Fire Truck, Supercharged E36 M3, Honda Acty: The Dopest Cars I Found For Sale Online

My friend and I have a threshold for the relationship between cost and performance. When a vehicle’s speed, acceleration, and handling capabilities are high enough, and its price is low enough, it becomes what we call Irresponsibly Cheap — something that offers so much performance per dollar that it’s downright unsafe. In other words, a used Hayabusa.

This is more an issue with licensing restrictions in the U.S. than cost, as there are likely just as many capable-but-broke riders and drivers as there are rich idiots, but it feels like there should be some restriction to purchasing these bikes. For six grand, a fresh learner’s permit holder can go swing a leg over a Busa and die instantly. Someone should do something about that.

The postwar vehicle market is such a blind spot in my automotive knowledge. I know enough about prewar stuff to get by (it’s largely made by Nazis, for Nazis, or both), but these ‘50s cars never drew my attention in enough to really learn about them. Maybe they’re just before my time — this Bel Air came out a mere 43 years before I was born.

What does draw my attention, though, is this color. I feel like this is such a popular one among ‘50s cars, but it’s long disappeared from the automotive market. General Motors, if you still have the paint code around, bring back this turquoise. I promise at least one person would buy it. Not me, I can’t afford a new car, but someone. Probably.

This listing advertises a Detroit Diesel drivetrain, with free fire truck included. This seems backwards. I would much rather own an immobile fire truck than an unhoused diesel engine — it should be a fire truck for sale, with free means of locomotion included.

The seller claims “Everything Seems to Work as Should,” and that’s good enough for me. I assume that means it runs, drives, and sprays water without issue. I’m not really sure how you’d test that last one, as a civilian, but that’s up to the seller to figure out. Or you, if you buy it.

What’s better than a Citroen DS? You utter rube, the answer is simple: A Citroen DS that’s purple. Purple makes everything better, and the DS is no exception — especially when paired with that white roof.

This DS claims a lineage of Citroen DS Club members as owners, at least one of whom appears to have gone through the trouble of replacing all four suspension spheres. A suspension sphere still sounds like science fiction to me, something the Baron Harkonnen would use for mobility rather than just how a real car in real life works.

Maybe you like the purple, but your tastes run... faster. Sure, the DS is stylish, but you want power, speed, handling. Well, my very particular friend, how does an E36 M3 sound? Better yet, how about an E36 with a suprecharger tucked under its hood?

Not only is this Beemer breathing better, it’s still 50-state legal. The seller claims the M3's Dinan supercharger kit passes CARB emissions, meaning you shouldn’t have a problem getting it registered anywhere in the United States.

Yesterday, we ran three pieces about getting your motorcycle license through the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s Basic RiderCourse (or, just retaking it because they needed a seat filled in order to justify a media class). Immediately after those ran, people started reaching out — all to say how cool Alyssa is. Have you all no love for me or Andy, the largely interchangeable white men of this website?

Anyway, after the MSF Alyssa went out and bought herself a Royal Enfield. If you want to Steal Her Look, here’s your chance — an INT650 just like hers, albeit with a slightly different ratio of red paint to black. Don’t want to be too much of a copycat, now.

Van life is so tempting, y’all. This thing costs $15,000 and is a functional dwelling. That’s less than a year of rent costs for me, the proud occupant of a whopping 250 square feet in a mediocre area of Brooklyn. It’s not bad, it’s just... I want better subway access, y’know? Also I want my AC to stop smelling like mold.

This Westfalia, though, probably doesn’t smell like mold. If it does, you can fix it with a rented steam cleaner and gumption — there’s no agent of the landlord to text, who will then say “looking into this” in response for weeks on end like they’re Elon Musk learning what is and is not a slur.

Or, sure, if you wanna be bougie about it, there are fancier vanlife dwelling. You could have a full cooktop, a microwave, and a big fan. I don’t even have the latter two of those in my actual home, in a building, where I live. I’m afraid a fan would just spread the mold smell.

This Sprinter is certainly a thought-out vanlife build, but I can’t say I agree with the style choices made here. The wood is so dark, so glossy — give me something more bright and satin to hide smudges and make the interior feel bigger. Someone let me go all Extreme Home Makeover on this vehicle.

