After spending some time the other day preparing myself to subtly pay-out someone about their "crappy car", it occurred to me that the car probably wasn't actually all that junkiferous. Sure, it used to have badges on it that said Cordia, but it wasn't really all that Cordial any more; it had new suspension consumables (on which some time had allegedly been spent getting the settings right), a Galant VR4 engine, upgraded brakes, a customised (and virtually new) interior and pretty fresh-looking paint (white/silver mica ... I suppose there's no accounting for taste). So you could say it was a Cordia, and it did look like a Cordia; but we have the technology, we can rebuild it better, stronger and faster than it was before ... it doesn't really go, turn or stop like a Cordia originally did.
Which made me think about it a little. We all know a Cordia is an unreliable, unimpressive chunk of horse excrement, but that is kind-of offset by the fact that everyone else knows that - which makes them absolutely dirt cheap! We've all heard the stories about the police trying them but having huge reliability problems, and we've all read how scary turbo power was through an early-80's Japanese front-wheel-drive system; and also how much grunt they lost when they were forced to drink low-octane unleaded fuel.
However, as long as you don't mind it being FWD, it has to be a worthwhile basis for something cheap yet half-decent, because you really can't get much else that's turbocharged and relatively "modern" (well, injected) for the $2k (or less) they seem to be worth. So you might be a social leper, but you'll at least be a fast social leper - a concept I can wholeheartedly appreciate!
But there must surely be quite a few other cars out there that are bargains because they were considered crap when they were new, but can be modified to be half-decent if you're so inclined?
Another turbo car which throbs away in the back of the memory bank when "crap" is mentioned is the Holden (or Isuzu) Piazza. They probably weren't the worst-behaved car on the road, although the early ones allegedly had truly awful handling; however, they really didn't go too slowly. Their main problem was price; they looked pretty sporty, if a little unusual, but at the time nobody was going to pay as much as an SS Group A Commodore for what was essentially a dodgy-handling Gemini with some plastic surgery. However, they're somewhat unwanted and unloved now, and although parts must be a problem, you can probably bring in an entire parts-car from Japan for next to nothing (assuming it's never going to be registered). Again, without going too overboard you could surely get a car which handled well enough, and with a few mods went pretty well, for a sum of money that isn't too large. Used imported Isuzu parts mightn't be as easy to come by as, say, Nissan ones, but it seems there are people who will do it if you know what you want.
Another example is e Pulsar ET of the mid 80's. This was actually regarded to be pretty decent when it was released, Nissan Australia having waved some magic over the shocking Pulsar EXA suspension to make the 5-door-hatch version handle quite sweetly. However, newer designs such as the 4AGE-powered Toyota Corolla stole some thunder by being as fast and yet being naturally-aspirated, and offering the promise of Toyota quality and reliability. It also wasn't uncommon to see the Pulsar blowing smoke as the early-design air-cooled turbos died (probably partially because early turbo owners wouldn't have known how to look after them), and rust seems to have been an enemy of these cars.
However, considering how little they're worth, it wouldn't take much to slap on a newer, better-designed turbo, up the boost, attach intercooler and possibly water injection, and you've got a cheap turbo car. Essentially, you could do the same with an EXA of the same age (if you tackled the suspension too), but it's probably easier on a weaker stomach to start with the ET.
Actually, a more wacky (but familiar to me) lepermobile is the Volvo 740 or 760 Turbo. I've spoken about them before so I won't broken-record for too long (and I must admit that I've not seen the condition of the $5000 cars that're around), but considering they were top-of-the-range back in the mid 80's, they are relatively well equipped cars. Stock they're no quicker than your V8 Falcodore, but up the boost and do a bit of fiddling and you can get a pretty decent amount of power out of the venerable 2.3. Of course, the big drawback with these is weight, as the 700-series cars were not exactly the lightest around. You could still frighten your grandmother when she borrows it to get to bowls, though.
And another Japanese coupé that doesn't exactly catch the imagination of the used car buying public is the Mitsubishi Starion. It didn't sell in huge numbers, possibly because it was somewhat eclipsed by cars like the RX7 (which has probably come a little closer to passing the test of time, too), which it was also a bit more expensive than (well, compared to the nimble Series I-III, at least). But again, as long as you can live with the "experimental" interior, there must be a few engines around that would easily swap in, and you'd have a relatively capable RWD car.
So what's the point of all this? Maybe the idea of recycling stuff that people think of as "crap", and making it better than things that aren't considered to be "crap", appeals to me; and there's a lot of cars out there that were considered to be worthy of avoiding. But if you know what to do with them, it's definitely possible to make a silk purse out of some of them, even if the purse still looks like the proverbial porcine listening-organ. And the next time someone pulls up next to you in a reliable-but-not-sporty lowered XF sedan, just remember that AIT did a couple of AWD twin-turbo versions ...
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