Affordable 1990s Dream Cars

When these cars were brand-new they were simply too expensive for most of us. But now, prices have dropped on a lot of those once unobtainable dream machines of the 1990s. Tune in to see if one of your favorites made the list.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
Car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. I welcome
to Car Stuff. I'm Scott. Then we are joined today
as always by our super producers Dylan Fagan and Tristan
McNeil nicknames t V. A should be easy for this one, right, Yeah,

(00:24):
it should be easy. We'll have a lot of choices,
so many things to choose from in this one, because
today we're going to talk about well, I'll tell you
the article that we're following, I guess maybe from from
Rodent Track is called ten surprisingly Affordable ninety nineties Dream Cars. Now,
this touches on a lot of things that we love
here on the show, right, and a lot of stuff
that you ladies and gentlemen have wrote, wrote in and

(00:46):
asked us to look at in the past. So we
want to give a big shout out to the author
of this Philo Nym Chris Perkins. Yeah, and of course
I said this touches on several things. Of course, affordable
it is probably number one. It's a big covey. Affordable
is number one. But you gotta also think about every
word in this title because nineteen nineties. Okay, that's one
category right there. Affordable is one category. Dream cars. That's

(01:08):
the that that's the key here. Maybe maybe it's because
back in nineteen ninety there were a lot of cars
that were still kind of unattainable for a lot of us.
You know, they were there was something that we're just
out of reach because of the cost. And I've got
in many cases several examples of you know, a ballpark
m s r P for the vehicle, you know, around
what it costs during the nineteen nineties, and and maybe

(01:30):
sometimes it's a specific year where I tried to find,
you know, like since the production model ran from you know,
nineteen ninety two thousand, I just went right with the
median at nineteen five and gave you the M s
RP for that. But the idea here is that now
in seventeen, the prices of these cars that were once
seemed one seemed unattainable, are now attainable. But for most

(01:52):
you know that I mean, it's still a toy. It's
still gonna be something that you know, you're probably not
your daily driver, but something that you know, you drive
on the weekends. Maybe it's something that maybe not a
project car, but a driver, you know, something you can
use and have fun with. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So we
have this, we we have this list, will walk through
and we want you to we want you to drop

(02:13):
dropped by our Facebook and our Twitter and our email
and let us know what you would add to this list,
because my favorite part about these scott is when, um,
when people come in and say, also, I think this
should be on this list. Usually it's this, it's I
can't believe you didn't include, and then it's followed by

(02:34):
whatever it was. Right, So this list has ten, and
I'll be honest with you, this is a pretty good
list of ten. Now. I know that there there are
a lot of them out there that I'm sure that
I've just you know, they're they're lost of time in
my memory. But I can really only think about maybe
one that one more that I would add. But again,
they have to be from the ninety nineties. They have
to be a dream car from then, and they have

(02:55):
to be affordable and affordable now affordable now. So that's
the that's the key. And you let's just start off
by saying, sure, an accurate NSX would be great for
you know a lot of people, and I would love
one myself, but they're still pretty expensive. That is completely true.
And there's other other cars that have kind of gained
in popularity, which means they gain in value as well,
like the Toyota Supra of the ninety nineties, which is

(03:17):
an incredible vehicle, which you know, a lot of people
get a dream car. They were expensive, then they remained
expensive for a while. Uh, then they became affordable. Now
they're getting expensive again because collectors and people are kind
of taking interest in them again. So the super is
probably off the list again. So that's another example, like
you know, maybe you're looking at the ones that are
kind of an undiscovered gems, something that that you know

(03:39):
about that not a lot of other people have really,
you know, given much care about in the last I
don't twenty seven years. So let's jump right in, shall we, Yes,
no particular order, no particular order. Thank you for saying
that that is absolutely true. Uh, First up, the Chevrolet
Corvette C five, specifically the C five. Now this is

(04:01):
the production model years actually kind of the trail end
of the nineteen nineties from about nine until about two
thousand four, so we're talking about the early C fives
for for around fifteen large you can get your hands
on this, on this car with some pretty pretty compelling
stats and teen thousand. Yeah, that's amazing, that's amazing, especially

(04:23):
you know when you consider it that these are these
are beautiful vehicles, there's no two ways about it, right,
And they have high performance as well, oh for sure. Yeah,
that's right. They've got yeah, well three fifty horsepower, hundred
and seventy five per hour top end on these on
these vehicles. Um, Again, these cars in nineteen let's take nine,
at the very end of the nineteen nineties productions in

(04:44):
n they were ballpark right around let's say, anywhere between
forty thousand and forty six thousand dollars. So they're still pricey, expensive,
affordable because I think they called these the blue collars
supercar past. You know, it's kind of like a k
a blue collar supercar. Um, they've got expensive insurance if
you want to look at it that way. I mean,
even if you're gonna buy one now for fifteen thousand, uh,

(05:07):
you're probably gonna pay a lot for insurance, especially if
you're a younger driver. So, um, maintenance isn't gonna be
quite as expensive as some of the other cars. We're
gonna talk about. And that's a theme that's gonna come
up to, by the way, the maintenance, cost of ownership,
cost of ownership, Yeah, for a lot of the cars.
Now remember the let again off topic already first one
on the list, and we're off topic. Remember how we

(05:28):
often talk about, or we used to talk about the
Ferrari the three oh weight, and you know how the
maintenance is the real killer on it. You could buy
one for a reasonable price. And then later a listener
wrote in and said, uh, you might want to check
on the value of those because it went up by
three times. So you know, that's kind of the lesson learned.
I guess is that you know they they've increased in
value and without us knowing that happens a lot and

