can do real well. Really cheap with the Cobra. I mean, there’s no, there’s no two ways about it. You either save yourself some money for another toy, you just buy a couple of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. The Zuzu, VRO is one that you should totally do. negative . Oh, wait, no, the the one, the other one I brought up in chat is the Monte Carlo SS Tasmanian Devil Edition.

Oh God. Oh God. Hey, what the. They, they made that, is that like the Bugs Bunny Venture band thing that they did? Uh, why don’t you just tell me to get the Dale Earnhardt edition . Well, so more of the Dale Earnhardt ones. They had the Intimidator and then they had the Dale Junior Edition, and then they had the Tasmanian Devil Edition.

Okay. We’ve talked about, Americans talked about Japanese. You alluded to some [00:28:00] Italians there at the beginning. Let’s talk about the Italians for a second. Fiat . Yeah. The, yeah, for sure. A hundred percent. That’s, that’s a winner, you know, f F 3 55. Uh, I mean, as. Good looking and evolution of the three series as they are.

They have a horror story, you know, nightmare reputation behind them for reliability. But there’s a couple other Italians behind that same era that I think are better maybe as a sleeper if you’re thinking about going in that direction. What about the Maserati 3,200 GT precursor to the coup? Is that the evolution of the by turbo?

Was it like the same chassis setup or negative? So it’s, it’s the swoopy one that kind of looks like an astin or a jag, which later become the coupe. And then like the current body style that it’s now, it’s like the beginning of that lineage. So they sold 27 of them in the United States? I, I think so, yes.

Yeah. Um, , speaking of finding somebody to work on, no. I mean, actually I don’t know anything about that car. It wasn’t on [00:29:00] my radar, so it sounds really interesting. I like the idea of, of learning about that. I really don’t know much about it. W you know, which is, I don’t have too many gaps, but that’s definitely one of them.

I also don’t know any shit about French cars from the nineties either. Don’t bother. It’s not worth it. , I was gonna say, just pack a lot of wine and cheese from when you’re broken down on the side of the road to buy French. Yes. So Brad has a picture of it. Wait back. It’s that. Because they made that car up until like 2008.

I know, cuz I lived in San Diego. It got re everyone drove one, it got renamed to the coupe and so originally it was the 3,200 gt. Oh. And so that’s, that’s what it is. It’s the precursor to those, you know what we know now to be kind of the current, you know, lineage of Maseratis, but there’s enough. So that was like the or so that was like the early grand there mo of today.

Correct. Yeah. It, those things were so popular in San Diego. You could pick that car up like four, five years old with 25,000 miles on it for 20 grand. Exactly. It’s a bargain really. I mean, and it’s a Ferrari power plant and all the fun stuff that goes along with that. But it’s not a [00:30:00] Ferrari. Right. So, Yeah, I don’t, I don’t gonna put air quotes around it.

I don’t know what the one in the, I don’t know. I mean, did they make a manual with it? Because later they didn’t And they only had a single clutch, correct. Uh, automated, you know, pseudo manual and that clutch was seven grand to replace and it went out about every 6,000 miles. And I know because my boss had one.

And, and does that fun, does that fun stuff at the Ferrari engine include removing the engine from the car every like 5,000 miles to completely rebuild it? No, no, no. The fun stuff is open pipes, so you could really hear it sing. That’s what I was doing. Yeah. No, I mean, don’t me wrong. The sound was great. So my boss had had one of those, although it was like a 2008 or whatever, but the sound was great.

The intake noise was a ton of fun. Like I, I lo like you could hit the gas and use hurt. It sounded like an angry dragon was sucking in air and it was really cool. So the, the engine was great. It’s fat. It is a, it is a big, it is bigger than it looks. Yes. Like a lot of cars are the other way around. That thing is bigger than it looks.

And a weigh is like 4,200 pounds. Speaking of bigger than it looks. And also coming from [00:31:00] Italy. How about the five 50 Martinello? You can’t get those for a hundred grand anymore. I would love to get one and, and, and, and if I was smart, I would instead of. This would’ve bought a five 50 Marinella for a hundred grand.

It’d be worth 200 grand a day. You cannot find a good five 50 for a hundred grand anymore. If we can please point me in the direction. But the five 50 s were cool cuz they were manual only, which I actually think is why the, the values have gone up so much as opposed to like a 4 56 or something else. 3 55 or whatever.

Yeah. The five 50 was only that six speed gated and the, the valuations have literally doubled in like the last four years. It’s crazy. I seeing, what is that, an RS six, A nineties RS six. It’s a five Turbo. B five, S four. Oh, okay. Five Turbo. Yeah. We didn’t get a ton of power out of ’em. Not very reliable. But they’re, you seem fun to look at in fast.

Audi. Audi was still in the dog doghouse in the nineties, so it was a huge gap for me. I only knew one person who, whose family had an Audi and they, they weren’t in the car magazines. They like, they were just, you [00:32:00] know, you’d read about, you’d read about AMGs, you’d read about m cars, but like Audi just didn’t exist until the naughties.

It was like, it just disappeared and then came back. When I was in high school, I knew one person who had an Audi and his entire family had about 50 of them, and he’s in that other screen up there. . . That is true. We’ve had way too many, we, we lived through the nineties Audis, man. But you know, speaking of, since we’re talking about Audis right now, it makes sense to bring up the S eight from Ronan.

That’s a late nineties car, and it’s also a sleeper. You know, you’re talking. That’s a great idea. I love you guys. That suggestion made this whole thing worth it. I love that idea. . Not saying I’m gonna do it definitively, but like, I wasn’t even thinking about a dinner curry. I love Ronan. I mean, you know, all this cool, uh, double clutching was in a pojo, I think, but whatever.

