Photo: Facebook Marketplace
Welcome, friends, to the weekend. We’re out of the worst of winter, approaching the best of bike season — I’ve already shed the heated gear for recent two-wheeled escapades. But maybe March is another season for you: Wrenching season, cruising season, getting-your-track-days-scheduled season. Allow me to help.
Today, we’ve got 15 of the most interesting cars and bikes to ever grace the faces of Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Fifteen vehicles to be your chariot through warming weather, to get the sun on your face and wind in your hair through those temperate spring months. Fifteen of the internet’s Dopest Cars.
Photo: Facebook Marketplace
Here’s one you don’t see every day: A Japanese homologation-special Celica, imported to the States and — according to the listing — lovingly maintained. Plenty of Silvias and Skylines make their way stateside because they’re cheap, and once they arrive on our shored they’re beaten and abused within an inch of their lives — not so with this Celica.
The all-wheel-drive rally Celica is only lightly modified, with the kinds of aftermarket parts you don’t mind seeing on cars of this age — a new radiator, an air intake, and exhaust. There’s even a modern head unit inside, one that can likely pick up American radio frequencies.
Photo: Craigslist
Fun fact: The BMW may have been the first bike that I could reliably ride around, but my true first bike was one of these: A Honda CB400T. Mine was even this deep red color, beneath the layers of grime and rattle-can patina that it adorned from prior owners. This bike, however, looks to be in much better shape than mine.
Yet, somehow, it isn’t much more expensive. My bike cost half of what this does, but this is still under two grand — and has fresh carburetors that won’t need the gallons of Seafoam that my bike drank. Get those twin Mikunis in synch, and get riding. They’re fun little bikes, I promise.
Photo: Craigslist
This RX-8 really requires you to click through to the listing in the slide header to get a good look at the exterior, due to complicated and meaningful reasons. Yes, this is a slammed Mazda rotary like so many others. No, it doesn’t “run” under its “own power.” But it does have a rust-free, gorgeous shell. What could you do with that?
You could swap in a 13B-REW from an FD. You could shove a GR Corolla’s three-cylinder under the hood. Hell, even a K24 might fit, with a bit of Sawzall-aided convincing. The possibilities are endless, as long as you’ve got the drive to take on a wrenching project.
Photo: Craigslist
Back in my youth, the halcyon summer of 2018, I came very close to buying an IS300. It was white, with an unpainted bodykit in conveniently white primer that dangled precariously from its sheet metal. It had a turbocharger of unknown make strapped to its 2JZ engine, and it made some amount of power from a street-tuned ECU. It would have been a terrible, terrible mistake, but it also might have been the most fun car I could’ve gotten for six grand. And that was the asking price!
Now, unfortunately, our enthusiast cars cost a bit more. But at least this IS300 is in better condition, with all of its wheels and tires appearing to even match each other. That’s rare for these! Buy this IS, with its fancy-watch dash, and go drift it at some local track. It’ll be good for your soul.
Photo: Craigslist
I know, I know, this is a regular old Civic. Normally I’ll put an Si or Type R in here, but this is just an HX — boring, bog standard, banal. But is that such a bad thing? A great-looking, lightly updated Civic that still gets late-nineties econobox fuel economy? I say no.
In fact, I say that this would make a fantastic commuter. We no longer really get non-sport coupes in the U.S., with the push to ever bigger vehicles. This is a good size, a good car, and a good buy.
Photo: Craigslist
But what if you don’t care about fuel economy? What if you want to pile passengers into your station wagon, head up to the ski hill, and then pin them back in their seats with a shocking amount of torque and horsepower? My friend, this is the vehicle for you — the fourth-generation Subaru Legacy/Outback turbo.
I owned one of these, though in Legacy trim rather than Outback, and I can tell you not a single person expected it to make the power it did. Even tuners and mechanics would hop in the car and be shocked at the power-to-mod ratio. My local tuner even once sent a friend of mine to Rochester with an OBD cable, hellbent on reading the tune from its ECU. I still have that tune, if anyone wants it.
Photo: Craigslist
In another life, I would already own this Silverado. It’s a rare deal, but the kind that’s perfect for residents of the 47 contiguous non-California states: A car in good condition, sold cheap because it failed smog. As a New Yawker, car from the domain of CARB, I should own it.
But parking is a pain, and realistically I have no need for a pickup, so instead I’ll pass the deal on to you. For just $1,500, you’ll have a perfectly capable pickup truck with one of the car world’s greatest lost features: A bench seat. Just, don’t be a California resident.