(05:49):
and a few of them that I looked up to
kind of add to this list, you know at the end,
you know, I like to add a few here and
there in my own picks. Um, I was surprised at
the value. They either retained value or went up in value.
And so that's why my picks didn't make this list.
M got priced out. I did get priced out, got
priced out of affordable nineteen dream cars. I know how
sad is that twenty seven years later and I'm still

(06:11):
thinking that's a little too much, a little too much.
You know. One that really surprised me is the next
on the list. I was not expecting to see an
Aston Martin on this list at dB seven, But it
turns out that if you are a talented car sleuth,
if you are a automotive p I, you can find

(06:33):
a dB seven for under forty dollars. Under forty thousand.
Now that sounds like still like a lot of money, right,
but you got a lot of money. Well, it is
a lot of money. But you gotta remember the price
of these things when they were brand new was somewhere
around one hundred and forty five thousand dollars. Now, that's
in the late nineteen nineties. So if you were to
do the inflation calculator thing and extrapolate that the seen

(06:54):
that comes out to somewhere around two hundred and twelve
thousand dollars so hours now again, and if you're buying
it for under forty thousand today, that's that's a relative
I mean, that's telling telling you that it's a two
hundred and twelve thousand valued car at forty dollars. Maybe
I don't know, Maybe that's not the right way to
look at it, because you know, aged depreciation, that kind
of thing happens as well, obviously depreciation. They debuted in nineteen,

(07:19):
but by nine, so in the year to look for
in this because that year they had a V twelve. Yes, yeah,
that year they had a V twelve. But the straight
six will get you get it done. Yeah, that's true.
There was a straight six. It was prior to that.
It was a three fifty horse power straight six. I
think the V twelve power advantage. I think this article

(07:41):
says that it came around in to the two thousand
mile a year. But I've looked this up elsewhere because
I do that, I look up with the other stuff
and uh, yeah, that's right. I verified it, and it
seems like nine was the year that the V twelve appeared. Um.
Some strange things about this. Of course, this is the
carve choice of James Bond. Yes, that's you get the

(08:03):
name for it, right, it's kind of I mean, it's
the styling of this one. I'll tell you. I'm this
is probably one of my least favorite cars on this list. Really,
I mean, honestly, to look at it. It's one of
the more expensive ones. To um, I'm an Aston Martin fan.
I'm just not crazy about it. It's just not a
good looking car to me. It doesn't look like I
think there were other Aston Martin's that were better looking.

(08:23):
I think there are other cars on this list that
are better looking for less money. There's you know, the
thing about the GB seven is that it has a
sort of sedate design. Other than the air intakes there
at the at the back of the front wheels, it
looks like it's built to be a sedan and they
forgot to add the back doors. There's probably a good

(08:46):
reason behind this. Now, this is what it becomes h
a production model when Jaguar was owned by Ford, And
if you look at it, you'll clearly see forward lines
within this. And and also this is another thing. It
was kind of like a a spinoff, I guess, or
it was a design. Maybe that's not the right way
to say. It was a design that was rejected by

(09:06):
Jaguar when they were thinking of creating the vehicle that
they called the x K eight. And the x K
eight is a pretty remarkable car too. But and I'm
not saying this isn't a remarkable vehicle. It's just it
has styling that just doesn't to me. It doesn't scream
Aston Martin. Really, I see what you're saying. I think
that it's it's pretty well. But I'm also a I'm

(09:28):
an Aston Martin fan. But uh, yeah, this one looks
a little bit more well, yeah, it looks a little
more forward, doesn't it. Jaguar passed on it. We'll just
say that, we'll say that, and so they passed on it.
But it is a pretty remarkable vehicle because it does go.
It has a hundred and eighty five mile per hour
top speed UM zero to sixty is relatively quick for

(09:48):
the time, around five point three seven five point three seconds. Um,
it's not a bad car. It's just not to me.
To me, it's not a great car. I mean the
the the V twelve. UM, that's a six lead fo
power engine, very strong. Um. You know you can get
a six speed manual or five speed automatic. Um. And
that wasn't again just then were catching the very end
of the nineteen nineties and this one. But um, I

(10:11):
guess it'd be cool to say that you own an
Aston Martin for forty dollars or less. That would be cool.
I would leave that part out. I would just say
have an aston martin. Well, of course you would, you would,
you wouldn't. You're not onet to, you know, promote prices
on things either. I mean not a lot of people do.
Really people, I would just be being disingenuous. I would
also need to get a really nice tux and just
where all the time, always having martini in your hand.

(10:33):
You know, this is okay, this is a side note,
but I promise it will be brief and I will
not derail us too far. You know what. You don't
need to say that to me, because I do that
to us all the time. So I read this really
interesting article where someone did the math of James Bond
drinking and apparently he was a raging alcoholic and would

(10:54):
have died because you know, they just they took um
just the course of the films, so out the novels,
and they you know, put a tick mark every time
that he had a drink, and they were like, this
guy is blind drunk about forty minutes into every film.
Oh my gosh, he should be. He should be. And
he's also in these incredible car chase car chase scenes right, right,

(11:15):
he's incredible car chase scenes, doing acts of of physical
daring do and then taking really difficult shots with firearms.
So in reality he'd be stumbling around, wouldn't be able
to hit the side of a barn. Yeah, he couldn't
probably drive anywhere without smashing into a wall. Yeah yeah,
yeah he would. He would have trouble putting on clothes.
But but I just I thought that was I thought

