One overlooked issue would be crash protection.
I almost bought an old VW Bus, but I found out that there was no protection for the driver and passenger leg/foot area and any frontal impact would crush your legs. I know that is the VW bus (not the bettle), but their lack of crash protection might be similar. Other concerns would be the anemic horse power (I think 60 bph), and at 60 MPH it might be straining to maintain speed.
The old Toyota Camry you mentioned could probably take you another 200k miles, and would be my choice.
Seems like the bugs were generally between 26-36 hp, and the super Beatles were upwards to 45? I had a 73 bus and it was fun for the time I had it - but I don’t think it was rated for more than 45 hp or so. And yeah, the safety was non-existent.
the square-bodied vanagons, however, were much more substantial. Air cooled were 65 hp and water boxes were maybe 82? All this is pre-airbag and there was no crumple zone, but generally if you hit something hard enough to crush the front end, the occupants were likely to be fatalities from the G-forces anyway. My parents had an 84, but couldn’t keep it running no matter how many times it went to the dealer. Fuel injection problems….if we had it back, I would keep it! So I’ll add that -
80s VW Vanagon.
Honda preludes were cool cars in any year??
olds
delta 88 when they were RWD? Ford
LTD? They made those in convertibles, even, but these were not the easiest to work on. Classic
caprice or
impala? Heck, theres a beautiful crown Vic at work which has been given mild sleeper hot rod treatment that is downright beautiful. ever so slightly lowered, nice wheels and brakes, good paint, super cleaned up … I have no idea what’s under the hood.
ram trucks from the 70’s…. Or jeep …. Get ready to go slow with a 318…
Redo an 80s conversion van??
I guess I’m kind of racking my brain here. Classic cars now include stuff I grew up with and drove. Most domestics in the 70s and 80s I wouldn’t want to touch. I have wrench time on a couple 50’s models (a 57 and a friends 53) and nowadays I don’t enjoy some of the crudeness, like dealing with hood springs that want to remove your left ear hole and nasty rust that you wouldn’t see on something newer. But get into the 90s and it’s harder to find that “classic vibe.”
The “classic vibe” tends to have a metal or wooden dash, not vinyl?
hmm. Wooden dashes include
triumph, perhaps some
alpha romeo, MGB?
some of the
1980 benzes could be fun, but parts will either be Hard, or expensive. I hear rumors that Mercedes is extremely good about having parts…. but not cheaply.
original jeep ZJ would be fun to my eye. That’s around 93? Good parts support, and there are barely-runners out there which are dirt cheap. And you can build it from mild to wild?
mazda RX7, that was a cool car. Nissan Z cars…
land cruisers, 40, 60 or 80?
older Range Rover, back when they were tractors with cabins!