Photo: Craigslist
The 190E is an interesting car. Ask a baby boomer and they’ll tell you it’s terrible — a cheap, budget model, meant for people who wanted a three-pointed star on their car but couldn’t really afford one. It didn’t live up to the Benz image, and it carried an air of trying too hard.
Ask a millennial, though, and they’ll tell you it’s a smaller, lighter sedan that maintains the classic Benz styling. They’ll point to the Cosworth Evo, and say that the 190E has racing heritage — and that it’s not a car to be ignored. Which side of the argument do you fall on?
Photo: Craigslist
And speaking of motorsports heritage, how about a DTM tribute M3? I’m always torn on cars that wear a full race livery like this, because this isn’t the race car — it’s a poser. But does that matter? If this M3's owner wants to commemorate its racing spirit by decking it out in those storied colors, who am I to judge?
So this M3 is, in the end, good. The colors are fantastic, the lines work with the car’s styling, it’ll turn heads everywhere you go. And with nearly 250,000 claimed miles, it’s meant to go — not to sit in a climate-controlled garage.
Photo: Craigslist
It’s not a Dopest from me if there isn’t a rusty old pickup on the list. You thought it would be the Silverado, but no — we can find worse and did find worse. This one also fails smog, but it’s an overall more interesting vehicle. The Toyota Pickup is smaller than the Silverado, lighter, but just as capable for most of your Truck Stuff jobs.
Plus, it’s better looking. The blue plays off the red-brown rust nicely, in a way that many patina-fakers try — but fail — to replicate. Why not get the real deal, in a perfectly-sized eighties Toyota pickup?
Photo: Craigslist
As a kid, I wasn’t yet the JDM drift enthusiast you’re reading right now. No, I grew up on classic American muscle — Camaros, Chevelles, Novas. This Chevelle, a frame-off restored SS clone, is desperately trying to bring me back to those younger days. It might even be working.
Yes, the wheels are a travesty, but the rest of the car is tastefully done. Modern calipers and rotors up front, but classic drums in the rear — a light upgrade. The SS stripes are a classic touch, and play well with the black vinyl of the roof against the blue body. Do I want a muscle car again?
Photo: Craigslist
Do you have “Song 2″ by Blur playing in your head yet? Here, let me fix that for you. I’ve come dangerously close to buying E39s in the past, purely based off of that one advertisement. The camerawork, the driving, Clive Owen’s expressions — it’s the perfect ad.
I still, all these years on, believe “Song 2″ is the greatest driving anthem ever created, though “Mind Of An Insomniac” makes a solid play for the throne. Tell me in the comments which you’d rather blast from the speakers of this M5.
Photo: Craigslist
Though if four-wheeled BMWs aren’t your bag, I’ve got you covered. How about a two-wheeled Bimmer, one built for cop use? Since watching a RevZilla video on police bike rodeos, I’ve had a bit of a fascination with these tourers — they have to be incredibly comfortable, right? Yet, they’re still capable of these maneuvers.
Plus, it’s a cop bike. Slap on a black half helmet, and no one will question your lane-splitting maneuvers. Editor’s note: Do not do this. Steve is not advising that you break your local lane-splitting regulations. He is, however, impersonating an editor by writing this note himself.
Photo: Facebook Marketplace
Oh, you thought we were done with rotary Mazdas after the RX-8 earlier? Not quite. See, if a right-hand-drive turbocharged FC comes across my desk, I will add it to Dopest. It’s a rule I have. Someday I’ll make a Dopest of all FC Turbo IIs, and you’ll all like it.
This particular Savanna (as the Japanese-spec RX-7s are known) appears to be beautifully maintained. A tasteful lip and wing, subtle but beautiful Work Meister five-spoke wheels, lug nuts done up in Project Mu teal. It’s firmly JDM, and for that I love it.
Photo: Facebook Marketplace
Remember the 200SX? Remember when Nissan had the Si-fighting SE-R trim? Remember when every car had this kind of weird underbite bumper, and we all just ran with it and made it work? I remember, because those were good times.
This particular 200SX looks just about ready to take you back there, too. Sure, it’s been modified — coilovers, a catback, an engine swap — but it looks like it would retain the spirit of late-nineties tuner culture. Why not find out for yourself?
Keyword: Toyota Celica GT-Four, Chevrolet Chevelle, Mazda RX-7: The Dopest Cars I Found for Sale Online