(11:37):
it was a really interesting article and I'll post it
if I can dig it up, I'll put it on
our Twitter. I mean, that's what he's known for. Martini's well,
of course the Bond women. Yes, you know, of course
coolness maybe that you're right, but they asked him Martin
goes along with that coolness. I mean he always had
an Aston Martin. I mean, I think James Bond is
one of the best things ever happened to Aston Martin. Yeah,
well he is. And and that's the thing is that,

(11:58):
you know, there's some Aston Martin's that you know, become classics.
And I mean look at the dB four gts A
Gotto models. They're nineteen of those made, and those are
back in the nineteen sixties, early in nineteen sixties. Those
retailers still sell I shouldn't say retail. They auction now
for anywhere between one point three and I think it's
two and a half million dollars, So that's it. Well,
a significant step up from, you know, the forty dollar

(12:20):
dB seven. And I guess maybe that's what I'm seeing,
is that I'm comparing the two and a half million
dollar Aston Martins to the to the thirty five thousand
dollars Aston Martins. And that's probably my issue. I'd still
drive at dB seven though they seem like they're good cars.
It's just I would be a little concerned about maintenance. Well, yeah,
maintenance would be an issue too, sure of course. But

(12:41):
you know, yeah, I'm sure you don't pull into an
Aston Martin dealership and ask for an oil change and
they tell you it's you know, nineteen. I don't think
that's the case. Do you have the coupon and Martin
owners don't cut coupon spend lies Scott lies? Uh? Do
you know how many people apparently there's a problem. There

(13:03):
are a lot of people who will take who will
cut out like one of those paper coupons for one
oil place and then take it to the other oil
places and be like, I know this is expired and
this is for a Jiffy lube and you're an express
loub or whatever, but don't you want my business and
people will accept it. Number three, this is this is

(13:24):
an interesting one. The Nissan three X twin turbo. The
first thing. Okay, so these are these are great. Everybody
wants to know the price. You can get one in
good condition for around twenty dollars. I gotta say this
is always there's always been weird to me. Maybe you can,
maybe you can give me your thoughts on this, ladies
and gentlemen. The Nissan three X God love it. The

(13:48):
front of it looks like a saturn. You don't like it.
I didn't say it and like it. I used to
own a saturn. I had two saturns. In fact, Okay,
I see what you're saying. I hadn't really looked at
it that way until just now, and looking at the photo,
I see exactly what you mean. They have been According
to some reports, they say that this car was designed
by super computers back in the nineteen nineties. By nineteen nineties,

(14:10):
super computers AI designed car probably the size of a room,
you know, like one of those supercomputers, right, there's a
guy who just changes tubes. Yeah, that's probably what it was.
I mean, but this is a good car, Yeah it is.
And we've done an entire Z car episode, and I
don't know how much we focused on this model, the
Z thirty two in particular. This is the fair Ladies
E thirty two, if you want to call it that,

(14:31):
as well, the Twin Turbo specifically. And of course production
went on longer than just the nineteen nineties because well,
actually here in the United States it went through the
nineteen nineties. In Japan it was a little bit longer
because it started in nine and went all the way
through two thousand. In the United States, we only saw
this Twin Turbo X from about nineteen ninety until nineteen six. Um,

(14:54):
the price win new was somewhere around the forty thou
dollar range. I'm just taking a median age here, so
I believe is the year that I selected. Um, that's
the equivalent of about sixty two thousand dollars in two thousand,
seventeen dollars. And so it's an expensive car, but as
you said, Ben, you can pick one up for around
twenty thousand dollars and well, you know this is one

(15:16):
that you will occasionally see in traffic. There's still around. Yeah, yeah,
there's still around. And the one that the one that
we're talking about when the author uses as an example
for affordability, Uh, it's about nineteen thousand dollars for model
with just under fifty thousand miles on it. And that's

(15:36):
not bad at all. No, no, And it was a
car that a lot of people really were seeking at
the time. I mean, a lot of people wanted this.
But here's the other side of the coin, is that
right around that time is when the trend towards you know,
people wanting SUVs, wanting bigger vehicles and um, you know,
not a minivan but something that was a little not
a truck. But you know, they wanted the suv. The
crossovers weren't a thing yet at that time, but the

(16:00):
moved to get away from you know, these smaller imports
sports cars was already kind of it was on its way.
It was happening, it was in the air, it was
and you know, of course there's still a market for it,
it's just the market wasn't quite as big. And so
that's what happened, So the sales started to decline, and
UH and Nissan took away the Z car for a
couple of years until we got it back in two
thousand two here in the United States with and our

(16:22):
next our next addition to this list the with the well,
let's set it up. The The author may have made
a little bit of bad blood with my co host
Scott because he says, this car probably isn't a good idea,
but what car is it? We'll tell you after a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Scott. You're shaking

(16:54):
your head in consternation. During the during the ad break,
I would say that it's always a good time to
own a Lotus. Yeah, yeah, anytime you can get your
hands on a Lotus car and it's affordable. If this
is affordable to you, get it. I just felt the
chill in the room when we went to this with
because the author does say buying an older Lotus of
Spirit probably isn't a good idea, but there's really nothing

(17:16):
else like it. Well. The problem is, of course, as
we said in a couple of other instances, maintenance. Maintenance
is an issue because you do have to go to
a dealership that will handle lotus maintenance if you're not
capable of doing that type of thing on your own,
and a lot of people aren't capable of doing some
major things on their own. Minor things, sure, but but
the major stuff, sure, you still have to go there,
and you're gonna pay quite a bit of money for

