Mein Gott that’s bad

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

The Videos

This past week in Collector Car Feed videos was pretty great, I’m talking S-tier every day:

One deranged man thinks he can save them all: welcome to the Isuzone
One of us bought yet another Isuzu SUV. His driveway has hit capacity so this one’s going to live in the back yard. He swears it isn’t a problem. This is a key lore episode: we will absolutely continue to talk about this purchase.

Every Aftermarket Jeep Grille Ranked
Wrangler sales are down and Bronco sales are up (praise the Ford), but the Angry Jeep Face persists on the streets and in our minds, so we put every single one Netgear could find on a classic tier list.

Hunting for real stolen cars on Facebook Marketplace
This is one of our best performing videos in months, at least over the first few days. Our audience loves stolen cars and poverty rides, but it also happens to be a great video. They’re really out there and they’re not hard to find.

The News

The Next BMW M3 front end design has been leaked
Scroll up. That first image is the new M3. We were all wondering how they were going to add more kidney to this grille. They did it by letting the kidneys consume the headlights, coincidentally making the whole thing look like the 1999 Pontiac GTO concept car.

Subaru is discontinuing the WRX in Japan
It’s almost certainly not a permanent goodbye, but Subaru is pulling the plug on the WRX in the Japanese market, and news sources are citing noise and emissions regulations as the culprits. The CVT-only WRX is too loud and inefficient to be sold in Japan.

Jaguar’s Design Boss Is Officially Leaving The Company
It’s unclear if he was fired or quit, but Jaguar’s lead designer for the past two decades is out. Weirdly the article only mentions him having designed the Land Rover Defender, Land Rover Evoque, and most recently the Jaguar Type 00 Concept, which is linked to that disastrous Jaguar rebranding campaign you probably already forgot about. There’s a picture of it in the article, and they call the design “highly controversial”, but I thought it was kind of cool, if you can separate it from, again, that awful commercial they made that the entire world absolutely hated. Feels like this guy is being punished for the marketing department’s mistakes, but what do I know.

The Cars

2016 Ford Focus ST
This would be a great match for my shadow black Fiesta ST, but the secret seems to be out on these and they’re hitting new heights all the time bid-wise on these online auction platforms. 54,000 miles, one owner, ST3 package and optioned just right (everything except the upgrade wheels; the snowflakes are better). Those options are leather heated Recaros, heated leather steering wheel, Sync 3 (Carplay/Android Auto compatible), sunroof. And it’s a facelift! The only negative are a couple accidents on record, which the Cars and Bids crowd will completely ignore as they run the price up to probably around $20,000, which is deep into Ecoboost Mustang territory.
I know, you hate all of this. You’ll come around, but until you do, let’s look at something else.

1991 Toyota MR2 Turbo
This is actually the only other ongoing auction I have saved from the past week. It’s been slim pickings. 144K on the clock and three days left as of this writing. It’s a real turbo, not a swap. It’s more or less unmolested and has a clean title. There’s no mention of any accidents. The mileage is the major drawback here, and it’s an SW20 so of course it’s leaking oil. Luckily the seller has no record of the timing belt having ever been done, so you can replace all the front side seals when you do that critical piece of work.
This unmaintained, meh-mileage MR2 Turbo should sell for around $10,000, but I’d bet on $14,500 as the final price.

1995 Ford Taurus SHO
This is actually TWO 1995 SHOs, both in project car condition, for $1500 OBO. They’re both stick shift. I wish I had Netgear-level space for derelict vehicles when I see things like this.

Lamborghini Countach Replica
Classic: it’s a Fiero wearing a Lambo suit. Check out the old school hood pins on the frunk. Doug says “for those who want the eye-catching Countach look without the eye-watering Countach price, Pontiac Fiero-based replicas like this can be a lot of fun.”
Doug, when are you going to stand up for yourself? I know you didn’t write this.

Ferrari 308 GTB Replica
Classic: it’s a Fiero wearing a Ferrari suit. And of course, Doug loves it: “The Ferrari 308 GTB is an iconic ’80s poster car – but not everyone can afford (or wants to maintain) the real thing, and that’s where high-quality replicas serve a great purpose.”
This will probably sell for more than the MR2 Turbo above. Which would you rather have: the Poor Man’s Ferrari, or the Complete Idiot’s Ferrari?

Final Thoughts

I gave away several more Scion CD Samplers to people who read this in their email earlier today. Could have been you, man. I have a whole box of ’em. Some other junk too. Get the email, scroll back up.

See you Soon.
-Feed