Tag: 90s

  • The fastest sedan made in America

    The fastest sedan made in America

    Well, at the time, it was, as the ads proudly proclaimed.  Most remember the original Taurus SHO and its ability to shock most vehicles sold at the time.  For model years 1991 and 1992, however, the SHO was not the quickest domestic sedan.  That honor belonged to the Dodge Spirit R/T. This beast of a…

  • Forbidden Fruit:  Peugeot 406 Coupe V6

    Forbidden Fruit: Peugeot 406 Coupe V6

    This was one of my favorite cars to spot when living in France.  It’s cool to see one in North America, but there’s pretty much no way to drive this legally in the US…too bad, as the Pininfarina styling is really cool.  This one proudly wears a good 90s color, too.  The only problem here…

  • Hen’s tooth:  XJS with manual trans

    Hen’s tooth: XJS with manual trans

    The XJS unjustly gets a bad rap.  Anything following the E-Type was likely to be considered ugly.  It is also much more a Grand Tourer vs. the Series I and II E-Types, which were trues sports cars.  Finally, the V12 also got a justified bad reputation for complexity and poor reliability through the smog-controlled 70s.…

  • Frbidden Fruit: Volvo 480 Turbo in the US!

    Frbidden Fruit: Volvo 480 Turbo in the US!

    We recently search all the way to Europe to find one of these, as they’re true favorites. The question here is whether anyone can drive it in the US, especially CA…hmm.  If it was a 1988 model, we know EPA would be okay, but 1989? Click for eBay ad SLO, CA $9,500 starting with ZERO…

  • Tasty Suzuki Swift GT

    Tasty Suzuki Swift GT

    Along with the Chevy Sprint Turbo (also a Suzuki Swift), we love the Swift GTI and GT.  They’re effectively the same car, but it seems VW wasn’t happy about the GTI name, so it only lasted about one year. Instead of the usual three cylinder or SOHC four, these featured a DOHC 1.3 liter four…

  • All the best Loti are FWD (?)

    All the best Loti are FWD (?)

    Back in  its GM days, Lotus produced this FWD Elan and all US cars came with an Isuzu I4 turbo.  By most accounts, this is the best-handling front wheel drive car ever made. Most say it’s incredibly fun, as weight is minimal and the turbo four moves it with authority. 0-60 MPH times were in…

  • The real NX, not the new Lexus thing

    The real NX, not the new Lexus thing

    We love the Nissan NX2000. Your humble host once owned a 1993 Sentra SE-R – very closely related – and loved it.  It’s high on the ‘would love to have another’ list. Here we have an SR20DET swap, which could make it even more fun.  Of course, certain details on this car make us wonder…

  • Ah…the Harlequin Golf

    Ah…the Harlequin Golf

    Here we have one of the strangest ‘special edition’ vehicles in recent history.  The story is that Golfs went all the way to paint, then the plant swapped the bolt-on panels to create this beast.  Non-removable panels (rockers, roof, etc) give away the first coat on any one Harlequin.  This followed a Europe-only VW Polo…

  • Rare, one-year beast: Grand Prix Turbo

    Rare, one-year beast: Grand Prix Turbo

    These don’t come up very often, as only 2,000 were built.  A good friend of Oddimotive worked on this vehicle at GM back in the day and seemed to remember it fondly, for the most part. Unfortunately, this didn’t out perform its direct competitors, the supercharged Thunderbird SC and Cougar XR7, which also offered manual…

  • Festiva Two-Fer

    Festiva Two-Fer

    Here we have a Festiva plus a parts car.  If the price stays low enough, this should be tempting to anyone looking for dirt-cheap autocross thrills or anyone with a general liking for late 80s/early 90s shitboxes. Even better, the body on the driver car is coated in plasti-dip.  Why worry about stone chips on…