(17:36):
parts and labor and things like that. As we all understand. Now,
this is a car that came around in nineteen seventy six,
but you know, it's made and manufactured all through the
nineteen nineties, and it didn't end production until about two
thousand and four. And if you wanted to get a
new one of these in the nineteen nineties, I just
tried to take a sampling of prices from the nineteen nineties,
and I found that the prices ranged anywhere from seventy

(17:57):
thousand to ninety thousand dollars. We'reout thee and production was
relatively low. I think they only built a little less
than eleven thousand of these total, you know, and throughout
that whole production run. If you're gonna spend seventy dollars
back then, it was equivalent to sixty eight thousand dollars

(18:18):
now and then now we're seeing the prices dropped all
the way down to between twenty and thirty thousand dollars
for a decent example of these. Yeah, and as as
you pointed out, well, we factor in the cost of
maintenance with a with a car that age. No matter
how well you maintain the schedule right the maintenance schedule,

(18:41):
the odds are that they're going to be a couple
of major, major obstacles should come along. And so when
that happens, I would say, they say, budget a lot
for maintenance. I would say, consider the cost of this,
just like over the lifetime, probably add another ten grand.
Consider the cost of not owning this car. What does that?

(19:02):
What does that do to your soul? Really? I mean
if you knew, if you knew it was there and
you could have had a Lotus and you didn't take
that opportunity. I mean, that's something that would haunt you
to the grave. It really would. Or maybe it just
would haunt me. Yes, Scott, I love Lotus cars. And
you know, here's one thing that I was reading around
in these forums, and and this is something that a

(19:22):
lot of people, maybe you haven't noticed. I picked up
on this a while back when we were doing our
College Chapman episode, and it was one of those things
that I didn't include in our episode. I wish I
had because now I saw it again and reminded me.
Have you ever noticed that all Lotus cars start with
the letter E? All models of Lotus start with them
aside from aside from the number vehicles like the the

(19:45):
eleven or the seven, but the Elise, the Spirit. Yeah,
there's there's the Spree, there's the Elise, the Europa, the Siege. Uh,
there's even even threw it um an eleven in there.
But they started with the letter E for eleven, uh,
the Alon, the Elite. I mean, there's just it goes
on and on. Why is that? Well, there's a few
rumors in speculation. You have to look them up because
there's many many versions of this. So why that happened? Um?

(20:09):
You know some of them come right down to you know,
Colin Chapman saying that he liked the way that eleven
sounded after the word Lotus, Lotus eleven. It just seemed
to flow off the tongue. Then there's other versions of that.
You know, there's there's a few stories out there, so
just look into it. If you've got interested in that
kind of thing. Probably a longer story than we've got
time for here today, but we I am going to
dig it into that. You know, that kind of stuff

(20:30):
is really compelling. And this is another bond car. By
the way, we need to mention that it was the
submarine car in de Spy who loved Me again, the
whole story with that one. So not actually lest we uh,
lest we oversell this vehicle. It is not actually amphibious,
So have your have your expectations lowered. But you can't

(20:52):
oversell a Lotus elease or loadus or I'm sure, I'm
sorry it Lotus is spree as the one we're talking
about now, Lotus Elease. I'm also of Elan all of them.
And this moves us to we've established that, we've established
that this moves us to the next on the list.
What is it? It is the portion of nine sixty

(21:14):
eight now the production for the N until nineteen, so
it's a relatively small run of a Porsche of vehicle.
The price win new and I just took a nine
number because that was the end of production. Price was
around thirty nine to fifty two thou dollars. So again
today's money that would be about sixty two to about
eighty three thousand dollars. But that's not the price you'll

(21:36):
pay today, right, that is not the price you will
pay today. Uh, there are surprisingly there's some on eBay
right now for under twenty thousand dollars, under twenty k
for now. The crazy thing about this is when you
look at it initially, you're going to think that that
is a it's just another ninety four. I mean, I

(21:58):
think just any not a Porsche of And of course
I understand that they're gonna be people that that will
stand up out of their chair when I say that,
because only shares twenty of its parts with even though
they do have a similar look, you gotta admit that
they look similar. Part sharing between surprising in my eye. Yeah,

(22:21):
that is because I'll go ahead, Well it makes sense economically,
but it is. It is a surprising stylistic move. Yeah,
and these are it's a three leader two or thirty
six horsepower you know, another um another front engine. We
will drive layouts. He would think that I would share
a lot more parts than than that with and if
you get the turbo that knocked up yeah, three five

(22:44):
so not bad. Um I don't know, it's a strong vehicle.
I mean again, I think this is one of those
cars that is just kind of cool to see you
own a Porsche for you know, under twenty thou dollars. Yeah,
but you can't tell people the price. You just got
to tell people that you own a portion. I'm not saying.
I'm saying that you know you've got a porschep park
in your garage. Oh yeah, that's cool. That is pretty cool.

(23:05):
That makes you the cool guy in the block. It's
like it's kind of like when um ladies and gentlemen.
I don't know if you if you lived in the
neighborhood like this when you're a kid, But it's kind
of like when you're a kid and there's that one
family that has a pool, you know what I mean,
you're the cool one. Now everybody wants to be your friend.

