Mitsubishi Delica, RAV4 Convertible, Lancer Evo Wagon: The Dopest Cars I Found For Sale Online

Happy Friday, beautiful people! I missed you last week, as I spent my Friday convalescing from strep throat while also moving. I cannot in good conscience recommend combining those activities, but I am now legally a resident of the good borough of Queens. With strep. Look, antibiotics only work so fast, and I only got mine on Sunday. 

As with any move, I've spent a lot of time on Facebook Marketplace recently. Much of that has been window shopping for TVs and kitchen islands I can't afford, looking at commercial stainless steel prep tables like a Dickensian orphan with my nose pressed against the glass of some bright and shiny toy store, but some of it has been spent on finding automotive listings for you fine folks pressing your own noses against your computer screens. IT told you to stop doing that, by the way. Welcome to this week's Dopest Cars. 

You know me, I can't see a kitted-out Delica and not include it in this weekly roundup. These things are like catnip to me, I just love a little space-maximizing van with some big bumpers and a just-barely-proportional lift. If this Mitsubishi were any taller, it'd be comical, but a two inch lift looks perfect. You heard it here first, folks: You don't need any more than two inches. 

This owner seems to be a real Delica head, given their description of a Montero front brake swap as "popular." That's the kind of arcane thing you only get into when you find yourself really deep in an enthusiast community, like the people who swap Cadillac ATS brakes onto their Subarus because real STI Brembos are too expensive. Listen, I never said I wasn't deep into arcane enthusiast communities myself. I've owned two Boxer engines. 

There was a point, early in my Jalopnik career, where I desperately wanted this exact flavor of build. A track-focused Integra, with big aero elements and a K-series under the hood, that I could take out to HPDEs and track days. It never worked out, due to both cars and track days costing money that I could instead be spending on unfathomable luxuries like "having a roof over my head," but the desire hasn't entirely gone away.

In that spirit, I offer this listing up to you. Walk where I can't, and get this K-swapped Integra in an incredibly period-correct green shade for all your track-day duties. The seller says it's track-only, but that probably depends on how committed you are to the race car life. Just don't daily drive harnesses without a helmet and a HANS to stop your neck from snapping in a parking lot fender bender. Or, barring that, write me into your will. 

The seller of this mini race bike claims it started life as a Grom, and judging by the gauge screen that's probably true. That little LCD is my only way of knowing, though, because everything else identifiable has been stripped off or covered in race-looking plastics. But the mods go more than skin deep — I see a steering damper, Ohlins supension, aftermarket brakes, a front brake lever guard. The builder of this bike either tracks it, or really wants you to think they do. 

Doing this Grom up as a Desmosedici, rather than an RC213-V, is an extremely funny bit. The Grom is a Honda, and Honda has bikes in MotoGP. These plastics are generic enough that they could be printed in any livery, yet the builder of this bike chose Ducati — complete with Akrapovic stickers that don't match the SC Project exhaust. This would be worse if it was done up in Repsol orange, honestly. 

It's a bit of a running joke that BMW GS owners are generally older and wealthier, with the gnarliest of their adventuring days behind them. The more farkled the GS, the truer that seems to be, and this GSA is well and truly farkled. Crash bars, fog lights, aluminum panniers, there's even a handlebar-mounted CB radio (though I don't see a CB whip anywhere). This, of course, makes one wonder: How old must the seller be?

Well, to answer that question, this is an estate sale. Morbid, sure, but it seems the last owner of this BMW kept it in good shape — though they didn't keep it insulated. If that aftermarket cruise control on the grip tells me anything, it's that the 60,000 miles on this GSA's clock were largely made up on large stretches of highway. Maybe it'll take you somewhere interesting, too. We should all be so lucky, to have such experiences before we shuffle off this mortal coil. 

Normally, a hot hatch in a dubious state of repair wouldn't make the Dopest shortlist. This Mazdaspeed3 is an exception, for two reasons. First, I've always liked these little cars, ever since I rode in one as a teenager going first-car shopping. I didn't actually get it, but I remember how much fun it was — and how neat the seats were. I can only imagine that this one, with its front mount intercooler, will be even more fun after a bit of work. 