Yeah, great idea. Love it. Put some, yeah. And those cars back then, you’re talking somewhere, you know, south of 400 horsepower, but it’s easy to untap the four two and get more power out of it. Well, hang on real quick [00:33:00] as we’re, as we’re going down this path with the, with the Audi. What, what about some engine swaps?

I, I’ve kind of kicking around some ideas, right? Like what if I put the E 39 M five motor, which I, pardon me, I forget the designation S 62 or something. I don’t remember the E 39 M five motor, but like put that in an E 40. I think there might be an opportunity to create, cuz I do want something that’s kind of unique.

I think there might be some fun ideas around, around doing something like that. I’m wondering if you guys have any, that’s Pandora’s box. Crazy, crazy thoughts on thematically appropriate engine swaps. Right? So like, one of the coolest cars I think I’ve ever seen is an original two 40 Z, like a 1971 or two or whatever that had a skyline, but like a mm-hmm , like an R 33.

Inline six dropped in it, right? And it’s like, here it is kind of, you know, four generations later of that motor of the original inline six in there. Obviously not for a nineties car, but like what, what do we think might be a, a thematically cool engine swap type idea. It’s probably not a popular opinion.

A lot of people [00:34:00] call it a hairdresser’s car. But I actually like the eight series. It was on my list as well as one of my top three suggestions. I definitely liked the eight series I I was, I was so disappointed as a kid that how slow they were, because they looked so fast. , they look badass. I mean, they looked so cool and then they were like not actually fast.

Even the V12 was just kinda like, why did you put a V12 in it? If that’s all it’s gonna do. And there’s three different motor packages for the v12. There’s like a five oh, a five four and a five six or something like that. So if you’re gonna get one, you get the later one because at least they figured it out and you get slightly more horsepower.

So, so be it. The biggest problem that the uh, V12 S ran into was the early V12 s were nothing but two six cylinders. and the failure points were enormous. Like the throttle bodies were $1,500 a piece. And they failed in pairs. They failed in pairs, which apparently was bad. , you know, the, the one thing you hadn’t mentioned, you’re talking about Audis and you know, the A eight and the a l were neat cars, but I had probably the more advanced version [00:35:00] of that because of the time period and the te.

Which was the original Audi v8. They were, from a technology standpoint, amazing. But you know, they also used probably some of the worst technology ever available. . , well let’s make a V8 by taking two 16 valves and putting ’em together. Right? I mean, it’s a kind of, that’s what they were doing back then, cuz it, I don’t know why.

That’s what Ford did to Aston Martin. Right? Exactly. Exactly. As soon as they bought ’em, they’re like, here, take this Ford Taurus and times it by two. Uh, if we’re still talking about the Audis, I mean, like to Brad’s point, I mean, we grew up at one point, I think we had three Coop Quatros, right? But that was the beginning of the nineties.

So that was the beginning of the round period, right? Where it’s like, okay, here’s a marshmallow and, and four wheels. So those early Audis kind of all look the same. You know, the 90 Cs sport, the, the Quatro, all that kind of stuff. Even the 100, they weren’t anything to write home about. But it’s not until you got to the B five S four or to the S eight where it kind of, they started to change their mind and started to go in, in an aggressive direction.

And then, [00:36:00] you know, Audi now is, is 180 out from there again. So I think there’s some cool stuff there. It’s just a matter of digging deeper and seeing what you can do. So to Eric’s point, I’ve got your car for you right now. All right, let’s do it. It’s an Audi coop. Quatro. It’s in Eric’s garage right now.

It’s got a motor swap. It’s already done. It’s true. He just needs some tlc. He’ll sell it to you for a hundred grand right now, . It’s true. It is an S eight motor in there. So it’s 400 horse. Yep. And it was featured in European car for anybody that’s listening many, many years ago, so. Wow. So it’s a famous car too.

Look at that. That’s true. Original one off, original six speed. Does it, does it cut? Do you have original? You have the, do you have the magazine article like Uh, yeah, you have. There you go. Yep. Well that was the only one that ran in the country, if I recall. That’s true. And then we did a Ur Quattro with a three six swap from the car that Matt was talking about, the original VA Quatro.

So we had two kind of unicorns at the, but that other car is no longer available, but he’s still got the one for sale. A hundred grand . Yeah, [00:37:00] I’ll take offers. A hundred percent five. But you know, since we talked about Audi and you know, we, we’ve, we’ve touched on some cars that might be unreliable. Let’s talk about British cars for a minute.

And Brad flashed up the espree. What do you think about that? I loved those cars when I was a kid. There was, I think getting a lot of power outta ’em was the problem. Yeah. There was nothing cooler. Was that V8 any good? I know it was like a 3.5 liter twin turbo v8. No, the transmission was the best part of that car.

You’re gonna slow Wasn’t the French? No, it was out of aeo. Apparently , the Moneo gets a bad rap and it really wasn’t a bad car. They loved the Moneo, an old top gear. They talked about the, they talked about the Moneo, like it was the greatest family car you could ever buy. Oh, it was everywhere in Germany too, because you did a billion things to it and we called it the Jaguar X type in this country.

Yes. Yeah. Or the S V T contour. Which The SVT contour was a, was a surprisingly nice car. In fact, I have a friend who has one that’s 20,000 miles on it, [00:38:00] original clutch, and they were neat cars. I mean, they were small cars too. But you know, remember that this is in a time period when a big car was with a five.

Yeah. And what’s five series size today? It’s like a, it’s like a three series that, that I always said about my F 82 or 85 M three that I bought. The 2015 M three that I bought. It was the E 39. I always wanted, that generation of three series is bigger than that nineties, five series, you know, and, and it was like, this is, this is the M five that I want.

Of course, the M five now is a boat . Oh, I, and so I’m just buying the M three, but since we’re talking about engine swaps, the Brits are pretty famous for jamming weird motors in kind of just normal cars. And that’s why I wanted to bring up and talk about the Brits, because the answer here in America, Is LS swapped the world.

