Volvo 240, BMW Z3, Peugeot 205: The Dopest Cars I Found For Sale Online

Are you all in the throes of Third Winter? Here in Brooklyn, we're just barely starting to move into Mud Season, which luckily isn't too bad in our concrete paradise — sure, the park is a bit of a mess, but it's easy enough to avoid dirt here. The sportbikes of the Spring of Deception have yet to return to our streets in full force, though every day I hear another couple brave souls saddling up on their four-cylinders to hit unimaginable revs in 25 mile per hour zones. 

All in all, we're rapidly approaching Fun Vehicle Season here in the Northeast. In other parts of what's left of the United States, you may well already be there — clearly, you are in desperate need of something fun to tool around in. Never fear, dear reader, for I am here to help you out on this fine Tuesday with a selection of the internet's Dopest Cars. 

This is really how all Volvo 240s should be spec'd. I get that the beige is classic, and brown is the theoretical ideal, but let's all be honest with each other: Few colors in the automotive world are better than British Racing Green. I'm not exactly sure Polestar's Swedish Racing Green would be apt on an old 240 anyway. 

I actually noticed a V60 Polestar street parked on Saturday, while on a quest for Italian ice in Manhattan, and I have to say I prefer the looks of this old 240. Maybe it's just that I grew up in an era alongside the V60, while the 240 predates me, but the later car just seems to much more... normal. Boring-looking, even. The 240, by contrast, just looks fantastic. Sure, it's certainly of its time, but its time has aged with incredible grace. Plus, there's so much glass to see through!

Diversity win! This motorcycle is polyamorous!

I think Facebook is running out of vans to serve me, because it's started giving me other vehicles notable for their internal square footage. The best of those is this International, because I think more vehicles should come with enormous labels displaying exactly what they're carrying. What's in that truck going by on the highway, you wonder? Well, wonder no more. HORSES. 

The seller of this Horse Truck (no further model information is given, required, or even desired) actually appears to be up on its maintenance — this thing hasn't just been sitting in a field or a barn since the '80s. The ad claims new tires, new U joints, fresh brakes, and even updated LED lighting. This is also apparently a three-horse truck, a phrase that will now live in my brain alongside "three dog night." It's true, there are three stalls inside this International, but it gives me a mental image of some sort of triple-Godfather situation. 

I have a confession: The clownshoe has never been my favorite BMW. Probably not top few, even. It's a neat car, but I've always appreciated it more for its novelty than for its actual design. I liked it because it was weird, not because it actually looked good — that is, until I saw this ad. Now, I get it. I'm sold. I love the clownshoe and I want the clownshoe to love me. 

Tab over to the ad on Facebook, and take a look at the rear shot of the car. Doesn't it just look like an E36 318ti with the widest set of fenders you ever did see? I know this one's modified, with coilovers that affect its stance, but I now have a whole new appreciation for the car after seeing it from some novel angles. That, or maybe I'm just approaching 30, and really coming to appreciate cargo space. 

I'm going to be honest, reader. I'm at a loss on this one. There's a 1.4 liter Honda engine up front, powering the five-lug front wheels through a 5-speed manual transmission. Out back, a mere one wheel. The muffler and rear turn signals appear to be off a motorcycle, but the steering wheel, gauge cluster, and shift knob look to be off a second-generation Integra — a car that, notably, was not offered with a 1.4-liter mill. The engine might be a ZC, out of a CR-X? It's the wrong displacement, but the valve cover seems to match. Did Honda ever even make a DOHC 1.4 liter? This is a rabbit hole I simply don't have time to go down, especially when there's so much more going on here. 

The panel gaps here are Tesla quality, and the body looks to be raw metal. The whole car rides on a "custom built stainless frame," and the seller is proud to brag that it passes New York State safety inspections. I can only guess has to how. Maybe the inspector saw that Youabian Puma face and decided dying in this would be better than living with it. 

I'm famously a fan of this generation of Outback and Legacy, having owned one of my own. 2005 was the year for the manual transmission and the turbo in this wagon body, but the Legacy was always more desired than the Outback — it turns out, getting an Outback down to Legacy ride height requires some new steering geometry that people simply don't want to deal with. If you're willing to have a higher roll center, though, this Outback XT offers a hell of a lot of car for the money. 

The five-speed manual is surprising to see in a car this clean-looking at this price point, but the selling points don't end there. There's a full exhaust, a full set of coilovers, an upgraded top-mount intercooler, and — oh yeah — a built IAG EJ25 block. The seller claims this is tuned to 300 wheel horsepower, and I believe it — these IAG blocks can hold up to plenty of abuse. Slap a big turbo on, crank up the fuel, it won't care. You'll just have the fastest sleeper wagon you've ever seen, all for five grand. 

 Who doesn't love the Isuzu Amigo! No, don't answer, there's an exclamation mark rather than a question mark at the end of that sentence because the question is rhetorical. No one hates the Amigo, because few cars on Earth look friendlier than this little rounded-off late-'90s soft-top four-wheeler. Sure, this one needs some work, but what car form 1998 doesn't? I have friends made in 1998, and they need work too. 

The seller is vague about what work this Amigo actually needs, only saying that it involves lifters. That's not great to hear, because the Amigo used an interference engine — here's hoping there are no bent valves to deal with. Maybe that's why it's being towed in one of its listing shots. Even if that's the problem, though, would that really be so bad? Now you've got a compact off-road chassis with a wide open engine bay for whatever swap you're feeling. Put a K-series in this Amigo, and then send me a video of it. 

I know, I know, I normally try not to repeat manufacturers within a single Dopest and we just had that Outback XT a few slides ago. Fortunately for you, my rule about repeats goes out the window when I see something like this: A Subaru Sambar Dias with a supercharger under the hood, in near-immaculate condition. If you've ever once in your life considered kei van ownership, now is the time and this is the car. 

This is another kei car that I would truly love to own myself, if not for New York's draconian laws on the matter. Still, that's probably for the best — you should buy this Sambar from its current home in Connecticut, and immediately spirit it away to a state that doesn't use road salt. Use that supercharger to get this van away from rust as possible, because it deserves a long, good life. We don't get many Dias-bodied Sambars in the States, and that's a damn shame. 

Readers, I'm being Mandela Effected (Affected?) right now. When I found this ad, I immediately thought that this Scion xB with its rear end missing must have been a Red Bull car. Then I looked into the ad more, and the seller sure seems to imply that they did the conversion themselves. Then I did some further digging, and it looks like Red Bull never even used Scions for its cars — I can only find photos of the Minis. 

Have I finally lost it? Did I invent a Red Bull Scion xB that never happened, assembling it from half-remembered visions of the Red Bull Mini Coopers? I could've sworn that Toyota's youth-oriented brand had teamed up with Red Bull's youth-oriented energy drink, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is it for me. If this is to be my last message before I'm carted away to the big farm upstate where bloggers go when they fully lose contact with reality, let this be my last message: Scion xBs should have been used for Red Bull cars. 

Okay, I guess the Scion is my second-to-last missive before telling Erin about the rabbits, because I can't go without telling you about this beautiful Peugeot 205 GTI. This is no appearance package, this is a genuine race car — the seller claims a built engine assembled back in Germany, set up for 102 octane. Sure, it may only make 154 horses from all that octane, but it doesn't weigh much either: Just 1,840 pounds. 

You'd have to re-tune the engine to run this as a daily if you wanted any hope of filling up at a regular gas station, but I'd vote against that. Let it be the race car it was built to be. Take it to the track, load it up with race gas, and see how much nerve you have as you try and brake later and later into the corners. I'm willing to bet you won't find a faster-feeling 154 horses on four wheels.