So now you’ve seen contestant number one, and what an elegant shape it is. But, you whine, the sexy Alfa V6 with its gorgeous intake runners and musical exhaust note sucks up too much fuel, and needs regular timing belt changes, lest it bend its valves, and the term “stepper motor” sends shivers down the spine. So feast your eyes (and your low-budget-fun-car dollars) on this 1991 Peugeot 405 Mi16 for sale for $1600 in Portland, OR.
This has been said elsewhere before, but you don’t even need to squint to see that Pininfarina was a prolific design-daddy, spreading his, ahem, genetic influence all over the automotive industry. He was pretty active in 1987, siring both the Alfa Romeo 164 and the Peugeot 405, and a couple years later produced another offspring with Peugeot, the 605. And while new Alfa buyers might have been concerned about buying a car that had stunning similarity to its cheaper cousin, 25 years on you can just say they’re two very smart looking sedans that obviously share some DNA. Let’s start on the Italian side first with this 1991 Alfa Romeo 164S for sale for $2800 in Fremont, CA.
With the millions of VW Beetles sold in this country and the world, they’re still pretty ubiquitous. So it’s hard to find what you might call an unusual version of the Beetle. For people north of the Mexican border, this is any Beetle built after 1979. The latest versions even had fuel injection and a catalytic converter, which must be pretty similar to final Canadian/US spec. Mexican built Beetles have an interesting mixture of features compared to the standard Canadian/US Beetles, and late in their production run lost things such as the flow-through ventilation system and any chrome fittings. Check out this this 1971 VW Beetle for sale for $3600 in Vancouver, WA.
Rusty But Trusty 