(23:25):
And I gotta say, I don't think that that cool
factor applies as much to this next to this next vehicle. Man,
I you know, it's understated. It's a it's an understated
subtle it is, But what do they call it? Like
a velvet wrapped hammer. That's what this one is really.
I mean, it's an incredible vehicle. And we're talking about
the Mercedes Benz s L six D specifically the fourth

(23:47):
generation of this vehicle. And the reason we're saying specifically
that is because that's the one that comes with a
six liter V twelve engine a lot like we talked
about with the st and Martin, right, different engine. This
is a Mercedes built engine. This is actually the same
engine that went into the first Pegani Zonda, the C
twelve I think that was later that was like a
two I want to say that was in two thousands

(24:08):
something when that came around. But we're talking about a
car in nineteen ninety three. It was valued at get
this ben one hundred and fifty three thousand dollars in
nineteen so if you were to take that, this is
a car that that would be adjusted to two hundred
and fifty eight thousand, six hundred dollars and it's offered

(24:32):
you know a lot of places eBay or wherever, Craigslist,
well under twenty thousand dollars now, which is insane, and
these would be you know, think of the existing mileage
on this like round yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable that
the depreciation that happened with these vehicles and I can't

(24:53):
get my head wrapped around this one other than it's
the maintenance cost. The maintenance is what's driving people to
for of these and to say that, you know, they're
just not they're not valued at what they were. People
that own one, you don't want to hang on to
it forever, But a lot of people can't afford the
upkeep of them. The thing is like Mercedes, though, if
you take care of the upkeep, they are super durable vehicles.

(25:14):
Oh yeah, well that's that's fine, but you will hear
in for you know, you read forums and I read
a lot of forums about this car trying to figure
out what what it was that make them drop in
price so dramatically, And I can only come up with
the maintenance in this in this situation. And the reason
is because a lot of people said, sure, you know,
there's the usual stuff, you know that everybody pays for.
There's breaks, there's fluids, there's filters, there's all that stuff, right,

(25:36):
you know, just routine maintenance. Maybe a broken windshield here there,
there's all. But there's always something on this car that
requires attention that is above one dollars, like it's been
always something car whenever I take it in. And then
the other problem with it is that you can't just
take it to you know, the local shop and you know,
have them repair it. A lot of these owners said,

(25:58):
if you want it done right, if you wanted to
be a lasting, good repair, you have to take it
to the Mercedes dealership and have them do it, because
they have the right tools, they have the special tools,
they have the knowledge, and you know, they're the only
ones that can seemingly get this thing back together in
the right way every single time. And that too, you know,
to them, it's worth it to pay you know all that.
You know, don't want us a shoddy repair and a

(26:19):
lot of the things you can't do yourself on this
vehicle because it's just a kind of a it's an
exotic engine really, I mean, when you get right down
to it, it's an exotic engine. So good luck working
on something like this in your grudge. That's that's the
other problem. So maintenance is another it's a huge issue
in this but man for for under twenty tho dollars, uh,
that's remarkable, and that maybe one of the most I

(26:40):
think that's one of the most significant price drops we
have in the entire list for today, I think, so,
I mean maybe that well then Aston Martin, Oh no,
the Aston Martin was still valued just probably double what
this one is valued at. So yeah, you're probably right.
So moving on, we go to something that a lot
of a lot of folks waiting for in the audience,

(27:02):
ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors. The BMW M three
makes the list as well. Yeah. Now, this is one
that was produced all through the nineteen nineties. We're talking
about specifically the E thirty six version of the M three.
This is the third generation of the three series cars
produced throughout the two thousand and you know, ballpark price

(27:23):
when it was brand new, I'm gonna say between thirty
nine thousand and forty five thousand dollars. So still expensive,
you know at that time. A sports car, Yeah, I
mean it's a luxury sports car, but but it was desirable.
A lot of people wanted to BMW. Of course, that
carried with it a name, you know, steeped in heritage.
I guess maybe I hadn't a better way to say it. Um,

(27:44):
but this car, by the way, just so that you
get an idea of of how strong this vehicle was.
It made Car Driver's ten best list every single year.
That was on sale every year, so throughout the nineteen
nineties was always on the top ten list. They had,
you know, several body styles to it. You could get
a sedan, you can get a coop, a convertible, and
a state or you know wagon. I think they call
it um In a lot of places they call it

(28:05):
a state. Uh get a hatchback version of this thing.
Even so, had great variety. It was a strong performer.
Um people still seek this car out. Yeah, And there
is something that we do have to mention, which is
not not all of these were created equal, right since
the since the US market had a different engine from

(28:28):
what you could acquire in Europe. Now we're going to
my favorite one. I'm just gonna be completely honest. Sure,
the Dodge Viper. I had no idea you could get
one at like this that at forty and are you
forgetting our conversation? I think you're forgetting our conversation. We

(28:49):
talked about this in an episode, but it was brief,
so maybe that was it. We talked about this taking
the place of the Ferrari three oh eight as our
example of a car that you can afford but probably
should buy. That's right now. But but you know, I've
I've been thinking about this and maybe I'm gonna go
back on this. I don't know. I'm still undecided about
this vehicle. But it's kind of our I was going

(29:10):
to start using this as our go to car again.
It was probably only three or four minute conversations, so
I but I just keep you know what it is.
I keep getting like a kid in a candy stored
with this thing, you know, and I keep I know.
It's like, I know it's gonna be bad for me.
I know I'm gonna regret it. I'll probably be kind
of broke for a while, whisper to you at night

(29:31):
that it wants to kill you. But Scott, it's a
Dodge viper, I know. And you know what, I see
more and more of these things around town now than
I think I ever have. I mean, I don't know
what the deal is. And there's some new, some old.
It's a siren call. There's something about it. It's hard
to resist. Man. I'm living one day at a time
and I don't know, you know, I'm on the edge.
I hope you get one. I'd love to see you.
I'd love to see you in a viper sometime soon,

(29:53):
because they're incredible. In the mid nine nine roadsters are
the ones that you can pick up for a reasonable price.
And we it reasonable because let's get this, this is
a supercar. It's a it's an American made supercar. It's brutal,
it's not it's not refined, it's it's more it's more
rough around the edges, maybe the best way to say it.
Of course, v ten power. I think it went anywhere

(30:13):
from what in the early days was like four hundred horsepower,
and then it eventually climbed to horse power more. Um,
but we're talking about the mid we're probably writing that
four hundred four and or fifty range for the price
that we're talking about. And you can get these again
this is this is the thing with these cars been.

