Is it time for a buncha 20 year olds to sound like a heard of rambling old men? Bet your ass it is B O Y !

Ah pre-COVID 19 Facebook marketplace… what a time, what a place! I still have excel sheets that documented lists of cars for sale back when Pierce and I were both looking for a project car. $250 Pontiac Sunfires, $500 civics, $800 miatas, $1400 328i e36s, and $2500 Porsche 944s all litter the digital sheets, listing mileage, specs, distance, and price. But “the new normal” of an economy that we all are still insistent is about to collapse to the point were the prophecy will sell fulfill yet don’t seem to be doing anything about, means the used market is about as friendly as a foreigner in a German government office.

Now, part of the issue might be all of us at MSIMA are broke ass college students who can’t buy a fleet of shitty project cars (or that some of us HAVE done that, and really can’t go down that rabbit hole again till after graduation), but recently cars we grew up seeing as cheap beaters, warranted or otherwise, finally get their time in the spotlight.

The Miata is a well known case already. Blame 20 years of people buying and modding these cars till the poor thing’s 8th owner is left with a ruined shell of an NA thats gonna get turbo’d for the 7th time then smashed into a wall at Orlando Speed World, 90’s nostalgia, influencers “popularizing” the car, the natural course of descent cars getting old, or all of the above. The days of $500 barely running but not shit NA Miatas are gone. And while Miatas now start at$2-3000 vs a few hundred, to be fair its not really the end of the world.

Or what about the e36? I almost bought one for $500. Now clapped out examples run for $5000 (not that the car will actually sell for that). And while these older BMWs are genuinely fun cars, some of the asking prices for high milage, well worn examples are pretty laughable.

However, the cheap car isn’t exactly dead. Sure, most cars now adays for under a grand are better off scrapped, and inflation won’t exactly help you out in 5 years time, but with a summer or two of work, any high school or college kid can still grab a project to mess with. The right Miata, BMW z3, v6 mustang, Golf, or neighbor’s Cordoba that hasn’t moved in a decade are all still viable. And lest we forget to Porsche 944! I had a whole excel sheet of $2500-4000 944s and 928s! Wait they’re going for how much now?

Justin really wanted to rant about the 944 and I built an article around it – Monty

Justin:

The biggest problem that is quickly becoming apparent is that people are seeing them as a “collectible classic”. This damned car had a production run of 9 fucking years. That’s 3 years longer than it took for the original Star Wars trilogy to come out. They made almost 200 THOUSAND units, they’re not rare and you can’t convince me otherwise. So then why the hell does Reginald down the street think his 944 is worth 10 grand?

A Porsche 944 is a perfectly fine car to make your friend who bought an NA miata feel proud that they can finally lose someone on a straightway and not just on corner exit. This lump of repurposed metal was originally abandoned by VW with Porsche left to raise it alone. Which explains a lot about how the 924 grew up to become the 944. It should’ve sought therapy but instead took up competitive eating.

And while the car itself isn’t a shit handler, it is around 500lb heavier than an NA Miata, while making around 30 hp more in non-turbo guise.

The world knows these non-turbo 944’s are slow. An na Miata is 0.4s quicker to 60 and over a second quicker in the quarter mile. Obviously none of these cars prioritize straight line performance, but the whole point of a Miata is that it doesn’t need a ton of power to be fun. That’s because it’s cheap and light, cheap and light was the point from day 1. The 944, on the other hand, is 500 pounds heavier and not cheap. At the time, in 1989 the 944 was $53,000 while a year later, the Miata comes in at $13,800. What does the It’s the 944 have over the Miata? A transaxle, that’s about it. It’s not like you’re having fun using it anyways. So why, why did this shittier Miata suddenly shoot up in price to the point where it makes no financial sense compared to any other sports car from the same era. It’s boring on the outside, boring on the inside and very very overpriced. It’s a “poor mans Porsche” but still a very very expensive Miata.