We already know that. So there’s no other swap here over there. It’s the Land Rover V8 and all things , but I came across two cars and the And the Land Rover. No. Tell us. Tell us, what about the Land Rover? The [00:39:00] Land Rover V8 sucks. , there’s nothing to write home about because it’s nothing but the three nine redone and the later ones the four fours and the four six s are BMW motors, which is fine, but they’re BMW motors.

Yeah, I think, I think they use, I think they use ’em over there simply because that’s what they have available. That’s very true. So speaking of cars that have BMW motors swapped into them from the factory, and this is why I wanted to bring up British cars. What about the Bentley Arage, which came with a 4.4 liter turbocharge BMW engine, or the optional six and threequarter liter turbo and that’s another sleeper.

I’m not sure I have the patience. To own one of those cars in the sense that it’s gonna spend at least six months out of the year in the shop. You know? And then looking at the gap of my garage more, more days than it’s filled would be difficult. , because you’re gonna be waiting for parts forever. So the other one I came up on the Brit list, and they are famous for, this is [00:40:00] Jaguar.

We are talking Jack, I drive a G and it’s the Xj R with the supercharge four liter. It makes 370 horsepower, zero to 60 and 5.6 seconds, and electronically limited to 155 miles an hour. I think that car’s kind of cool because it’s understated, it’s a Jag. You’re like, ah, it’s a Jag looking Anything else, but it’s gonna put you in your place from traffic light to traffic light.

Yeah, I think the Xjs great. The, the old X Ks, I mean, it still kind of looks like an eighties car, but man, You just, you look at that. That’s, that’s such, I I still think it’s such a cool looking car and I don’t know when they came out the more modern looking xk. That might have been like 99 or something.

No, I mean, I think Jags, they’re so good looking and in the nineties I think you still get some of that authentic British, uh, cigar library type feel to it. Whereas like by the two thousands that that’s turned into some cartoonish caricature of itself. The, the XJ R was a sleeper two because like the M [00:41:00] five, you really had to look at it to notice the difference.

Exactly, and that’s why I brought that car up. I think it’s a fantastic option. If you’re looking for a sleeper that you can hone around in, no one will expect that Jag to be able to put that kind of power down and being supercharged, turn the WIC up to 11 and see what happens. Right. Put some pulleys on it.

Bigger inner coolers. See what you can do when, when you’re speaking of like the cars from either England or Europe in general. The little thing that I was doing a while back. Is if you go on to like ebay.co uk, which is England’s eBay, you go on there and look for the car you’re interested in and then shipping it over here, even buying at their price and shipping it, you’re still in it for less than a half of what people here states.

I will be selling the same car. So I’ve spent a lot of time in London for work. I have to spend a bunch of time at Canary Wharf in the um, the used car values are so low, it’s crazy how cheap because they’re so afraid of gasoline prices. So the crazy asshole buys it new cuz they love the car and they don’t care how much they’re gonna pay for petrol and 80 billion [00:42:00] pounds per English gallon or whatever.

They don’t care. But then used, it’s worth nothing. . Absolutely. And so had some coworkers that repat, you know, patriated over there immigrated, I, we should just say immigration. I think that’s, they’re immigrants. The, but the point being is that they, uh, they’re over there now and they love the cars. Like they’re, they’re buy, they, they’re so excited all the crap they can buy and how cheap it is.

You’re absolutely right. That’s a great, that’s a great thought. Buying it and shipping it from there is still cheaper. Now you end up with a right hand drive car. Particularly now you’re shifting stick left-handed. Certainly I’m ambidextrous. I don’t know about you when it comes to shifting . Let’s, let’s kinda, let’s too, I’d like to bring up another car.

Can we introduce another, another mark? Absolutely. Ron, go ahead. Panos, I have that on my list. The Esper Esper man, I mean out of the box halls ass gorgeous car. And it’s made with American Iron. It is a modular Ford under, under the hood. Yep. So, so I [00:43:00] just wanted to bring it up because I, I love those cars.

They’re, they’re just beautiful cars. Little picture up brown. I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve seen one of these. Uh, Esper Maiden maiden gek. You need to find one of Brett’s disassembled. One . The nice thing about the five liter Ford is if you can’t add power to a five liter Ford, you should really give up.

Yeah, it’s like, it’s like a small block Chevy. I mean, that’s, that’s a good looking car. We haven’t talked about, we haven’t talked about tv. That makes me think of the Tvrs. Yes. That was on my list. The server, the, the server was, was so hot in video games. Even, even some of, you know what some of the eighties tvrs look like, nineties cars.

They were always so far ahead of their time and being out there, uh, you know, fiberglass, crazy assholes that they were. I think tv, that’s a really fun option. I’ve been thinking so much. I’ve been trolling j d m sites about like buying something in Japan. I’m importing it over and like, I haven’t even been looking at the uk and that could be a lot of fun.

And you can get skylines from the [00:44:00] UK as. and they’re a lot cheaper than getting ’em from Japan. A lot of people don’t realize that. So we don’t mention Morgan . I mean, they’ve looked the same since like 1920. Right. So I mean, can you So, so they, they make that, they made in the nineties they had that four.

So of course they have the three wheeler. No thanks. But they made that, the arrow they made forever in the, they had that in the nineties and back then it was still wood frame, which assuming it hasn’t been eaten out or something, might be interesting. No, but they, they made an arrow, which was different because the Morgan like four four and four eight or whatever the hell they were, those were the classic look that arrow eight or whatever the hell it was.

It was almost like a cartoon. When they redid the body, it was like a cartoon gangster car. Yeah, exactly. That’s cross, yeah, from, from prohibition. Like if, if somebody from Prohibition smoked did some L S D or something and then we’re like, yeah, we . Well, Brad just threw up a suggestion, which got there, Brad, the show.

