Help/Advice please

[Idiot]

Short version at bottom:

Okay wtf.

Where/how can I get a sports car that is in moderately good condition for less than $10,000USD? I don't want an extreme fixer upper where I'm just buying the body of the car and I need to add the engine and everything else.

The reason I ask:
This redneck that lives in the neighborhood has a car that looks like a Ferrari(specifically a 1981 Ferrari 308 GTSi) but I honestly wonder how he got a hold of it. He is real poor, has like 9 kids, who all have kids, and the cops are always down there and he uses food stamps and government issued things to pay for everything. The cheapest I could find a 1981 Ferrari 308 GTSi for is like $25k to 33k. So how the hell did he get it?

Here is what I know about his car specifically:

1. He never drives it. I don't know if it is not drivable, but I know it just sits in his driveway with his other shitty cars looking sexy.

2. I know the engine is in the back, because one day he was working on it.

Also I'm not bashing this guys character or anything, I don't even care about him being poor and all the disturbance with the cops, I have nothing against him. I'm just in the market for a car, and I really would like to get a car like his, and I figure if he got it in his situation I can MOST DEFINITELY get one.

*Also I'm not sure if it is a Ferrari, I just guessed because of how it looked. I went into google and typed Ferrari 91, 92, 82, etc until I found one that looked the most similar. Are there other cars that look like a Ferrari but they are not?

SHORT VERSION.
1. Where can I get a car like 1981 Ferrari 308 GTSi for less than 10k? My poor neighbor has one and I know he didn't buy it for 25k-33k.

2. Are there any other cars that look like a 1981 Ferrari 308 GTSi but actually are not?

3. If you guys know any cool classic cars that are less than 10k and easy to find for the most part post their names please. I need something that makes me look good to hide my flawed personality.

4. When looking for a car to buy, besides using the internet and local ads are there any other good ways to find a good deal?

and yeah I plan on asking him about his car eventually, but I just didn't want to be the weird neighbor who comes out of nowhere with a shitload of questions because apparently they have been spying on you. I gotta do my homework first;)

thanks alot in advance

[evil[apostrophe]tree]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Fiero

probably what your neighbor has, dont get one of those, they are pieces of shit.

get a early to mid nineties corvette, you can get a nice one for under 10gs...

[MunkeyQ]

If it is a Fiero, Vargus (AP2K) is the guy who's in the know about them. From what I've gathered, they seem to be alright little things.

(I'm in the UK so these cars are all alien to me, heh)

[Sponsored Link]

If it is a Fiero, Vargus (AP2K) is the guy who's in the know about them. From what I've gathered, they seem to be alright little things.

(I'm in the UK so these cars are all alien to me, heh)

Whats stranger to me is that they didn't sell them in europe. A small sportscar with frugal milage and good weigh balance woulda sold damn well, at least I think so.

[MunkeyQ]

Whats stranger to me is that they didn't sell them in europe. A small sportscar with frugal milage and good weigh balance woulda sold damn well, at least I think so.
Yeah, the Miata did fairly well here, as did the MR2. It would have sold great I think as there's a lot of people after a cheap, small sports car.

[InspiredByMe]

I saw a 1970's Chevy Impala yesterday for 17K. It was in a pretty good condition, completely restored. Other than that I saw a 1971 Corvette at the same place for 9k, needed a paint job though. Both at the same place.

[Idiot]

tree;250473']http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Fiero

probably what your neighbor has, dont get one of those, they are pieces of shit.

get a early to mid nineties corvette, you can get a nice one for under 10gs...

Sorry it took so long to reply. I'm not trying to raise the dead but, I just wanted to say thanks man. Also, I had a chance to speak to him and I found out IT IS a Ferrari. One from 1988 I think he said.

After reading your post though I thought it was a Pontiac Fiero until I learned otherwise.

Also I looked into the corvette thing. I might do that instead, because corvettes are just as sexy. Anyone have any favorite 90s corvettes they wanna tell me about? Thanks

[Vargus]

tree;250473']http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Fiero

probably what your neighbor has, dont get one of those, they are pieces of shit.

get a early to mid nineties corvette, you can get a nice one for under 10gs...

Don't make me rape you.

[bornkiller]

Don't make me rape you.Heh!...I was waiting for that response from you. :D

[ratfrink]

Whats stranger to me is that they didn't sell them in europe. A small sportscar with frugal milage and good weigh balance woulda sold damn well, at least I think so.

Nah it wouldn't have sold well at all.

