Car Selling Dilemma...

[thermionic]

You must be a fan of late '70s / '80s styling if you reckon it's cooler than an Aurelia. I have a friend who styles for VAG (he's worked on Porsche, Bentley, Lotus etc). He reckons it's his favourite design of the era. Trouble is, getting parts can be a PITA and there comes a time in a guy's life...

It can't be cooler than an Aurelia B24:

http://www.viva-lancia.com/aurelia/B24Sa.jpg

http://www.viva-lancia.com/aurelia/B24Sp.jpg

I think they can be found for upwards of 400k of your US Dollars...

 

[kato]

You must be a fan of late '70s / '80s styling if you reckon it's cooler than an Aurelia.

I am. I am. The '87 Quadrifoglio was my teenage dream car. Lancia wasn't sold in the states back then, but I was familiar from import UK car mags. I still sometimes gaze at auctions of old Alfas and Fiat X1/9's - knowing full well it's not worth the parts and upkeep nightmare. So I live vicariously through threads like this. Kudos for keeping it roadworthy for 2 decades!

 

[thermionic]

My Lancia looked beautiful and got a crowd around it whenever it was parked. However, with a single-carb'ed 2-litre 8v engine it would struggle to keep up with a Mk1 Golf GTI in a straight line. If I win the lottery I'll buy another, fit alloy bodywork and a 16v Turbo engine (a few people have done the engine transplant). A standard car weighs 970 Kg, so 250-BHP+ makes for entertaining performance.

J

edit - bizarrely, Fiat (Lancia parent company, for anyone unaware) sold cheaper cars with much more powerful engines... They had superchargers and 16v heads...yet the Mon**car** got barely more power than a standard Beta (optimistically quoted at 120 BHP).

 

[kato]

FWIW, The GTI is crazy zippy. Well I don't know about the mk1 but the one I auditioned in the 90's had super acceleration.

Some of the coolest 80's cars would need engine transplants to perform like they looked. Reportedly the Delorean DMC1 was a sluggish little turd. Although the body style is a greater consideration than performance for me. Then again I have no choice; my daily driver is a pre-GM Saab 900 which is about 50% heavier than that standard car. So people zip past me even with 16v and a turbocharger. I reckon I'm safer in it than my childhood dream cars.

Back then, anything Pininfarina or Bertone was a head turner for me. The X1/9's look almost silly now but they seemed otherworldly at the time. Coincidentally, I think your moncar was developed as the X1/8.

 

[thermionic]

It was initially unveiled as the bigger brother to the X1/9, as the 'X1/20'. I can't remember exactly why, but it got rebranded to Lancia.

Apparently, the 20v Audi lump used in the TT and various cars will go straight into a Mk1 GTI. We're talking about a car which weighs around 800Kg... I've seen converted cars for sale.

I currently own a 'stealth' car. From the outside it's a tatty 11-yr old Clio 'Sport', but it has 170 BHP and a genuine 30k on the clock. Goes like a rocket. Very good fun, albeit with loads of road noise. You can't beat a modern car for speed. Torque steer is scarey as heck. I find modern cars boring, to be honest. The Clio's immense fun to drive, but it's 'orrible to look at.

J

 

[kato]

Oh yeah. I like the look of the old Clio much better than the new one anyway. I visited London about 10 years ago and was surprised how many were on the road. I swear I saw one pass every five minutes. Never seen one in the US ever.

I'm happy to see I was wrong about the m-c. It was imported to the US, as a scorpion. Stock US version not as cool.

EDIT: another fun fact: the US version only had 81 hp so I'm sure it's almost as fun to drive as an '82 chevy celebrity.