I thought they didn’t make this car. They didn’t, did they [00:45:00] make this car? I remember I’ve seen one in person at an auto cross. Yeah, but they only made like five. I remember watching a documentary, I remember watching a show in the nineties where Shelby was doing donuts in that car. Probably that exact same car.

He was still alive. Than dirt. Hey, we had a guy here who had a, he owned a Twoit yourself garage and he had the Shelby one, two, and 49 were built. 249. That’s more nice. That’s a lot more than I thought. That’s, yeah, it’s, it was 80 k new, if I remember correctly, from my childhood. I’ve seen one in person though.

They’re slick, so, but it doesn’t look too different than the Payos though. In all, in all these, no, I think they were competitors here. Here’s something we haven’t thought about. You know what else blew up in the nineties in car culture Kit Cars. Yes. Cobra kit car. Like I’ve, I keep looking at Cobra Kits.

One of my coworkers has a great back draft with a BMW three series suspension in it. It’s independent rear, multi-leg front, and you forward racing crate motor in it. Ah, man. I it’s, [00:46:00] but then you’re, you’re just taking a car that may have come out in the nineties, but it’s based off a car from like the sixties.

It is, but, but it’s definitely a more, it, it is certainly an interpretation of it though. It, it is. Not that you know, that, that original car, but that was just such a craze. Right. And you remember, you remember walking around as a kid, you’d see. These kit cars like everywhere. Like you don’t see too many Cobra kits out on the road.

Mm-hmm. , I, I remember back then you used to see ’em all the damn time. There’s also the, the Ferrari kit cars that were built off the Firo off Punta, off the Firo. I think Dan’s got one buried in his property somewhere. . Oh my god, yet, not yet. Oh my God, that’s terrible. So since we’re still sort of talking about British cars, there’s one that we’ve probably forgotten about, which I happen to stumble across, which was the Aston DB seven.

The first really modern looking gorgeous correct. Aston. Correct. The DB Aston Martin Jaguar xk. Yes. Understated, underappreciated. Probably mostly forgotten at this point because of the DB nine and the DB nine [00:47:00] s and all the successors An affordable nineties car. If you’re looking for something quasi exotic, you can find one.

If you can find one with a manual in it. Wasn’t that a, a supercharged six cylinder? I believe it was. I think the DB seven was the first time they put the Ford Taurus V6 S together and made the V12 S. Oh, yeah. But I thought they had a straight six, DB seven. I think I’d have to go back and double check.

But there’s all these, there’s always those packages and swap outs. The Brits that love doing that, like, oh, we created a body and let’s jam another motor in it, you know, call it something else. I have a memory of them selling DB seven s pretty well. In fact, I remember that being the first time I actually really saw people driving in Aston Martin.

You’d have to go down to Potomac or somewhere where there were rich people, but like, no, certainly not in Frederick. That was the first quote unquote new. Aston Martin. And how long since? Since the Lagonda, I think it was the War . Well, yeah. Yeah. Well that was, that’s always been the British philosophy. Why invent something new and you can continue to use what you’ve been doing [00:48:00] for 50 years.

Can I put a Dodge Caravan up there? Huh? The ultimate nineties car. A brand new hell hat. Redeye. ? Yes. Cause it is a 1998 Mercedes class. Bingo. Go with a 900 horsepower V8 in it because everything Ammg wanted to do in the nineties, but couldn’t nineties. Not talked about the Pontiac Sunfire. I just want to know, it reminds me of the Chevy Cavali.

I would, I would love to get a Pontiac on Pontiac on fire. I did have a 1989 Chevy Cavalier first car, but I would love to get one just to pour gasoline on it later on fire. And what will you do with the remaining $99,550 to spend? Yeah. Something else. Well, I’m gonna throw out there, what is it? The, uh, Volvo C 70, I think it was.

I like those from the saints. What are the, the, so the sobs? Yeah. You can’t ignore Volvos and sobs. Yeah, you can

When did, [00:49:00] when did, when did the A 50 R come out? Was that 2000 or 2001? I don’t know. I feel like it was kind of a 19, no, the eight 50, well, the eight 50 R maybe, but the eight 50 turbos, those were out in the. Yeah, and they look exactly like that. Dodge Caravan. I had one, I had a, I had a 19 95 8 50 T five R.

It was only for one year. Cause the RS are only the first and second year. Fantastic car. Loved it. Well that was probably the absolute first Volvo in like what, 30 years. That was not, you know, the V 1800 was a cool car. Yeah, I agree. You know. Then what’d you end up with? Two 40 and the 2 42. You know, look, look at us.

Drive boxes. They’re safe and they’re fast. Those are fastest. One man. And you’re talking about motor swaps Is. . Remember the car that Paul Newman drove? It was a seven 40 with a five liter Ford. Cause it fits. Yeah, that’s true. That was pretty cool. They drove that car on, uh, an episode of, uh, Seinfeld’s Comedians cars and Coffee with like, David Letterman has one as well that Paul [00:50:00] Newman built for him.

It’s a, it’s a cool sleeper. And if you go back to your engine swap thing, I think Matt’s right on it. I mean, it’s like a Volvo making 400 horse with a Ford crate motor in it. That’s kind of cool actually. Oh, Brad’s onto something. I’m going in that direction. So let’s talk about Germans get a hammer. That would be great.

I could do a hammer tribute. That would be a lot of fun. Well, I was thinking brass, pick yourself up a brass Mercedes because people have forgotten about those cars and that’s a precursor to the AMGs that we’re used to today. Absolutely. Well, I mean, I think by the 90. A g had definitely brass was the, the underdog by that point, A m g had really blown up.

