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Happy Friday, everybody. Doesn’t it feel like this week flew by? I swear it was Monday just two, maybe three days ago. Today is Wednesday, I’m deciding. I’m sorry to everyone who had plans coming up for the weekend.
Wouldn’t it be nice if your car could fly just as quickly? If you had something quick, nimble, and able to blow past traffic like days of this past week. Or, alternatively, if your car could just drive over traffic, and ensure the laws of time — and all other laws, really — no longer apply to you. Welcome, friends, to this week’s Dopest Cars.
As a reminder, if you stumble across a neat listing in your own browsing, feel free to send it my way! Pass your recommendations on to [email protected],
Photo: Facebook Marketplace
Before you ask, no — this is not a genuine Top Secret car for $59,000. I know, I’m disappointed too. I want to live out my Smokey Nagata dreams without a Smokey Nagata budget, and I hoped this Skyline would be the answer. I mean, I don’t have $59,000 either, but maybe I could talk the seller down. Starting offer is $50.
While the car may not be genuine Top Secret, many of its parts are. The body is legit, while the parts beneath those panels are from other major names. You may not be Smokey Nagata, but you can at least act like him. Depending on how bold you are.
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Hey, Yamaha? Can we talk? It’s going to be a quick one, I promise. You’ve been doing some great stuff recently, with the Tenere and the R7 and all, and these GP liveries have been truly fantastic. There’s just one little thing, and I have to mention it. What’s going on with the turn signals?
They’re just so big, so wide, so… sticky-outie. Surely they could go on the mirrors, or even just sit higher up on the body. I know, you moved to LEDs from those giant orange bulbs, but just take it one step further. I believe in you.
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I’ll let James Pumphrey handle this one:
🙌RAMCHARGERS🙌
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Look, sometimes you just need to move stuff. Lots of stuff. Lots of high-value stuff, like gold bullion. And maybe you need to do it secretly, because you don’t want your high value stuff taken by nefarious parties, like a burnt out NY cop and an electronics repairman who have teamed up to solve all your weird riddles.
If you’re in such a situation, a simple U-Haul pickup simply won’t do. You need something larger, but simultaneously more covert. You need an enormous dump truck, which can store all your ill-gotten gains and secret them away to Canada without anyone being the wiser. Except the cop and the electronics repair guy, I guess. Why did you even bother with the whole riddle thing?
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I have never owned an old British roadster. I’ve never even driven an old British roadster. Perhaps this is why I have such an affinity for old British roadsters. I haven’t known one well enough for its many, many flaws to make themselves known to me.
This TR6, however, may have a few fewer foibles than the average old Triumph. It’s been lovingly restored, rebuilt with genuine care, and the seller claims it will easily persevere for another 50 years. I won’t be the one to find out, but maybe you can.
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Speaking of old cars that have been rebuilt, we have another approach to that same set of qualifiers. This Duster was once a brown, six-cylinder model, but sits today as a built-up V8 decked out in orange. Also, LED lights. Those are worse, I admit.
The Duster is also something of a ruster, but it’s just a few spots along the body. I’m sure it’s fine. Rust has never lurked unseen beneath aftermarket paint, hiding out where it can’t be easily seen. It’ll be totally okay.
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This 944 is naturally aspirated. It doesn’t have a radio or air conditioning, its drivers-side mirror is missing, and the throwout bearing “has a slight vibration.” In the world of 944s, this should not be a desirable one. And yet.
The lift. The Rothmans lettering. The roof racks and mud flaps. It has Hella rally lights across the hood! I don’t even care if they’re wired up, a car with Hellas is a car I need. Safari cars rule, and they pull me in every time.
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I’ve never fully understood the Thruxton. The Bonnie I get, it’s a perfect baseline for any number of mods, but the Thruxton is pre-modified in a very specific way — a way that isn’t exactly backed up by its engineering.
Back in the cafe racer days, the Thruxton would have made sense to me. Today, the ergonomics are compromised without getting you to the performance you’d get from a bone-stock R6. The Thruxton is gorgeous, sure, but is it worth it?
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Small engines? Good. Forced induction? Good. T-tops? Good. Engines behind the driver? Very good. Wrapping those all up in a Toyota for under $20,000? That’s downright fantastic.
Turbo MR2s are only dwindling in number, so these cars will likely skyrocket in value at some point in the near future. They’ve already started. But, don’t buy this as a value proposition — buy it to drive it. Don’t take it off the road before its time.
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Ah, the XJ. I recently came into possession of a coveted Jeeplopnik sticker, and it’s got my mind reeling. Do I need an XJ? Should I spend approximately one and one quarter months of New York rent on one?
I have nowhere to park one. I have nowhere to off-road one. I have no real need for one, and I certainly don’t have the means to keep a leaky old four-liter going. And yet, the desire. That sticker’s gotta go on something.
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Remember that point I made back at the beginning, about driving over traffic because what’re they going to do about it? This is that vehicle. An armored personnel carrier, armored against IEDs, built for military contractors in the Middle East. Those are a real thing! People for whom war is just a job, without being a part of any legally recognized national military!
Your local cops probably have sixteen of these, so why shouldn’t you? Park on their sidewalks. Stare at them through dark sunglasses. Spend a bunch of their money on an enormous granite sign that sits outside your shiny new house, which was also bought with their money. See how they like it.
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The Yamaha VMax is, to me, a very funny bike. It’s nothing to do with the design or engineering, but with the name. VMax. I used to work in marketing, and I can picture the exact meeting where that name came up.
People are sitting around a table, talking about the important things this bike needs to represent. They’re either folks from Yamaha, or from an outside agency hired on for the branding gig. They know the bike needs to read as fast, but that its V-twin engine is core to the identity. Well, V-twin and Velocity start with the same letter. What do you call maximum velocity? Oh, physicists call it VMax? Sold. Time for gyros.
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If you’ve read these slides for a while, you may have noticed my love of busses. There’s another layer to that love, though, that might be harder to discern: I love when a bus is fucked up. A stock bus is fine, but if you fuck it up a little? Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff.
This, I am happy to say, is a truly fucked up bus. What is happening here. It’s got cages, elevated sleeping, the rear end might be a porch? It has a sink, but it’s not plumbed in to anything? Hook it to my veins. I love it.
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This is no regular Volkswagen sand rail. Those are interesting, with their boxer motors and gleaming exoskeletons, but this one sits a step above. That tires old VW motor is gone, replaced with — of all things — a GM 2.2-liter Ecotec. That longer block likely shifts weight further back, but who doesn’t like a wheelie?
I do, however, wonder how much sand you’ll make it through on those tires. They are, to put it lightly, not built for sand — or mud, or dirt, or rain. These are borderline track tires, which means this isn’t a sand rail at all. It’s a street rail. That rules.
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How’s your life going? As a whole, from birth until now, how are you feeling about it? Are things going well? Going poorly? Either way, there’s a car that’s perfect for you: The Cadillac Allante.
If you’re doing well, is there any way to represent that than with a nice convertible? A white one, because you can afford the car washes to keep it clean, and a Cadillac, because you like luxury. On the flipside, if things are going badly, wouldn’t a decades-old Caddy cheer you up? Everybody wins here.
Keyword: Nissan Skyline GT-R, Porsche 944 Safari, Blackwater Grizzly MRAP: The Dopest Cars I Found For Sale Online