(30:33):
You can get them in varying degrees of condition. The
problem is that front end. Remember the price of the
front end. Now, trying to think of a way around this,
and maybe that's why I'm reconsidering my my my pick
here for kind of the car that you maybe shouldn't buy. Um, Yeah,
it's a it's a Lamborghini tuned V ten engine, so

(30:53):
all aluminum. The price that we had quoted or we
talked about maybe for that for that hood piece, that
single piece that was I think it's a composite material.
I think do we say it's carbon fiber. I think
it's composite. And there's a front clip and then there's
headlights and all of that. If you run into anything
in a parking lot or another vehicle, or you know,
somebody hits you or whatever, it gets very very expensive.

(31:14):
All three of those pieces that I just described, or
four including two headlights, can be around twenty thou dollars.
So if you rear end somebody, there's a possibility that
you're gonna walk away with a twenty dollar bill for
your own vehicle to be repaired. UM. Twelve thousand to
fifteen thousand dollars of that is for that new single
piece hood that's it's it's enormous panel, really big um

(31:35):
right around I think the clip that front lower clip
or um, you know, the very front end with the
grill that's somewhere ballpark around you know, three or four
thousand dollars brand new, and then the headlights. I've heard
around five dollars each, So it gets very expensive, very fast.
But you can pick up used parts, uh you know
that much much lower prices. Still expensive, but um, that's

(31:57):
kind of the danger of this vehicle. How easy is
it to run into something with a viper and crack
up that front end? I think I think a lot
of the ones that you'll find for sale, you know,
in the thirty thousand to let's say, ten thousand dollar range,
are already gonna have that damage you're gonna have. You're
gonna buy it knowing that you're gonna have to invest
some money to make it look complete. Again. It's fair,
It's true, you know what, You're tough, but fair well.

(32:19):
But then again, the viper is a kind of car
that I don't care if it has a front end
on it. I'm gonna drive it and have fun, even
it's just wide open in front, like the old cars
that would run with no hood on them. You know how.
It's a beautiful engine. You should show people. Right, You're right,
I should get one. You definitely should get one. I'll
help you in your search starting today if you would like.
I feel like I'm not. I feel like I'm tuning

(32:41):
out and part of the conversation and I'll have I've
got to move on before I get obsessed, all right,
and I appreciate your help. It's a beautiful car. This
could be We're really close to this being one of
those go kart or goat situations with ladies and gentlemen.
I don't know if you've if you've heard this four
if you picked it up, but off the air, I

(33:02):
asked my co host Scott for advice, because Scott knows
a lot about a lot of things, and thank you. Yeah, Well,
it's it's just an observation. Uh, he knows a lot
about a lot of things. And so several times i've
I've gotten well together, We've gotten very very close to
getting a go kart, uh and renting a goat for

(33:25):
law and maintenance. You're gonna buy a goat? I was gonna, yeah,
because I couldn't rent one. That's right. Yeah, you're gonna
buy one. But then you could rent it to your
friends and it's a money maker. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that
was the idea. The go cart is still a good idea.
By the way, it doesn't matter what age you are,
how long, it doesn't matter. It's a great idea. It
is a great idea, and we are going to find

(33:45):
we're going to reveal the last two affordable nineties dream cars.
After a word from our sponsor. All right, and we're back,
and we're gonna wrap up the last two here. Maybe

(34:06):
a little bit quicker because I realized we spent a
lot of time on some of the side conversations. It was,
and it was a lotus that's in the past. I'm here,
I'm president, I understand. All right. This is the Porsche Boxer,
specifically the first generation of Boxer. Now this this came
around I think they built them until about two thousand four,

(34:30):
and there were a lot of There are a lot
of fans of this, uh, this design. There are a
lot of people that are detractors of this design. They
don't they don't like it. They said, uh, you know,
what's Porsche doing making this entry level vehicle? How they
look down there nose that you know, the people that
bought the Boxer and said, you know, this shouldn't even
be allowed to park at our events. Honestly, there's that
kind of attitude towards this car from a lot of people,
and there shouldn't be. Really, this is a it's a

(34:51):
it's a great cards. I think I read somewhere and
I hope I'm not mixing this up with but I
thought I heard had heard that this is Porsche's first
all new a vehicle and something like twenty nine years
at that point. It was a long time. Maybe it
wasn't exactly that that amount of time, but it was
um one of the first times they had completely redesigned
a vehicle or designed a brand new vehicle from the

(35:12):
ground up for a long long time decades. But now UM,
you can pick up one of these, or pick one
of these up from around one of that, say, about
ten twelve thousand dollars. That's ballpark price. Brand knew if
you wanted to go back to was between forty and
fifty thousand dollars, so they were pretty expensive back then.
That would have been around, you know, sixties, seventy five

(35:33):
thousand dollars somewhere in there. UM had a couple of
really great engines, some flat six engines, a two point
five at two point seven and then also a three
point two lead version that you could get. UM Porsche
was in a lot of trouble in the nineties when
this car came around. They were in dire straits, and
a lot of people have given credit to the Boxer
as the vehicle that brought it back from the brink

(35:54):
of um a potential sale. I I think someone would
have bought the brand and continue to make it, but
it wouldn't have been it would have been Porscha. I
don't think it would have been the same. So I
do think it would have been You're absolutely right, Scott.
They did get close to being sold or acquired, and
I think that would have been extinction. I think the

(36:15):
only they would have maybe tried some other things, but
the market probably wouldn't have reacted very well because it
would be seen as sort of a counterfeit Porsche and
then they would have to go to like legacy revivals
to I give Porsche a lot of credit for creating
this vehicle. I mean, I think that as a smart move.

