I know what you're thinking. A 5th generation Chevy Nova. Really? That is the best you guys can find? Can't you feature another Volvo or some modified BMW... Keep the pitchforks in the barn for a few minutes while we talk you through the logic on this one. Suppose you have a friend...we'll call him Bob...and Bob tells you he has $3k to spend on a daily driver. Do you suggest a 250k mile used 1st generation Prius? Any of the scores of ragged/bagged/tagged Honda's littering craigslist -- NO! You tell him he is going to get a low mile sedan built in Silicon Valley filled with technology and that will save him massive amounts of money on fuel. Bob will say "you found me a $3k Tesla Model S?" "No Bob," you tell him, "I've found you a 1988 Toyota sedan that had a little mistake in the spelling of on the badge." Find this 1988 Chevrolet Nova for sale in Manteca, CA for $2,800.
Hey DT - you put the wrong pics in this ad...supposed to be a Toyota. A quick history lesson for you; in 1984 a manufacturing plant re-opened in Fremont, CA as a joint venture between Toyota and GM, called NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc). The NUMMI plant operated as a Toyota/GM plant from 1984 to 2010 and is now the site of Tesla's assault on the definition of a luxury automobile (side note: we can't wait to feature a used/depreciated Tesla in a few months time). The first car to be produced at the NUMMI plant was a 5th generation Chevy Nova, but the Nova was mostly a Japanese design with Chevy badges -- a quick restyle of the AE82 Toyota Corolla/Sprinter.
This particular Chevy Nova is equipped with the Toyota 4A-C inline-4 that made 74 horsepower from 1.6 liters and has only been driven 29k miles since new. Like the child who never left home, this Nova is only about 1 hr away from its birthplace and has been driven just a bit over 3 miles per day by one owner since new. This is the ultimate little old lady driven appliance offered for cheap on craigslist and will probably fetch twice as much money with 50 good photos from a dealer on ebay in a few weeks time.
If only it were a manual. I don't even want to image how slow this thing is with an automatic.
ReplyDeleteBack in highschool my friend had one of these in a manual. We beat the living piss out of it. 20mph reverse rolls into a 1st gear clutch drop, traysliding and ran the bases at a local high school. Those were the days.
Anon, those activities should be a mandatory part of high school for every kid. Not in the curriculum, more as a rite of passage. If you didn't goof around with cars like that in high school you missed out on some of the most unadulterated joy punctuated with the slight fear of getting caught. And you learned car control as a bonus.
DeleteGood luck finding a depreciated Tesla Model S... Every used one I've seen (granted my search has been far from exhaustive) on the 2nd hand market has inexplicably been at or even above new retail. A 2 (model) year old Model S 85 with 10,000+ miles on it goes for around $89,000. A brand new 2014 Model S with the same options is $91,000 before EV credit.
ReplyDeleteThe roadster is where it's at depreciation-wise. 4 year old Tesla Roadster 2.0? $80k+ 6 year old Roadster 1.5: $73k (both were over $100k new).
There are two spelling errors. The writeup says "Silicon Valley." That would technically be Fremont, which could be spelled O-A-K-L-A-N-D.
ReplyDeleteMy mom had the Corolla version with the 5-speed - pretty much the same car under the skin. Despite a pretty good long-term effort on my part to abuse it, it just wouldn't die. The 5-speed certainly amplified the fun factor, but that's like saying it was a much more exciting shade of beige. (Actually, it was a much more exciting shade of beige - Toyota called it "champagne.") So, not unexpectedly, the autotragic in this example won't bring a smile to anyone's face unless they're calculating the number of efficient and trouble-free miles they'll get for their sub-$3K investment. I suspect, the car will last much longer than the buyer's desire to own it.
ReplyDelete@Larry - Re: "The car will last much longer than the buyer's desire to own it." That's some wisdom right there. Recalls my favorite Jorge Luis Borges epigram: The body lasts as long as the mind needs it to.
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