Since living near and frequently running past a home that had a heavily oxidized red 2-door Volvo 122 out front, they’ve been interesting as a somewhat sporting yet reliable vintage car. Combined with the fact that a fair amount are still out and about on the roads, they’re still an accessible classic for the enthusiast. Case in point is this nice-looking, yet poorly-described, 1967 122 wagon available in Kent/Covington, WA, just south of Seattle, for $2500.
Although we’re generally infatuated with oddball European cars, occasionally we like to venture beyond our standard fare and dig up truly rare things like coachbuilt Japanese convertibles from the early 1980s. For those of you who weren’t around then, the death of the convertible was a common theme for automakers and car enthusiasts. There was a major push for passive safety (witness the addition of park-bench sized bumpers, impact bars in the doors, foam rubber dashboards, and open cars such as the Fiat X1/9), and the lack of a roof just didn’t seem compatible with our dangerous new world. As a result, several small coachbuilders took on the task of chopping the roofs off of regular production cars. Cars such as the Toyota Celica and Corolla, Subaru DL, Honda Prelude and CRX, and Mazda RX-7 all went topless thanks to these folks. Also among that crowd was the Datsun 200SX, seen last week in the Bonham’s at Quail auction parking lot with an unspecified price (but really, how much could it possibly be?).
With only around 1200 cars sold in the US through 1980 and 1981, it’s fairly rare to find a Rover SD1 for sale. However, if they were going to survive anywhere, it would be the west coast. Sadly, most remaining examples have fallen into decay, which is somewhat surprising given the American-based V8, good handling and arguably the most elegant 4-door sedan styling of its time. And here we have two projects which, when combined, will never almost certainly make one fantastic driver. Even better, you could make a good driver out of the good parts, and a BTCC-inspired LeMons racer from what’s left – what could possibly go wrong? Find the most complete car for $1500 in Long Beach, CA.
Rusty But Trusty 