Volkswagen Rabbit, Pontiac Solstice, Datsun 2000: The Dopest Cars I Found For Sale Online

Regular readers of Dopest will know about my affinity for boxy Volkswagen convertibles, the less reliable the better. Their little rollbars, like shopping basket handles, call out to me. They say “buy me, and let people climb over my quarter panels to get into the back seat.”

This particular Rabbit may actually not fit the bill for my odd desires, because it might simply be too reliable. It’s got under 23,000 miles on it and both the interior and exterior look the part. Sure, the AC doesn’t work, but that’s fine. Also the radio. Also the speedometer. Okay, maybe this is actually unreliable enough to spark my interest.

There was a time, long ago and oh so far away, when I considered buying a Mini Cooper S. My Subaru Legacy was simply too big, and I wanted something that could be a bit more nimble in the corners — and, ideally, a bit easier to park on packed Ithaca streets.

After a test drive in a Cooper S, I was almost disappointed. It felt mature, composed, almost boring — until I found its Sport switch. With one button press, the little car because an absolute blast to drive. Just, start budgeting for repairs now.

I should never have sold my old Miata. No, not the one I had while working here, but my old NA — a 1993, black and tan with the VLSD. It was bone stock aside from a head unit, dog-slow in the straights and wallowy in the corners, and I loved it.

I sold that car to replace it with the station wagon, actually, because moving my crap back and forth to college in a Miata would be just a touch impractical. Still, I should’ve just gotten a U-Haul. And maybe a set of sway bars.

This is an interesting one. This Solstice appears to be owned by a Corvette Guy who got lost on the way to the Chevy dealer, and ended up with a Pontiac by accident. Low mileage, custom diamond-stitched interior, upgraded sound system, a listing that claims eight cylinders — the signs are all here.

But this Solstice is not, in fact, a Corvette. It is not an eight-cylinder — in fact, it’s not even the turbo four pot GXP. It’s just a regular, naturally aspirated five-speed Solstice, but that’s all you need to get some late-fall sun on your face.

There are better photos of this Malibu on Craigslist, but none with so many JEGS stickers. Those, I think, say a lot about the car’s past. Its owner cared enough about the car to go to a semi-specialty retailer for parts, and that’s a sign of a well-maintained vehicle. Or one that’s been flogged to hell.

Luckily, this seems to be the former. New quarter panels, new floors, the car’s almost been fully restored. Yet, judging by the various locales exhibited in the listing photos, it’s still a car that sees the light of day. All should be so lucky.

I would call a Wrangler an SUV before I’d call it a convertible, but I guess both are technically accurate. Whether low-slung or lifted for ’froading, any car with a removable roof will let you pack a group of friends in while you cruise out on a nice day toward some activity or scenic locale. What else matters?

I actually once owned a JK Wrangler as well, since we’ve gone on a little history tour down my past vehicles within these slides. It was a 2010, like this, but a four-door — they’re popular in the part of Connecticut where I grew up, and could be found on dealer lots easily enough after my first car was totaled. It wasn’t my fault.

This Z3 occupies an odd superposition within the color spectrum. At first glance, it’s a burgundy so deep it could almost be black. Tab through more photos, though, and that black brightens to a nice deep wine-red — and then even further, to a very warm shade of purple.

Pick any Pantone shade that mentions wine or vineyards in its name, and you’ll probably get pretty close to this BMW. Is it red? Is it purple? Is it going to be your next car? I don’t have these answers. Maybe you do.

I want a car with a short roof and a loooooooooooooong front end. If that sounds like your speed too, this Mercedes SL may be of interest. It’s listed as a manual, which it is not, and as a V12, which it also is not. Also, the seller claims it’s front-wheel drive. Maybe they got confused about how Craigslist works, and thought you were supposed to tick off the boxes that don’t apply?

The SL is sized to fit that big 12-cylinder, though, so it still meets the proportion requirements so carefully laid out in the low-effort Cake rewrite from the last paragraph — even if the long engine isn’t actually under there. That just leaves you more room to store whatever SL owners need to carry around on the daily. Probably quaaludes.

Staring at this photo, at every photo of this gorgeous Alfa, has led me to realize an internal contradiction I carry. I love this almost boatlike front end, these cars that seem as if they could ford water and float right over it. The pointed tip looks aerodynamic, sleek, ready for motoring. The style works for me.

Yet, when I look at a G-nose Datsun Fairlady, it just... doesn’t. It doesn’t work. The proportions are off, the glass covers on the headlights look wrong, everything just starts to fall apart. I adore the standard Z — it’s my all-time favorite car design — but the G-nose just looks bad to me. Yet, here, I love it. Much to ponder.

When I was young, I loved the film Smokey and the Bandit. I still do, but I watched it perhaps a few times too many as a kid. That led me down a dark path, a path that included a CB whip on my Wrangler, a radio I didn’t realize was always transmitting any time it was powered on, and God knows how many high school commutes spent broadcasting my impromptu Evanescence karaoke to any and all nearby truckers.

That cinema love did instill something else in me, though. I can’t look at a black car with gold accents and not love it. Pontiacs, Datsuns, and apparently TVRs all of them look exquisite in a refined black and gold palette. Gibson Les Pauls too, for those counting.

Do you ever get hits of sense memory, where something small touches your brain in just the right way and you’re just instantly transported to another space and time? That’s happening to me right now. I’ve never sat in a Datsun 2000, but I can feel these photos. I can smell them.

This Datsun smells like Lime Rock Park. It smells like fuel, exhaust, old. Its interior wear, its steering wheel marks — this is a car you can’t buy now, a car nothing current will age into. It’s a period piece.

I’ve always liked Saab. The exact mindset of its buyers has always eluded me, and I like that in a car company. Saabs are European, they carry an air of luxury, but they’re not as exalted as BMW or Mercedes. They’re a choice, something a person goes out of their way to buy over a better-known brand, but the company existed at a time when that market was just too saturated.

On the cheaper side, you have Subaru — a company that is famously neither Toyota nor Honda. On the high end, there’s Volvo, which has lived years on its reputation for not being BMW or Mercedes. Where is poor Saab to fit in?

The one time I got to drive a Fiat 500 Abarth, I was convinced it was broken. There’s no way a car company — even Stellantis — would allow a modern vehicle to leave the factory with the sort of power delivery I experienced in that little hatchback. It seemed to have two separate boost limits, dependent on RPM — it would surge, lull, then surge again when the revs climbed.

Busted or not, though, it was a hoot to actually drive. It’s nice when a car has some character, and boy did this Fiat have it in spades. If this gray example doesn’t have the same janky tune, go seek it out. You won’t regret it.

This Triumph has sat, been restored, and sat again. It’s been unmade, remade, and unmade anew. It’s in flux, always, a car of liminal condition. Never good, never bad, seemingly always passing through one state on its way to another. It can never land.

Maybe you can give it a forever home, restore it to its former glory and keep it there. The first half of that is where so many focus, but the back half is just as important. Keep these cars on the roads, not just as pretty museum pieces.

Speaking of museum pieces, we have a gorgeous look at early-aughts tuner culture. So many lights, so many vents, so much chrome. You bet your ass the doors swing upwards to reveal a steering wheel that might as well wear a Logitech badge on the horn button.

But this Mustang isn’t just aesthetically an old tuner car. It is, in fact tuned — the ad copy makes no mention, but there’s a sizeable supercharger sitting under that hood. Stick-on vents or not, this Mustang likely rips.