But no, I, I think the thing that’s hard to appreciate though is they, they really, the, the volumes were so low, like on those, they’re genuinely, genuinely hard to find. But I agree. I think that’s a great idea. Problem. Of course, Mercedes never put a manual in anything. True, true they did, but only in the one 90 E.

Yeah. Or the diesels or something crazy. Hold on. But before we go there, so manual is a [00:51:00] requirement. I won’t say that it is a requirement. I’m pretty open, but it there, there’s gonna have to be some real compelling things that bring me in. I, I mean, I love that car behind you. I love those wheels. God, those are so cool.

This is the 500 e with the Porsche, uh, drive. Train, yeah. The ones that Porsche did the drive, train, assembly on. Yeah. Yeah. I lo I love that car. I think that’s a very fun idea right there. But that just makes sure a European taxi cab driver, I don’t, they, you know what, no one in Carroll County knows what a European taxi cab driver drives.

I guarantee you. That’s true. I’ll give you that. That’s very bad. You mean taxi cash? Why about why not a Crown Vic . Yeah. I was gonna say no Impala ss no Mercury Marauder. They’re both great cars. I don’t want one . Well, the real, the real sleeper Mercedes is not the 500 E, but the 400 E. Cause that was a 300 E with a v8.

Oh, interesting. So it looked just like the 300 E, except it happens to have a V8 in, they were nice cars. They weren’t as exclusive as the [00:52:00] 500. But they also weren’t nearly as pricey or as, not finicky, but just fragile isn’t even the right word. When stuff breaks into 500 E, you just kind of bend over with a 400 E, a lot of it’s just off the shelf for safety, which I guess could be the same about the sl, right?

So the SL 500 I always thought was a gorgeous car, but to your point, doesn’t come in a manual. I guess one of the criteria I was gonna do an sl. I definitely do the 600 because v12 and the biggest problem with the SL 600 is it is a fucking whale . It is so heavy, but it is, you’re, you’re not getting shit outta that SL 500 either.

That’s, I’m gonna throw out another idea. It’s a car. On the uh, panel right now. That might be for sale if you gave enough money. It’s a manual. It’s German, it’s four doors with a v8. It’s a seven 40. Oh, that’s true. With a manual swap. Yeah. See that’s another swap. Now you were talking about engine swaps.

Talking about [00:53:00] tranny swaps, right? Yeah, so, so the one thing that’s really distracted me from this to go a little afield of nineties car has been a Ferrari F four 30 with a manual swap. It’s like you buy an F four 30 for 80 grand, you put, you put a $25,000 transmission swap in it, and you have a very, very cool fucking car.

That’s true. I’ll give you that. I could see that as a valid distraction. I always struggled with my last M three because had that electronic differential, I had to like think about what the computer was gonna decide to do with the diff and, and that’s what I love. The difference with the, the manual GT three s is they put a mechanical differential in it, whereas with the PDK is they, they go electronic and, and they, they try to go best track time.

But like, I, I agree with you. It, it was distracting, like where I thought the backend would step out on me on the M three. Like, I’d even get to the point where like, I, I was about to like, try to counter steer and then, yeah. And the diff would fix it and I’m just like, what the , I can’t, I can’t stay ahead of you.

Like, [00:54:00] what, what are you doing? I, I had friends who had the newer AMG cars, the thing I disliked the most about them. It saves you, it saves you from stupidity, it sends you from anything you want to do to it. And I’ve said this many times before, I like cars. You have to respect the fact that anybody can get in there and push the pedal to the floor, turn the wheel sometimes and let the car fix the rest of it.

There’s no challenge in that. There’s no fun in that. I couldn’t agree more. You know, the, that viper mentality, they didn’t put traction control in until they were federally mandated to, you know, your traction control is the pedal, the your, and your, and your brain. Well, it’s funny, it’s funny that you say that.

I’ve, I’ve heard a lot about on the nineties cars that like when you try to track them, the ab bs can get really confused and it can Oh yeah, it can, it can actually think it’s on ice and so then it doesn’t break very effectively. Sometimes like it, it gets confused and then you can’t break into a turn and you hit a wall.

E 36 is love to do that. That’s true. I was gonna say, I’m [00:55:00] surprised it’s taken this long for the Viper to be mentioned. God damn it. I was saving it. I was saving it. That’s my crown jewel. I know. I, I, I I figured you would’ve led with your favorite car, but, you know, no, save the best for last. You gotta start at the top.

You know, I’m gonna break it down to a complete bare basic one. It’s where you can fit in multiple, in a place of one vehicle if you want to. Oh God. Just an Austin Mini Cooper. I mean, they’re cool ass fun little cars to drive. Yeah. And they built ’em forever. They were the same up until the, the, the Fatties came out.

I mean, the, the new Minis came out, but, uh, not the Yeah, not the, not the BMW mini, the real mini, correct, correct. Yeah. They built those in England up until the two thousands in the old style. Yep. I love all parts of Carl Karcher. I, I appreciate the minis for what they are, but it’s not, it just doesn’t, it’s not, you doesn’t get me outta bed in the morning.

I think, I think the Viper, you know, we talked a little bit about like cars that. The best 90 cars, nineties cars being made in 2001 or oh two. Yes. The best nineties Viper from 2016 [00:56:00] would be a great purchase. , you can still buy those new today on any Dodge lot. You can still go, you can still find a Dodge dealer that never sold that car.

Hey, that right next to the Dodge Dart and the PT Cruiser. At any rate, right? Shout out to Ramo. That’s right. A hundred percent. The Viper is number one on my list by far. But in your case, see, I’m, I’m a, I’m a, I’m like a purist. I want a Targa. I just, I just want a target because it’s the original, it’s like a cobra.

