Once a week (or so). Unsubscribe anytime.

  • The fastest American car around the Nurburgring isn’t a Corvette anymore

    …allegedly

    This is Collector Car TL;DR: a weekly recap of what happened on Collector Car Feed, plus car auctions, listings, automotive news, and other things of interest to the average CCF Enjoyer, and you can get it weekly by giving me your email address.

    The Videos

    We Found MORE Stolen Cars on Facebook Marketplace
    The Stolen Cars trilogy continued last Monday with this video. We found a car being sold out from under the bank, a Chromebook being sold out from under a school, and much more in the same vein.

    No title, if you know you know: even more stolen Facebook Marketplace cars
    This concludes the Stolen Cars Trilogy; unfortunately we kind of run out of stolen cars here, but there’s still plenty of weird Facebook Marketplace junk. Did you know Maxpeedingrods makes coilovers for the Buick Century? Me neither, but there’s a slammed one in this video.

    We found something unbelievably expensive at the junkyard
    Netgear copped a sick pull at the yard and tells us all about it. This is another important lore-building video for real CCF heads and ends with an edit I’m pretty proud of, so this is my one-video recommendation for the week.

    The News

    The 2027 Nissan Z Visits the Plastic Surgeon, and the Nismo Now Comes With a Manual
    Nissan just facelifted that car you saw on the street, driving the other direction, one time, three years ago. They will also now sell you the ~$70,000 version of this thing with a manual gearbox. Honestly it looks good, and “more stick shifts” isn’t a bad thing. It’s just hard to get excited for anything this ghost of a once-great marque does. Good luck, Nissan.

    Mazda Promises To Keep The Next Miata Under 2,200 Pounds
    The next Miata won’t be a pig, or even a hybrid as some have guessed. It’s going to remain the same well-balanced enthusiast-forward car, bought new almost exclusively by non-enthusiast retirees, that it has been for almost forty years. We appreciate you, Mazda.

    The Ford Mustang GTD Might Have Just Destroyed the Chevy Corvette ZR1X’s Nurburgring Lap Record
    Ford is, allegedly, at time of writing, now the fastest American around the ‘Ring. The absurd Mustang GTD is now, allegedly, the second-fastest production car, EVER, around the ‘Ring. Have I mentioned lately that Ford didn’t take bailout money back in ’08-’09, or ever in its history?

    Kansas Joins Growing List of States to Pass Racetrack Protection Laws
    The Kansas House of Representatives just passed, unanimously, a bill to protect existing racetracks from NIMBYs who choose to buy homes in subdivisions near them. This is not performative: dorks actually complain about the noise coming from racetracks they choose to live near, and actually get racetracks shut down. It really happens, but no more will it happen in Kansas. Iowa And North Carolina have already passed similar legislation, and ten additional states (not listed) have proposed similar bills.

    The Cars

    2000 Honda Civic Si
    This is a beautiful example of an EM1 and will go for a fortune. 76,900 miles verified, single owner, stock. It has some sunburn on the roof, but that’s not going to stop this car from reaching $20K.

    1996 Buick Roadmaster Sedan
    Another beautiful example: this time a desirable American neoclassic. We love a good boat here. Imagine going on a road trip in this thing; if nothing else you’d be very, very comfortable. Everybody even gets their own ashtray!

    2009 Rossion Q1
    I’m including this only because I’ve never seen or heard of it. I assumed it was a Fiero-based kit car, but it’s a ground-up kit with a carbon fiber monocoque. Something different.

    1993 Mercedes-Benz 500SL
    And here we have Doug’s weekly humiliation ritual, in which he says only nice things about one of the worst looking cars you’ve ever seen. Really zoom in on this wrap job. Even in the first picture it’s just awful. Scroll down to the comments and have a laugh at the seller saying it was wrapped by him and “someone who is familiar with wrapping”. I wouldn’t let this person wrap a Christmas present, they might lose a finger on the scissors. Holy god what an awful looking job.

    1993 Acura Integra LS Coupe
    Another nice verified low mileage Honda that will go for a small(er) fortune, this second-gen Integra is unfortunately not a GS-R, and is a little crusty around the edges. You can still bank on $10K or better here regardless.

    1992 Nissan 240SX SE
    This car is really only notable because 240s don’t really come up for auction much on either BaT or CaB. This is the second on Cars and Bids in the past six months, and third in the past year and a half. Scrolling back even farther to the beginning of Doug’s Bring a Trailer knockoff, this is only the 21st 240SX CaB has listed since the platform’s inception during the coronavirus pandemic. 