The smallest engine it came with was like 2.5 litres, which was bigger than most family cars of the era. It's only frugal by US standards, not by European standards, getting about 35mpg.

Also, the handling wasn't anything spectacular. A lot of the suspension components came from other economy cars (Citation, Chevette) so although the handling was good, it wasn't great.

If you were european and wanted a mid engined sports car, you had two options which were better than the Fiero in terms of frugality and handling already. The MR2 was released in the same year, and had better fuel economy and better handling. The Fiat X1/9 had been released in the mid 70s and was already proven to be an excellent handling car, plus you could get them secondhand for fairly cheap.

The Fiero was good for the US, but it was nowhere near extreme enough to be successful in Europe.

[Sponsored Link]

Nah it wouldn't have sold well at all.

The smallest engine it came with was like 2.5 litres, which was bigger than most family cars of the era. It's only frugal by US standards, not by European standards, getting about 35mpg.

Also, the handling wasn't anything spectacular. A lot of the suspension components came from other economy cars (Citation, Chevette) so although the handling was good, it wasn't great.

If you were european and wanted a mid engined sports car, you had two options which were better than the Fiero in terms of frugality and handling already. The MR2 was released in the same year, and had better fuel economy and better handling. The Fiat X1/9 had been released in the mid 70s and was already proven to be an excellent handling car, plus you could get them secondhand for fairly cheap.

The Fiero was good for the US, but it was nowhere near extreme enough to be successful in Europe.

True, true. But I wonder how many people opted out of the Fiat because well, it's a Fiat. Esp a 1970-1995~ Fiat.

[Vargus]

Nah it wouldn't have sold well at all.

The smallest engine it came with was like 2.5 litres, which was bigger than most family cars of the era. It's only frugal by US standards, not by European standards, getting about 35mpg.

Also, the handling wasn't anything spectacular. A lot of the suspension components came from other economy cars (Citation, Chevette) so although the handling was good, it wasn't great.

If you were european and wanted a mid engined sports car, you had two options which were better than the Fiero in terms of frugality and handling already. The MR2 was released in the same year, and had better fuel economy and better handling. The Fiat X1/9 had been released in the mid 70s and was already proven to be an excellent handling car, plus you could get them secondhand for fairly cheap.

The Fiero was good for the US, but it was nowhere near extreme enough to be successful in Europe.

Actually, Europeans were quite happy with it for the decent suspension and very responsive steering, as opposed to other American cars and many European cars. Although, I will grant you that the 2.5 and 2.8 were nothing more than truck engines. Really, they were; the 2.5 and 2.8 were in alot of Chevy trucks of the mid-80s and early 90's. However, the original-design Fiero was designed specifically to compete and defeat the Ferarri 308. The MR2 and RX-7 were in different classes and were marketed to different people.

The Fiero was more of an afterthough when it came to marketing, so it would be little more than obvious that Europe would never get to sample it.

Really, it was a more or less a half-assed attempt to get internal brass to STFU about a Corvette/Camaro rival. What they got was a chassis that beat the shit out of both as evident with almost unilateral gold medal wins in IMSA races until 1989 thanks to Spice Engineering.

Don't even think about comparing the Fiero to other cars unless you look at the 1988 model. Even then, that year was supposed to get the ass-whooping Quad 4 engine that was twice as powerful as the 2.5 and got 40 mpg with a 5-speed. (Also keep in mind, frink, that these figures are not Imperial gallons, so they are higher than 35 and 40 that you quote.)

[ratfrink]

You're right about the imperial/US gallon thing, maybe it got 40mpg rather than 35.

Crumbs, something went wrong if they started out wanting a 308-beater and ended up with a decent chassis but a FWD drivetrain plonked in the back. I suppose the design changed a lot in the early 80s when fuel prices rocketed and people wanted a cheaper sportscar.

The later versions are much better though. And they weigh a lot less than I expected (although I still think that 1,250kgs is horrendously overweight for a sportscar, which is also what the 1990 MR2 weighed).

I still don't think it could have been a successful small sports car in Europe. Perhaps the later versions would have been more a competitor of the front-engined Porsches or Supras, rather than the MR2s, MX5s and X1/9s.

[Vargus]

Crumbs, something went wrong if they started out wanting a 308-beater and ended up with a decent chassis but a FWD drivetrain plonked in the back.

GM has been sytemmically micromanaged by accountants as opposed to engineers for some time. John DeLorean can tell you alot about that. I have yet to read On a Clear Day You Can See GM, though.