The whole, when they, when they first came out that GTS where I Exactly, that’s where I was going. Still. I still remember when I was, I must, I think I was a junior in high school when they first came outta gts. The odd, that car was gorgeous, so it still. White looking blue stripes and that hood scoop.

Nobody had hood scoops back then, except the W six of course thing was, was uh, was evil looking. It was great. There’s sub a hundred. You can still get a GTS coop for less than you guys are missing. You guys are missing the, uh, the best Chrysler product. That was not a [00:57:00] viper. I already should. That’s a low bar.

Just so we’re clear. It’s a low, low bar, but go ahead, please tell us the SR 10 truck. Yes. Yes. They put that V 10 in the truck. It was a great car, great truck. I drove one of those. It was the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever driven. I’ve driven, I’ve driven lighting. The SRT 10 truck is way more, fuck, I, I, I go, I think I’d go cyclone though.

I think I’d go cyclone you on that. To drive home the dangerousness of the original vipers. I was talking to another instructor at an h, HP d e and he said one day a guy showed up in a viper and uh, he was talking to, to his coach. He goes, yeah, yeah, this is my third viper. I totaled the other two, so I figured I’d better learn how to drive it.

oh God. And then he totaled the third one at the track. . I still want one. I don’t care. I still want one. That’s that, that reminds me of the C five Corvette’s. Right? Like those things could snap on you so quick. Of course, I had that 85 portion, nine 11 in big [00:58:00] iron block way out in the back, right? This was before they started inching it forward.

Every generation. That thing almost killed me once, and the, the idea of having to like feather a throttle to like, so like you, you screwed up. But like too little or too much, and just this idea that you just kind of have to bounce on it to keep yourself from dying was, uh, yeah. Widowmakers are funny. So I just heard something.

I can’t believe I just heard a Porsche owner admitting that the motor was too far back and they have to keep moving forward. Oh. Uh, those eighties cars the right, I mean, so it was this huge iron lump, especially if you took some of the parts out, right? You’re in a 2200 pound car with this, all this weight out back.

Yeah. No, it was, it was really, really hard to hold a drift more skill than I, than I have. I couldn’t do it. And so the couple times the backend really got out on me was kind of like puckering type moments. Well, since we’re talking about German cars, now that we have left a few on the table, I think I, we talked about Mercedes and whatnot.

We’ve mentioned a [00:59:00] few BMWs. What about ? Another Porsche . I’d love this idea. I think my next family car will probably be a TA can or something. Sure. What are you thinking? I’ve got a couple favorites all in the nineties, so I’ll just rattle ’em off Real. 9 68, 9 64, 9 64 RS America, 9 93. 9 28 S four or GTS 9 68 was a fine car.

Its biggest problem was it was a four cylinder, which wasn’t very exciting for buyers. If you could find a club sport though, whole different animal compared to the stock 9 68. Yeah. Cause it cut the counter. Sure. Well, and, and it took everything, it took a lot of what the 9 44 had, which was phenomenal weight, balance, and spectacular handling.

And added something that the nine 40 fours never had, which was power turbo. You know, I mean, stock nine, dare you imp the turbo. The problem with the 9 68 would be getting real power out because there were 230 horse back in the day. Three [01:00:00] liter. Yeah. Nothing chance. You know, the four cylinders is a little tricky.

You know, you’re right. The, the non-cloud, like the originals, they, they had a really heavy counterweight, kind of made the motor not as much fun to try and make a smoother German driving experience. I love the idea of a 9 28. It is the coolest car from the eighties that was launched in the seventies in May through 1998.

Yeah. But it is the coolest car of the eighties. I would totally love a, a 94 or five or whatever, if you can find them. I mean, those cars cost so much. Dam, like the late model ones, those cars cost so much money. So I, I had this idea I was kicking around earlier of, there’s a shop in Pennsylvania, I can’t remember their name now, but they do, they do a lot of work on 9 28 motors to get through emissions.

They launched the 32 valve in 85, like so you can find a cheap 9 28 and make a hot rod out of that as opposed to try and buy a four s or something, which, you know, is just, those cars are $70,000 or whatever. Unrestored. I just have to do a quick correction there, mark, [01:01:00] because you said that was the coolest vehicle.

Oh God. Presented in the seventies and was available in the eighties. Eric, can you mute him? Square body. Square body. That’s all I gotta say. Uh, can you box Chevy Caprice? Is that what he just said? Is that what I heard? . That’s a square body too. Holy cow. That’s terrible. No, his favorite car. The Ford Tar Wagon that made it into the nineties, right?

Mercury. Sable wagon. But the thing is, I think the 9 64 was short-lived, right? 88 to 92. It was only around for four years and it’s underappreciated. But the thing that was badass about the 9 64 is all the variants that it came in in four years. The RS America, the ctr, two Yellowbird recreation that they did, the 9 64 turbo.

I mean, there’s a bunch of crazy, like it’s like the last hoorah of the old school, nine 11 and to your point, a car that was built in the sixties that they dragged all the way through the nineties, and they finally got it right before they basically started over again with the 9 93. Now, don’t get me wrong, the [01:02:00] 9 93.

Gorgeous car, especially some of those colors they had like that merlott and that ice blue and there’s some really neat stuff. And then I got the opportunity to ride in a 95 twin Turbo 9 93. And that was unbelievably eye-opening experience. And it, it still has left an impression on me to this day. Those cars are amazing.

So those are on my vote. If you’re gonna go with Porsche’s, all the ones I listed, there’s some really cool stuff there in that really short window of time in the early nineties. It’s too bad that 9 64 turbos have gotten up, uh, so much in price. Those, those are really cool. Those are really cool cars. They, they made a bunch of different cool, cool fun cars.

