Photo: Craigslist
Dear reader, as I pen this missive from a gloomy midtown office, it’s dreary outside — raining, gray, and unpleasant. It’s also like 50 degrees out, which is kind of terrifying in the middle of a February without snow. But, why focus on the ever-quickening decay of our one and only planet when you could focus on cool cars?
That, friend, is why I’m here. To bring you car listings that are so good, they’ll take your mind off the whole “permanent natural disaster” thing. On this most Satur of days, I bring you the internet’s Dopest Cars.
Photo: Facebook Marketplace
This is a completely normal Ford Mustang. I don’t know what you’re talking about. They all had LS engines up front, fed air by comically oversized turbochargers. No Fox Body ever had a hood.
The wheels, however, are definitely aftermarket. They seem to add considerable grip, though, since the listing has photos of this car pulling genuine wheelies. But, nope, beyond that, this is totally normal.
Photo: Facebook Marketplace
Like the Fox Body before, sometimes a lightly-modified car is best. Take this 4Runner for instance — a light lift, some big tires, and a couple of lights up front. What more do you need, really, for off-road exploration?
This is a car you can adventure in, something you can point in a compass direction and drive until you hit the ocean. You should do that. You should get in this Toyota and just drive. Sounds peaceful, doesn’t it?
Photo: Facebook Marketplace
Before you get debating about whether this is an AE86 or an AE88, know that it doesn’t matter. This hachi has a BEAMS 3SGE under the hood, which is just the first in its many JDM-inspired mods. The paint job, the light bars under the headlights, the holes drilled for drift stitching — this is a Japanese drifter that just so happens to have been built stateside.
I’ve shopped many a time for good hachirokus like this, and have never found one in my budget. Buy this one, and live the life I can’t — the life of a weekend drifter. God I wish that were me.
Photo: Craigslist
The seller of this Focus ST claims that the “car has always been fed 93 octane fuel.” Something about that phrasing absolutely skeeves me out, for reasons I cannot fully explain. The car was fed? It eats?
But it’s not eating from its mouth, clearly, as fuel doesn’t go in the grille. It’s also a liquid? Is this like a Soylent situation? Are cars Silicon Valley tech bros, on pure liquid diets so as to devote more time to Coding?
Photo: Craigslist
Do you remember the Civic Si coupe? Pepperidge Farm remembers. The current car is still a blast, and one that’s likely easier to get in and out of in a tight spot without those long coupe doors, but still. More coupes are better.
Lucky for you, the used market is still full of two-door sporty Civics. Let this little red Honda, with its massive aftermarket infotainment screen, be your chariot to your next track day. And the few hundred after that, given Honda reliability.
Photo: Craigslist
Look, coupe-SUVs, on your forefathers. The sloped rear end, the lifted ride height — this is an X6 long before that car was ever a glimmer in BMW’s eye. In fact, given this one’s swapped and stroked engine, it may even be an X6M.
But while the cowards designing modern cars will rarely give you a full color palette to pick from, AMC gave us the One True Car Color: Brown. This Eagle is peak 4×4, and all others are pretenders to the throne.
Photo: Craigslist
Speaking of brown off-roaders, why not the perfect car: A Toyota Land Cruiser? Someday I’ll have to write up my long, heartfelt letter to the Land Cruiser as the ideal vehicle, but I’ll hit the highlights here. The Land Cruiser does everything, blends in everywhere, it’s inoffensive but expensive and rugged but classy.
There’s nowhere you’ll be judged, side-eyed, glared at for a Land Cruiser. There’s nowhere you can’t reach. You can sleep in it, chew through highway miles in it, or just take it to the grocery store and back. The Land Cruiser rules.
Photo: Craigslist
As does a supercharged Dodge Viper. Oh, what, you thought I’d send you some regular Viper, with a mere ten naturally aspirated cylinders? Please. This is the internet’s Dopest Cars, and I take the mantle seriously.
