Yamaha Thundercat, Ford Focus SVT, Chevy SS: The Dopest Cars I Found For Sale Online

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Folks, it's the end of the week. I'll once again be spending my weekend in frigid upstate New York, climbing rocks and hanging out with friends, but I'm concerned that you may not have such active and social plans. Do you have things to do? Are you eating enough? Your mother and I worry about you, you know. You never call any more. 

In case you don't have weekend plans, though, worry not, I'm here for you. I've picked through the greatest automotive listings in your area, and now I can give you a plan for the next two days: Negotiate some deals on these gorgeous cars and bikes. By "your area," here, I do mean Seattle. If you're not in Seattle, time to fly out and drive something back. I accidentally listed my snowboard for sale in Seattle during the process of tracking these listings down, thoroughly disappointing one eager Seattlite with a couple hundred bucks to his name and a desire to hit the slopes this winter, so the least you can do to repay him is go buy one of this week's Dopest Cars.

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We need to bring back good motorcycle names. R7? CBR600R? C'mon. Call something the Thundercat again. This absolutely rocks, and I demand automakers go back to doing names this way. Get the hell outta here with your alphanumerics, I want YouTube comparisons that sound like a mediocre tokusatsu film. Give me Ninja Vs. Thundercat as a RevZilla thumbnail.

This style of bike has largely gone the way of its name, with these middleweight upright-ish sportbikes being a thing of the past. The Thundercat is essentially a small sport tourer, though with clip-ons instead of a full bar like you'd find on a more modern competitor — the riding position is just sporty enough to make you remember you're on a 600. Maybe I need one of these. Anyone wanna give me three grand? I'll repay you with blogs about my cool 2003 sport tourer, and how fun it is to ride around the city. 

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The seller of this Prelude says it's not a factory manual car, but that it was swapped by a prior owner. That's not always a great thing, swaps can come with all manner of weird problems, but this one seems to have been running on the manual gearbox long enough that any big problems would probably have reared their head by now. There are a few issues, with the car idling weirdly and no functional cruise control, but how often do you need those? 

If you're wondering about the hood latches, the seller says this hood is genuine carbon fiber. The Prelude also has coilovers, though there's no make or model stated for us to know whether they're high quality equipment or some Raceland form over function deal. With a manual swap, I'd hope for the former — surely someone willing to put in the effort to swap an entire transmission would put in the effort to buy quality parts — but the lack of any detail in the listing points towards the latter. 

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Bring back yellow regular cars! The Protege5 is fun, sure, but it's also just a regular car, an everyday station wagon that could take your kids to school. It is also, as you may have noticed, yellow. When did we give up on having our normal cars be fun colors? Can things not be regular and joyous any more? When did we start reserving whimsy for only the most already-whimsical cars?

This Protege5 isn't in perfect condition — there's some crunching on the driver's side rear, around the fuel door — but it's in great shape overall. The seller seems meticulous about maintenance, with records for oil changes, spark plug changes, and brake and suspension work, and they have parts laying around for future maintenance. The motor mounts and fuel injectors apparently need replacement, but you can handle that. Bring back the era of whimsical normal cars yourself, if the automakers won't do it. 

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Speaking of neat normal cars, remember the Focus SVT? Not the RS, not the ST, just the regular old Focus with a bit of Special Vehicle Team kit. There aren't a ton of these around, which means they're not the cheapest around, but this one's way down at the bottom of the price chart. Is that because it has a salvage title? Almost certainly, yeah. 

Normally I won't do salvage title vehicles here in Dopest, but this one seems to be in very good shape. Granted, there are only photos from one side, but the shots don't seem to show any major damage to the passenger side of the car. It seems this has been repaired, and repaired well enough that the seller doesn't even know why it has that title to begin with. I think a salvage title can be an okay way to get a discount, provided everything's been fixed up okay (and you can get a registration in your state without a major paperwork hassle), and this one seems to be one of the better salvage cars you can get. 

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Red? Check. Single-sided swingarm? Check. Ducati 1098? Absolutely check. If there's anything more that you want from a vehicle, you're being needlessly picky. C'mon now. If an under-tail exhaust and bright red paint aren't enough for you, then you can find your own listings. 

I've always like the trellis frame on the 1098. It's not incredibly showy, like the trellis frames you get on KTMs, but it's just enough — the subframe is hidden, the trellis is paint-matched to the fairings and tank, but you can still see that it's there. It's not shouting to everyone that it's a trellis, it's not shoving it in your face, it's just quietly confident in its engineering. This is as quiet at Italian engineering gets, by the way. Anything else from that peninsula will be even more raucous and proud. I own clothing with metal Italian flags embedded in it so you don't forget where it came from. 

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This isn't a perfect GTI. I'll say that right out of the gate. It has missing parts, it's been dented, and the seller has done some questionable mods — I rarely trust a car with smoked tail lights. But what made me pick this car over any other GTI on Marketplace was the story behind it, which I'll grab some pieces from here:

This is probably the hardest thing I have to do because this Car means so much to me. I traveled state to state in it. ... Unfortunately I have to sell it due to some money troubles.

I will always respect a seller who clearly loves their car, regardless of the ways in which that love manifests. If you love your car so much that you put smoked rear turn signals on it, I may disagree with you, but at least you're doing so from a place of love, not just because someone on a forum said it was the cool thing to do. 

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I also normally don't do dealer cars in Dopest, but this one's not a dealer — it's a small independent shop that works on Saabs and Volvos, selling the car on behalf of a customer who presumably can't afford the repairs. Supposedly this 240 just needs a head gasket to get it back on the road, with the seller stating that the rest of it is in good shape. I'd trust a shop's estimate on something like that. 

Volvo 240s are simply too expensive, but this is a way to get into one for a reasonable price. How much could one head gasket replacement cost? You may need to move approximately one million vacuum hoses out of the way to do it, but things weren't all that complex in the late '70s, it can't be that terrible a job to do. Besides the vacuum hoses, I mean. Just hope those don't crack from age and exposure. 

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GRolla! It's nice to see these trickling down in price, even in good shape. We've hit Evo money with them now, so it's only a matter of time until they hit STI money — and then STi money, and then WRX money. By that point they'll all have been run ragged, but would you rather trust a Subaru that's been beat on for years or a Toyota? I'd trust the reliability of the Toyota three-cylinder over a Boxer four after that many hands have done that many questionable mods. 

I do, though, wish that The Color for these cars wasn't white. That's the shade I always seem to see them in, and it really feels like the GRolla deserved something the caliber of World Rally Blue, like a distinctive yellow or green or something, just any kind of rich shade that the car could build some history into. I get it, these are the GR colors, but come on. 

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Chevy SSes have long sat at $40,000 on the used market, so this one warranted admission to Dopest for its price point alone. Then after I picked it, I read the mod list: A built 416 engine, an upgraded cam, long-tube headers, a built transmission. All the factory luxury features seem to work, but there's an absolute monster of a car hidden beneath them, the ultimate sleeper build from the ultimate sleeper car. 

I wish the seller had included a dyno chart to show what that 416 can really do, but even without one I'm still suitably impressed. Just watch the video in the ad of the car idling, you'll hear the cam — this thing sounds mean, and likely drives even meaner. I would recommend taking the red vinyl wrap off of the Chevy badges, though. The rest of the car looks fine enough with the vinyl, but the color-matched badge is just a bit much. It'll get sleepier with the factory gold color back in place.