Yeah, obviously I’d, if I, if I had a lot more money, I’d have a 9 93 turbo. Of course car would be badass. Now I think there’s another car we’ve forgotten about. You could buy it on a budget. You’d have a lot of money left. What, what, what is this? Well, there’s always, well see, now you’re ruining it. The answer is always Miata, but VR six Carrado.

Oh, we’re gonna do Carras. I [01:03:00] loved Carras as a kid. I remember my dad and I, we’d go to this dealership and we’d looked at this, I remember had the time thinking like, this car is $27,000. Are they out of their mind? It was expensive. Yeah. And that’s why we could see that one same car every week for a year, , because they never saw if it was the one in dc if it was the red one in DC It’s the one my dad ended up buying, by the way.

Just like, you know, ? No, it was one in Frederick. It was, it was in a f Fred. It was in the Frederick Volkswagen dealer. It’s sat there forever. But God, that car was cool. It, I loved the idea of the, the supercharge four cylinder before the, before they put the VR six in it and um, G 60 s, which I prefer the G six order.

V6 Blast, femur Blast Femur. Well, the big, well, I, I almost, I almost bought a car. I almost bought instead of that Z 28. Instead of that 94 Z 28, I almost bought a carrado supercharged, uh, cylinder. The big downside Carras had was they were heavy compared to anything Volkswagen made. The supercharge was slower than the, that it replaced, which [01:04:00] was a tough sell, and the v6, which was obviously faster.

Suffered from the fact that it had this giant lump in the front. I mean, they were, they were neat looking cars. The problem with them was they just like every Volkswagen, they drive the wrong wheels and the weight distribution sucks. Now, I will say this, the VR six is one of those underappreciated engines though.

And if you follow the VR Society guys on Instagram, they will swap a VR into anything. But it’s amazing the amount of power they can get out of that 12 valve. I mean, 900 horsepower is not a stretch of the imagination to do out of that tiny little engine, which is absolutely amazing. But staying with that idea, also a car from the nineties, also from Volkswagen, also available with the VR six, the Eurovan.

Think about hot rotting a Eurovan. That’d be pretty slick, man. Sounds nasty. Big turbo. You’re still gonna light up the front end, but it’s in a van. If I’m gonna hot Rod a minivan, I’ll do it right and I will. Hot Rod a Honda Odyssey. , like Rutledge Wood did. People actually did that [01:05:00] like, like when the, the whole Fast and Furious thing.

It was, it was like when. . It was like a second version of when like, uh, Dr. Dre got to the suburbs, right? And, and it was . And so all of a sudden you have all these kids thinking about like the crap they’re gonna do. Like people were legit putting nitrous kits and Odyssey like, it sounds like a joke, but they did it.

But what van could you buy with a manual transmission? None. None. That’s fine. Dodge Caravan. The Chevy Astro also I think offered a manual for a couple years. I know, I know someone who had a Dodge Caravan stick shift when? When I was in high school. Did the Eurovan come with a manual too? This Eurovan I just put in the chat is a manual.

There you go. Boom. This one’s a camp or two. That’s a West Follia. West Follia. So Mike being a BMW guy, BMW fan, I think there’s one we’ve for. Z one. I can’t afford an original Z eight, but a Z one with the door thing that drops down. That could be called the z eights are slick. Those are, those are hot.

These are so hot. I love the z eights back in the day. [01:06:00] It is a Z car. Come on. Come on Mikey. Clown shoe. Oh, the clown shoe. That one. Yeah. The clown shoes started in 98. V3 M or whatever the, the penis mobile. It was like an upside down. Cocking balls, . So those are, those are, you could hoon around in those cars.

They’re light, they’re agile. Decent power for, as for as big as they are with the 3.2 liter, especially, I drove a, a 98 that wa that a gentleman I know special ordered and all this kind of thing. It was a cool car I had visibility wise, I thought it was a little awkward, but it all depends on your height more than anything.

But everybody kind of raves about the clown shoe. You gotta get over the aesthetics of it. But it is definitely a hoon car and in typical BMW fashion, throw a diamond kit on it or something else like that and make gobs of horsepower. Yeah, absolutely. I, I almost. Bought a Z four M when I got my E 46, M three, I was kind of going between the two, but the original Z three M would, would be a ton of fun.

That would be pretty, I, I kinda imagine people, they’re, they’re ugly. You either love [01:07:00] ’em or hate ’em. I think I’d love one, I think I’d love one and that, and that’s another car you really have to respect because it’s got a boatload of power and no wheel base speak of. Yeah. You know, and, and that’s. So do we have any other suggestions for Mark?

I think we should go around the, the horn and give our best Hail Mary. I think so too. Well, I wanna, I wanna highlight a few things and Mark, you can correct me if I’m wrong, some of the things you went oo ah about as we were talking about this. I think 9 28 was on that list. I think the Audi S eight was on that list.

500 or five? E 500 for sure. And maybe the B BMW eight. Right. So those are like the top five kind of out of the list of 30 that we posted out there. But I think, I think Brad, we, we don’t have an American one in there. I like the WS six I thinks. Right. That’s a fun idea. I could do that. Let’s shotgun it.

Let’s start, Matt, what would you recommend a hundred grand to spend one car from the nineties go? Probably the 500 e mount man. Well, I was gonna say we didn’t, uh, for American cars earlier, I don’t think we mentioned, but the Ford Sho [01:08:00] was a bit of a sleeper back in its time. So, Get the fuck outta here with the Yamaha motor.

Get the fuck outta here. Wise guy. What is this Taurus stuff? . So before it went Ular, the older boxier, the Robocop one. The Robocop with the Yamaha v6. That’s not a bad, that’s not a bad suggestion. Ford probe. So Mount Man Dad, that you, you’re a Blasphemer dude. You cannot recommend a Ford as a bow tie man.