The other reason this Speed3 makes the cut is more timely: I didn't edit this image. I don't think the seller did either, because this listing went up one day ago. That sepia color toning is just life in New York City right now, as we're beset by wildfire smoke from Canada. My rock climbing group even decided to stay inside and stay home today to avoid the air (and to avoid the lettuce from our usual post-climb dinner spot)! You best start believing in "Mad Max" movies, you're in one. 

As dunked-on as the Murano CrossCabriolet is, it and the Evoque Convertible stand on the shoulders of a giant: The Toyota RAV4. Before the crossover calcified, back when SUVs still needed both Sport and Utility, Toyota gave us a little two-door convertible that did any job asked of it. This RAV4 may not be the prettiest, but it's a Toyota — one that the seller claims was mechanic-owned. I'd take this over the CrossCab or the Rover any day. 

I will say, even with the dents and faded plastics, this RAV4 is a certifiable, undeniable Little Guy. Just an absolute adorable pit bull look to the thing, a face that Jalopnik's own Erin Marquis would love. If this was big enough to car camp in, I'd already have saved it to my Marketplace favorites, but if it were big enough to car camp in it'd lose its little guy charm. 

For what little I know about NASCAR or Formula 1, I know even less about short track racing. Honestly, when I first saw this ad, for a second I thought this Howe Late Model was itself a Car of Tomorrow. It's not, but seeing that Napa livery against stickered-on headlights tickles something deep in my brainstem all the same. In 2004, I would've been turning eight years old, and the cars you think are cool when you're eight never fully leave you. 

The seller of this Howe says it needs a few things — most important among them a driver's seat — and that they were working to get it street legal before moving on to another project. I can't possibly imagine an inspection station passing this thing, but I would absolutely love to see you try and pull it off. Bring me along, honestly. Tell me where and when you're bringing this thing in for your annual inspection, and I'll meet you there to take pictures of the tech's face when this rolls into the bay. 

You ever see a car that just feels too clean, too pristine, for what it is? This GAZ is ostensibly a Soviet automobile — yes, the Soviet Union was long gone by 1997, but this model was introduced in 1992 and developed before Gorbachev officially ended things for the bloc — yet it's so immaculate. It's a Volga, but look at that interior — untouched by the hands of the proletariat. 

Of course, the Volga was never intended to be a car for the proletariat, but that's neither here not there. Visually, it has the hallmarks of Soviet engineering, and thus we expect a car that's shuttled various musclebound men to and from their jobs hitting metal with hammers and making sparks. That's not what this is — this particular Volga feels more like a museum piece than a true working breed. Given that the 31029 postdated the fall of the Soviet Union, and that this particular unit left the factory during the later years of the Yeltsin administration, maybe that's apt. 

The Kawasaki Concours may not have the brand recognition of the Honda Gold Wing, but I posit that there's no better way to go more miles in more comfort for $750. Go on, check Marketplace, see what kind of Gold Wings you're getting for three-figure prices. All '70s and '80s models in need of vacuum hose replacements, carburetor rebuilds, fresh fork seals, and new brake lines? Yep, that's what I thought. 

Contrast here the Concours, with its hard-mounted luggage and tall windscreen. The paint looks immaculate, save for the mismatched tank that the owner claims was replaced when the factory one rusted out. There's even a new battery here, meaning you could likely ride this home from Binghamton to wherever home is for you — in perfect comfort all the way. Catch a Rumble Ponies game while you're in town, simply because I love that there's a real life baseball team called the Binghamton Rumble Ponies. 

Here it is, the one you've been waiting for. Some of you may think this to be an R34 Stagea situation, the front end of a performance car applied in the aftermarket to the rear of a station wagon, but that's not the case here. This is a genuine, factory-built, one-of-2,500-globally Evo IX wagon. This one is made even rarer by its factory stick shift (one in 1,250 or so, reportedly) and by its gorgeous Deep Blue Pearl paint. No, that's not a wrap or an aftermarket paint job, this Evo looks just how it did the day it left the factory. 

Well, mostly. The calipers have been powdercoated, the ride height has been changed with Fortune Auto coilovers, the BBS wheels are off of a later Evo. The seller also claims bolt-on performance mods like an exhaust, fuel pump, MAP sensor, blow off valve, and injectors — this ought to be a very fun wagon. If you buy it, let me take it for a spin. I promise to be nice to it.