(36:36):
At the time, they had a lot of people that
were pushing against doing something like this, and I'm sure
that's not just you know, public opinion. I'm sure there
was some pressure from within to not do this, and
they went forward with a plan and it worked out
for them. We have a listener named Colin s from Denver,
Colorado who wrote in a while back about his father's
first generation Boxter and it's valued right around twelve thousand

(36:57):
dollars right now, and that's with thirty thousand miles, and
he's that's a pristine version of of you know, this
first gen Boxer. But he said, the problem with it
is the maintenance cost. And and again here we here
we are with the maintenance issue because he said, the
last oil change that you took it in for, and
this is a while back, he said the oil change
was about seven hundred and fifty dollars. And I'm sure
that there's some other, you know, supplemental things that go

(37:18):
along with that. It's not just an oil change play
means um. But he did also have a major service
done recently. You know, whenever this was written, there was
something like it was over two thousand dollars. So again,
a two thousand dollar maintenance and a seven and fifty
dollar oil change in a car that's only valued at
twelve thou dollars. After a few times of doing that,
you get pretty tired of spending that kind of money

(37:39):
at the dealership. But it will end up spending more
money on oil than you will. This is the thing
and this this is the case with several of these
vehicles in this list, is that and even when it
was new. This is it's more true now than ever
because the price is lower. But even when it's brand new,
Porsche priced this vehicle at a price that was attractive
to someone who was saying, mid twenties, has a pretty

(38:00):
decent job, you know, not the first job out of college,
but you know, they're kind of on their way to
being a career person. Got whatever they're you know, they're
focused on their career. I want to buy something that's
a status symbol. This was priced just right for somebody
thirty years old, maybe a little bit older. But the
problem was you couldn't afford to maintain it. And the
maintenance is something that is so critical. So a lot

(38:21):
of these you'll find are in really bad shape. You
can find some some that are in just horrific condition
because the owner never took care of it. They could
afford the payments, couldn't afford the maintenance. So if we
want to do a silver lining on this, if you're
looking for a project car, you could consider this a
project yeah, but understand that whoever you buy it from,
you might want to do a little profile and see
how they handle other things? Are they you know, they

(38:44):
have a well manicured lawn. Do they how about their
other vehicles? It in good shape as well? Check that?
Check stuff like that and ask them about receipts. Do
you have a lot of receipts? Ask who they if
they've kept a log a maintenance log, yeah, exactly, which
they may or may not have. But you can learn
more about the art and science of getting a good

(39:05):
deal in a used car by checking out our earlier
episode episodes excuse me on that um and you can
also check out how to how to find out whether
your mechanic is on the up and up? And you know,
I'm I'm working for it. I think sometimes I referenced
too many past episodes, but it feels like the fastest

(39:26):
way to get the information to you, folks is is
just to say. Usually, if it sounds like Scott and
I have glossed over a particular thing, we have an
episode waiting for you on car stuff show dot com
that goes maybe into too much detail about it. Right,
you are selling it today and I like it. Hey,
thanks nice work. I wanted to ask our our super

(39:47):
producer uh to toss a drum roll in for our
final vehicle. That was perfect, just right, that was perfect
every time every time. The final vehicle is the Mitsubishi
three thousand g T Yeah. Okay, well this is going
to end with a tremendous um coincidence. I'll tell you that.

(40:11):
But but i'll tell you that that in just a minute. Now.
In the nineteen nineties, there was a Mitsubishi created a
vehicle called the three thousand GT. There was another vehicle
that was similar that was the Dodge Stealth. But this
is the Mitsubisi version of this one. And specifically in
this article they listed as being, you know, a competitor
to vehicles like the Toyota Super or even the accurate NSX.

(40:33):
This one that we're talking about is the top of
the line all wheel drive three thousand g t v
R four and I think that was right. I think
I want to say that this is one that was
produced specifically in the one that they're talking about, the
VR four version. UM. The thing is ben these can
be found for under fifteen thousand dollars now, which is

(40:54):
really really good, excellent price. Now. The VR four UM
sold for in n sold for around twenty five, anywhere
between twenty five and forty dollars. You know what I'm
gonna amend this. I'm gonna say that that was probably
dollars for the standard three thousand GT that the forty
five thousand dollars would have been the VR four version,
I would guess. And here's where this amazing coincidence comes in.

(41:17):
Right now. It's a it's a beautiful looking car. A
lot of a lot of people can agree that, you know,
I think most people can agree it has the looks
of a nineteen nineties well I wouldn't say a supercar,
but a sports car definitely. It was also ahead of
its time. Oh yeah, yeah, I had a lot of
advancements that other cars just weren't offering at the time. So, um,
it's it's an incredible vehicle. It really is the one

(41:38):
that we're talking about, in specific, this this VR four UM.
For the year, only two hundred and seventy four of
these were sold or imported to the United States, So
they're a rare bird by by all means, right, tough
to find them. So I was reading this, you know,
I was following this link from this is This is
from a roading track article that we're following along with.
But Gelotnik had an article about this, and the guy

(42:01):
that wrote about it, because name is the author that
wrote about his name is um Freddy Hernandez was over
Gelopnik and he bought one of these. And he has
a separate thing that he runs called I think it's
called like the Art of the Flip, where he buys
cars and flips, documents what he does to them and
how much he sells him for and what kind of
tracks the progress of it. It's an interesting thing to
read again, called art of the Art of the Flip.