People like to talk about bailout-era GM as the worst time for Pontiac. I posit an alternative: What if it was actually the best? Rather than settling for rebadged Camaros, Pontiac got to look out to Australia and just bring the coolest shit over. That sounds like the best job in the world.

Unfortunately, thanks to the Chicken Tax, Pontiac never got to bring in the ideal vehicle: The HSV GTS ute. Of course, the chicken tax likely wasn’t the only reason — can you ever imagine a single of GM’s brands getting that kind of power? The power to import utes to the American market, like introducing a new apex predator to a stable ecosystem? By 2011, all other General Motors brands would have fallen. It would be all Pontiac, all the time. Can you imagine a world without GM’s other brands?

It’s a wagon with a Mercedes badge. I’m surprised you’re even reading this slide text, rather than just feverishly clicking through to the ad while running to your nearest ATM. $4500 is within your withdrawal limit for the day. C’mon, go for it. You know you’ll love it when you see it.

Okay, yes, sure, this one may not be brown, manual, or diesel. It misses a few of the key Jalopnik enthusiasm points. But in its defense, it’s got those sleek lines and that smooth inline six. What more do you want?

There is a voice in my head that wants this. Some part of my brain — sometimes quiet, sometimes loud — that aches for a Volkswagen Cabrio approximately my equal in age. Just a real piece of crap, where friends can clamber over the rear fenders to get to the back seats without regard for the car’s condition. Hell, do it in metal cleats, I don’t care.

This Cabrio, unfortunately, is simply too nice for that. Sure, its mileage is well into the six figures, but the body lines seem clean and the paint looks great. It doesn’t even seem to be rusting out anywhere! Honestly, I didn’t know Cabrios were this clean from the factory.

Oh, you saw a Triumph in Dopest and assumed I’d put yet another Bonnie or Scrambler in the mix? Well, that’s kind of on you, because it says “TR6" immediately after “Triumph” when you scroll through the slide list. If you read half a slide title before clicking, I don’t know what to tell you.

Except that, if you’re looking for something old, British, and interesting, four-wheeled Triumphs can be as neat as their two-wheeled counterparts. This one in particular seems immaculate, save for precious few spots of surface rust beneath the carpet. Just put the rug back, it’ll be fine.

The full piece on how I concussed myself with an offroad motorcycle ride is still coming (I still need to be not-concussed enough to actually write it), but that tale ends with my bike sitting at my parents’ place in Connecticut for a week — only to be ridden back home to Brooklyn the following weekend, where I dropped the bike while pulling into my garage. A classic dumb mistake that I credit to concussion judgment.

But my 500-pound BMW was a pain to lift after that dumb mistake. This CRF250L is fully capable of every task I’ve ever asked my GS to do, but weighs far less — it’s probably even light enough to avoid dumb garage drops entirely. There’s something to be said for a true lightweight enduro over an adventure bike, and that something sounds a lot like “keeping your back unsprained.”

Okay, this Acty may not have “a title” or “a valid registration,” but y’know what it does have? Character. Look at that face, those little pleading-emoji eyes up front above a wide-open grille. It’s a good car! A friend! And a friend would never steer you wrong with sketchy paperwork.

The seller claims to not have a title yet, meaning one may still be incoming. The ad even seems to imply that, should you interrupt that process, you’ll be rewarded with a discount on this adorable little truck. I say it’s worth the risk, but I’m neither your attorney nor your accountant. That’s probably for the best, thinking about it.

I’m sorry to inform you all, owners of non-C6 Corvettes, but you made the wrong choice. This, the sixth-generation Vette, is the peak. The platonic ideal. The summit car. There is no higher spot on the Corvette mountain to climb, no greater vehicle that could ever be adorned with the checkered-flag-and-whatever-the-other-flag-is badge. That’s the official industry term for it, by the way.

Sure, this is a C6 like any other (and not even yellow), but this one is rare for its mileage alone. Under 30,000 on the clock means this car’s LS2 is barely broken in — it could have a long life of crushing apexes ahead of it under new ownership.