    As for the car itself, it’s your usual swapped 240SX: a mishmash of parts. Mystery Meat. There’s nice parts, there’s confusing absences, there’s modern stuff, there’s parts that look like they were installed decades ago. It’s a project car, but with SR20s priced like it’s a week before Race Wars, I expect $20K or more on this.

    The End

    Sheesh, somebody got a Super Street magazine calendar that matches up with 2026 days, AND a Scion CD today. You really should have signed up for the mailing list already! Scroll up.

    I finally found a set of Recaros for my FiST, but they’re a ten hour round trip drive away, so I’m probably doing that right now! I also replaced my rear pads and rotors, and will be doing the fronts this week as well. I’m still hunting a minor vibration in the front end that only shows up around 50-80 MPH. Thinking it’s a wheel bearing.
    The midwest is warming up, so it’s time to get moving. What did you work on this past week?

    See you Soon.
    -Feed

  • Found on the Feed: 1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four

    The Toyota Celica is unquestionably a rare car. During the height of the JDM influence in the American market, this often-overlooked model had quite a few desirable performance variants. North America saw a few trim levels of the Celica on our shores, most notably the All-Trac, (Fifth generation) GT (Sixth Generation) and GTS (Seventh Generation) but quite a few more were overseas only. While today’s example never arrived officially, It has been imported legally.

    uniquely JDM

    The listing for this example claims to be (and checks out to be) very rare. With original Tri-Spoke wheels, only 62k Miles, this was not only a rare find in Japan but a very solid import into America. The GT-Four featured the 3S-GTE engine, which is shared with the MR2 Turbo of its time, it’s a proven solid drivetrain that can be built into an in JDM legend or used as a reliable showpiece.

    Mostly Orginal, Untouched goodness.

    As with any build, it’s nice to start with a generally unmodified platform. The listing states this car has very minimal, yet tasteful (above pictured Strut Tower Bar) aftermarket parts. I’d make the exception here though, with the GT-Four being such a rare vehicle that its value should only increase as we see the wave of JDM imports hitting American shores. That being said, the importer is asking $17,995 for this Celica GT-Four. It’s a tall price to pay for a unique JDM legend, but this piece of history is sure to stand out at any Radwood you plan to visit.

  • Found on the Feed: 1999 Honda Prelude

    The Honda Prelude is an often overlooked JDM classic. Available worldwide in a variety of trims, the Prelude could be configured a plethora of ways with either an F22 or the more sought after H22. These motors were similar to the coveted K series but more affordable and easily built. The Prelude is often a unique foray into the JDM market, instead of the all too common Honda Civic.

    Looking relatively clean and stock.

    This 2001 Honda Prelude example appears to be perfect for your first foray into building a streetable JDM classic. Particularly clean as the below picture shows, this body has 176k miles with a replacement clutch. while initially, that seems to be a lot of miles, this car is rife with Ebay Build potential. The H22 Motor that comes with this example is a great first motor to work on, as things tend to be a bit more simple.

    Just as clean on the inside.

    Overall, this is still a Honda and it will be a very reliable car even without the motor work. However I believe any expert will agree, you should always start your build with a stock, clean example so you know what you’re getting into. With this vehicle being a California car, you can rest assured that rust won’t be the biggest issue you will run into during your build. With a price of $4000, you’d have to wheel and deal a bit to make this a great deal.

  • Importing a Toyota Celsior: My Adventures With “The Most Reliable Car Ever Built”, Part One

    TOP TEXT

    About a year and a half ago, I imported a 1991 Toyota Celsior Spec C from Japan.  I had been looking for a nice LS400 for a while, and given the prices that good low mileage examples were commanding, I decided my money would be better spent importing one, since Japanese imports are generally better maintained and taken care of when compared to their American equivalents.  I also wanted to try my hand at importing, and figured I would start with a less expensive car in case I just completely fucked up the import process and ended up getting the car crushed.  So began my adventure with “the most reliable car ever built”.