And this GTS, in yellow, with a big wing and a blower, is the Dopest Viper. Sure, the wheels are a bit much, but those are easy to swap. Put a one-piece set of forged wheels on, and you’re golden, Ponyboy.
Photo: Craigslist
And speaking of forced-induction sports coupes, let’s throw an Esprit Turbo in there too. True, the later Esprits didn’t quite have the aesthetic flair of the Roger Moore-era car, but they made up for the smoothed-over looks with turbocharged power.
This Esprit Turbo in particular seems to be perfectly clean. The black-and-gold combo left our automotive world too soon, relegated to the past with cars like this and the Datsun 280ZX, but here it stands spit-shined and ready to stun. Also, c’mon, look at those wheels.
Photo: Craigslist
I know, I’ve already had a Civic Si in this very slideshow. But this is no ordinary Civic, and may not even be an Si. This is a two-door Civic hatchback, with a very period-correct front bumper and some truly early-aughts flame paint.
The Esprit is a time machine to your dad’s childhood, but this is a time machine to yours. Remember The Fast and The Furious, the one with the “The”s in the title? Remember seeing that, and wanting to drive the same exquisite pieces of JDM motoring as Dom and Mia? Of course you do. Here’s your chance.
Photo: Craigslist
The seller of this WRX STI claims it makes 500 horsepower from its built engine. Looking through the mod list, I fully believe it. Flex fuel sensors, an IAG Stage 2.5 closed-deck block, Brian Crower cams and a Forced Performance Black turbo. It’s the standard recipe for big EJ power.
But this particular STi looks to be done right — or, at least, without concern for expense. The seller claims it rides on real Volk TE37s, and while the Fortune Auto 500 coilovers may not be anything amazing, they’re certainly no cheap Teins. It’s a good car.
Photo: Craigslist
But not one you can live in, if that’s your bag. For that, you’ll need more space. You’ll need a kitchen, tables, a pop-up roof and awning. You’ll need a Volkswagen Westfalia, and boy do I have the van for you.
We’re back in our earth tones here, the Volkswagen’s beige matching the brown of the Eagle and Land Cruiser. Should I have done this whole list as brown cars? Should I do an Oops, All Brown Cars installment of Dopest in the future? Let me know in the comments.
Photo: Craigslist
There was a point in my life where I came so very close to purchasing a Scrambler like this one. That point may honestly not have ended, as every listing for a retro-modern bike with a high-mounted exhaust makes me start to drool, but thus far I’ve resisted. I have an adventure bike, a Scrambler would just be redundant.
Which is why, dear reader, you should buy it instead. Scramblers are the cafe racer’s more interesting cousin, a bike harkening back to a similar era of modification — with more concern for comfort. Plus, who doesn’t love something that looks like it can get a little dirty off-road?
Photo: Craigslist
The Lexus LS400 was a pivotal car for our modern automotive landscape. It established Lexus as a genuine luxury brand, competing with the European greats of its day — not a simple badge-engineering job. Toyota could have rebadged a Camry, added some chrome, and shipped it off to unsuspecting U.S. buyers, but it never did. It put in the work, and built the LS400 — and Lexus in the process.
The seller for this particular LS claims that it has a “rare 8 cylinder engine.” I’m gonna go on the record here and say that an LS400 without the V8 would be far rarer. To my knowledge, Lexus sold exactly zero of those.
Photo: Craigslist
If you looked at this bike and assumed it was from the late ‘80s, I’d forgive you. That headlight housing, those turn signals, the aesthetics call back to that era. But look at the rear suspension, the radiator, the exhaust — this is a newer bike in sheep’s clothing.
That modern engineering means this ZRX 1200 packs over 120 horsepower, more than enough to get you from point A to point B. In fact, that’s more than enough to make the bike an absolute blast to ride. But, don’t take my word for it — throw down a few grand and find out for yourself.
Keyword: Toyota Corolla GTS, AMC Eagle, Kawasaki ZRX: The Dopest Cars I Found for Sale Online