So what’s your shotgun for Mark? No, no, no. I wasn’t recommending it. Cause I’m not a fan of sho. I was just mentioning it as I mentioned Uhhuh. , definitely. Like I said earlier, I’m a hundred percent on board with the Ws six option cuz there’s. A ton of aftermarket stuff you can do and those LS engines will take tons of power.

But if you’re gonna go with European best bang for your buck would be go online, try to find something and ship it. Cause I think you would get it here stateside and have a lot more money to be able to invest in it than if you were to supply one already. Stateside. This is the slowest speed round I think we’ve ever done.

Yeah. Cuz [01:09:00] everybody’s got 10 other, you know, things they want to add in there. Race Iran, what are you thinking? Shotgun citation X 11. No, that’s too hard. Oh God, I’m, I’m thinking the Esplanade all the way. The ESP flat Espy car. Beautiful. Makes a lot of power holds. People got modern, uh, conveniences and still hauls ass and you can make a ton of power of that five liter or bigger.

I have three. The Ferrari F 3 55, the Shelby series. One or one that would actually be attainable for. , the 3000 GT Shelby Series one. Do we know how much those cost? They’re, they’re in the stratosphere. They’re expensive. Oh yeah. Nope. Out of budget. I like some of the suggestions that have been put out. I mean, I am, I was surprised by the WS six because I forgot about it, and I do really like that car.

I think that’s a lot of fun. I think you could have a lot of fun with that, but for the amount of money you would spend in a WS six, you would park it in your garage next to your GT three and go, oh God, I own a PO. And park it on top of my GT three. Yeah, right. , you will never [01:10:00] drive that WS six and the interior is complete garbage.

It’s like sitting in your cavalier from the eighties all over again. Point in case, right? So that you would be miserable. That’s why I say if you’re, if you’re really thinking about going down that route and you don’t want something exotic like the Panos or you know, all these other cars we talked about, I honestly believe my heart of heart Viper is the answer because it’s already done.

It sounds amazing. It looks amazing. It, it’s not even moving. And it looks fast. It is fast. It’s a cool car. It’s it’s quintessential nineties. They got it right, especially with the G T s coop. I don’t think you can go wrong and you’re probably gonna end up. You know, picking one up, let’s say in the market of 70 to 88, you know, pristine condition, low mileage without having to do a whole heck of a lot.

And you’ll have money left over in your pocket. You know, you build some of these other cars and you’re still left with whatever the base car was. Now the exceptions of the Viper rule, like I said, is if you go back to the Porsches from the early nineties or [01:11:00] mid nineties, there’s some really cool stuff there, especially if you could find a low mileage 9 93 or even a 9 64 or something like that.

But you already have a nine 11 and you want something different. So I still think my vote lies with the Dodge. All right. Alright. And secretly I wanna drive it after you get it. So just lemme know and, and I’m gonna chain, I’m gonna drop the series one because they are unobtainium and I’m gonna replace it with the B five s.

I like that. I like that. I think I’d go sa if I was gonna do Audi though. I agree with you on that one. Been there, done that. . I’m gonna throw this out there. I know you. This is for me. Just so we’re clear. This is for me. Oh, you’re not buying me a car. Well, why are we doing this shit ? It’s what a waste I buy.

What’s your last 90 minutes? . Eric was uh, talking some trash on uws just now. But here’s the thing though. Pontiac is no longer a brand. That means it’s only going increase in value. Bullshit. It’s gonna stay at 15 grand for its eternity. . No, I, [01:12:00] so I think, no, actually I do think you’re right. I, I think probably a good condition one would go up.

The the problem is, is like, I’m, like I said, I do want to get into modification and, and personalization of it, and I, I think that will kind of, That will hurt its resale of, of a viper or are you talking about the problem? Oh, the, the w the like, you know, of the W six or whatever of a viper. I mean, everybody knows that’s a death trap.

I think if, honestly, if I were gonna get a viper, I don’t think I’d get one from the nineties. Like I think it would scratch that nineties itch, but I would get a later one and you know, then one of the ones that makes 640 horsepower whatever, and it’s, you’re getting that outta the box and it only costs 20 grand more than the one from the nineties anyway.

I mean, I’ve written on track in an acr. Unbelievable. One of my favorite cars ever. I mean, you can keep everything else as, as far as I’m concerned, . So just like every, what should I buy? Episode, we never really do come to a logical conclusion. Lots of really great suggestions and I’m gonna put air quotes around.

Great. And it was really fun to have everybody on the show. [01:13:00] So Mark, hopefully we gave you some food for thought, you know, maybe some things you weren’t thinking about, some other things to consider, some sleepers and and whatnot. So we wish you luck on your journey. We wanna follow back up with you and see what you end up buying.

You know, thanks for coming on. This has been a lot of fun. . Awesome. No, I really appreciate it. You guys have given me a lot to think about. I, I think it’s important for me, like I try not to get married to any one idea. And so I try to find that mix of like the car that’s in the right condition and, and kind of checks those boxes.

And, and so it’s like, I, I, it’s not like I’m gonna come out of this and just pick one car and then I’m gonna go and try and hunt and find that it’s more of like, it’s kind of broadened my horizons from a search perspective. I will find a car that feels right and I’ll pick it up and you guys have given me a lot of good ideas and, and I am thinking in different directions from cars and even purchase markets to where I want to do that.

So I appreciate it. This has been great. Very cool. . Very cool. And we want to thank our panel of, uh, guest g tmr tonight Race, Iran, hazmat Mountain Mandan. Obviously, Brad and I are always here and if you’re listening to this [01:14:00] episode and you would like to set up your own version of what Should I buy, don’t hesitate to reach out for us.

We’d love to have you on the show and give a, give you all of our bad recommendations. So until next time, are we gonna do a follow up in about six months when Mark tells us all about the Miata he bought

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram a Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call or text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality [01:15:00] episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

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