    Auction photo in native Japan

    The day the truck delivered the Celsior to my house, I was ecstatic.  Months of looking for the right car, bidding, and patiently waiting for a cargo ship from the land of the rising sun was now over. For under $6,000 American, I had an auction grade 4, Black Jade Metallic, 130,000 km Celsior sitting in my driveway. 
    Like nearly every imported vehicle, the Celsior arrived with a dead battery.  I left it trickle charging overnight, and was rewarded with a battery that held charge and did not need replacement.  After a few cranks, the Celsior sprang to life and I took it for its first drive around the block.  I fell in love with the smooth, quiet ride, and overall comfort I felt driving it, as well as the relatively unobstructed greenhouse that you simply can’t find in modern vehicles.  The justification to my wife (“Oh, I’ll just import this one to see if I can do it and sell it for a slight profit”) quickly left my memory (but not hers) as I happily envisioned my new, cool daily driver shuttling me to and from work.

    Isn’t it beautiful?

    I made note of the things I wanted to get done, namely a tune up and oil change, and also noted that although the tires looked great and had plenty of tread, their DOT date showed they had been manufactured in 2006. 
    After a relatively simple registration process, I now had a title and a license plate for my RHD beauty, and a newly arrived package from RockAuto containing a few oil filters, air filter, spark plugs, wires, distributor caps (yes, caps), and rotors (yes, rotors).  I enjoy working on cars, and will usually tackle most jobs myself, so doing the tune-up myself was a no-brainer.  It saves money and would allow me to “get to know” the car; she needed to be shown that I care. 

    The most reliable powerplant in history: the 1UZ-FE v8

    The tune-up, honestly, turned into kind of a bitch.  I had to remove quite a few panels and covers to get access to everything, but it eventually got done, and I had a clear conscience knowing I had been a good boy and had done the preventative maintenance the car needed.
    I went to take it for a test drive; the car was struggling to stay on, and was just running like garbage.  Feeling defeated, I opened the hood and noticed a huge vacuum hose that I had forgotten to plug back into the intake.  I was elated when the car returned to normal the moment I put the hose back on, and was again happy with my hard work. 
    The car ran great for about a day, then started misfiring horribly shortly after I again left my house. I turned around and limped it home, defeated once again, thinking there was no way this fix was going to be as easy as me forgetting a vacuum hose.  After about 15 minutes of diagnosis, I discovered that the left side coil pack wire was damaged and arcing straight to the block.  The depression quickly left my body, and after digging an old coil wire out of the trash can, the car was humming once again.  I got a warranty replacement wire from Denso and all was right again in the world…  until I put the spark plug cover on the car a couple of weeks later and discovered the issue was, once again, caused by me.  There is a spot on the spark plug cover that has a notch for the coil wire, and I didn’t notice that, causing the wire to become pinched and damaged by the cover, thereby causing the arc.  I wasn’t going to bother Denso again and ended up running the extra, longer coil wire that was included in the kit, which was meant for the later model LS400.

    Hole in coil wire

    Now, as you are reading this, I know what you’re thinking: “this shit isn’t the car’s fault, this dude is just dumb and he’s blaming the car for his fuck-ups.”  And yes, I agree.  None of this stuff was the car’s fault, but I have to preface the story with this because in my wife’s mind, all of this is me fixing a broken car, and that made what comes later annoy her even more.  While my wife is a hater, I really do like the Celsior, I promise. More on the import process and total expenses next week.

    Don’t mind the reflection, we’ll talk about that another time.

    BOTTOM TEXT

  • Look at this: 2003 Ford SVT F150 Lightning

    The second generation of the Ford F150 Lightning was arguably one of the best. With the (new for) 1997 body, Ford reintroduced the Ford Lightning variant. Like the original Lightning, the second generation featured an Eaton supercharger on top of the 5.4l V8 that was shared with the regular F150 lineup. Additionally, Lightning’s featured a unique front and rear bumper, as well as suspension components to lower the truck.

    Like a true performance vehicle, the interior was very basic.

    Today’s example, a 2003 SVT F150 Lightning was nearly one of the last model years for the truck. This one specifically features a Kenne Bell kit in replacement of the original Eaton. The wheels are the standard OEM while the bumper is aftermarket. The seller states within the listing that he will provide the original parts with the truck.

    The aforementioned Kenne Bell.

    Overall, This is a little pricey at $16,900 for this low(er) mileage example. With 87000 miles on the truck, it seems to be in pretty good condition from the included pictures. As the overall truck market expands and inevitably we see a return to more performance-based trucks as enthusiast cars disappear, this could be a great future buy.