(42:22):
And one of the vehicles was one of these, um
what he calls a super rare three thousand g t
v R four and he bought it. I forget when
he bought it. It was a while back, but he
he wrote in his article and again you have to
look this up online and Geloptic, but he wrote at
the at the very end of it, when he's documenting
like the arrival of this and the excitement over buying
and everything, he says, you can check these out on

(42:45):
eBay and here's a link, but good luck finding in
nine v R four. So I thought, all right, well,
I'll just look at this on eBay and see what
the prices are. So click on it. And the very
first vehicle on the list was in nineteen n v
R four and it's the same color as the one
that he owned and he was writing about in this article.
So I thought, well, that's really weird, and I looked
at it and I opened the the listing on the

(43:06):
day and in the description it says, this is the
exact same car that Freddie Hernandez documented in his Gelafman Car.
He said, he said, that's why the photos of the
exact same these are the this is the same car
that was owned by him. And the auction had five
hours left in it. That's how close it was to
missing this by So last night I looked at it.

(43:26):
It ended at midnight. I don't know what it eventually
sold for, but it was on sale in Roseville, California,
and of course I think um Mr Henan Hernandez lived
in New Jersey, so it made its way to Roseville, California,
and it was with five hours remaining. It was for
sale for sixteen thousand, two hundred dollars. Not a bad
price considering what you're getting. I mean, if you if
you read about the VR four and specific, you'll you'll

(43:48):
understand what I mean. But even the standard three thousand
GT if if you can call it standard, it was
an incredible vehicle and very you know, highly sought after.
A lot of people wanted this car, and you know,
back in the day, said my friend, well said, and
I completely I completely agree. I'm a little bit dumbfounded
by the coincidence, but I guess those things happen. You know,
I did this. This is funny. I thought there's no

(44:11):
way that was happening, Like there's I'm not seeing what
I'm seeing because these are those articles written years ago.
I'm just tracking it now for this episode that we
just happened to decide on recording this week, and then
it just happens to be the very first listing with
five hours left in the auction. Way too much of
a coincidence, but it's true. It really did happen, and
I tried to find it today. I tried to go
back and I wish I had, you know, save the

(44:32):
uh um, the listing number, because I could check out
what I eventually sold for, but I neglected to do
that yesterday, so I don't know, but sixteen two was
the last bid on it again with five hours left
and just a crazy coincidence. But stuff like that sometimes happens,
you know. Yeah, describing it's difficult and arduous sometimes, but
but I hopefully got there. And this will conclude our

(44:54):
list for today, which means we are looking for your help, folks.
Uh right to us and let us know if there's
something that we should add to the list. Another affordable
dream car. Yeah, this is a road and tracks list.
And and to be honest, I tried to, you know,
search the recesses of my memory of for something something

(45:15):
that was you know, expensive then would be affordable now.
And this list really covers a lot of them, so
it did a great job. I didn't want to add
a whole lot to it. Um. I could think of
maybe one like the BMW M coupe. Maybe it was expensive,
it was like forties six thousand dollars um back in
I don't know what they're going for now. I think,
you know, ballpark, so half of that price. We also

(45:38):
have one more order of business, Scott, I think you
you know what it is with that I'm going to
pitch it right now. First reaction Dylan the lotus facin
why anything with lotus and it has to stay. I'm
really I'm kind of leveraging that it would be better
as if his name started with E or ended with
the in there somewhere yeah, yeah, yeah, Dylan elotus No, no,

(46:06):
I mean if or something right didn't work out? Um,
all right, So what about Tristan? We've got um you
know how okay, you know how in Atlanta? There there's
outcast right, yeah, don't look over him. I'm just seeing
his reaction. There's there's Andre three thousand, uh, and I

(46:31):
think using numbers for nicknames really cool. So what if
he's Tristan three thousand McNeil. Alright, it works, it's acceptable. Okay,
it's not my best work. What do you think you
agreeting thumbs? We got a thumbs all right, and it
felt like a sincere thumbs up. Yeah. We'll discuss that later. Yeah.
So right, so right to us and let us know

(46:53):
what what other vehicles you think should be added on
the list. And I'm also interested to see what vehicles
are out now that you think will be classics or
dream cars in the future. Yeah, because this is going
back a long way. We're talking some you know, cars
that could be as old as twenty seven years old
at this point, or so were seventeen. But but yeah, again,

(47:13):
this is another one of those kind of like forecast
the future type of you know, ideas that maybe try
to determine right now what's going to be worth about
half as much or even less in the future. That's
something that's expensive right now that you might be able
to forward. But I like the idea of going back
and finding in car that that, you know, something that
you desired back then that you want now, something that

(47:34):
was considered not exotic, that something that was unattainable back then,
And that was the problem I had is again, it's
a good list, but I'm sure that we're forgetting. You know,
there's probably one d other cars that we were just
not coming up with top of the mind. Yeah. Yeah,
So I love our listeners to write in and tell
us what they think. And you can, as we said,
find us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter,

(47:55):
where we're car Stuff hs W can cover a lot
of things that, for one reason or another don't make
it onto the air board. You can write to us directly.
We are car Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, this

(48:16):
is how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff
works dot com. M