Cars you regret not buying

[daSNAK3]

Chevy SS / Mercury Maurader - completely different vehicles but i lump them together as performance sedans. wasn’t anywhere near my budget when released but these cars were me all the way.

2018 WRX STI - I played it conservative and got a standard WRX. Before I got the M1 was thinking about looking at them again but to lo and behold Subbie killed them.

2022+ WRX is better and/or faster mod for mod than the STi.. just saying.. and aftermarket has only just begun for them. I will probably pick one up to daily in a year or two.

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[JoeSpeed]

When I got my Mustang, could have had the manual GT convertible, but I didn’t (Dad offered to help, so he held the strings. Made the mistake of putting it in comfort mode when he drove it. He swore Id kill myself in it)

Gotta get that GT vert someday

 

[Stangomydreams]

Not mine but identical. manual 4 speed, headers with 302. See it in car shows in my area and memories come rushing back. Lucky to have lived through it really - good times.

 

[f00man]

2004 Terminator Cobra.

Several years ago, I had a chance to buy a used Sonic Blue with less than 10K miles and driven by an older owner. The interior is awful on the SN95s, but those Terminator Cobras were so good. Before the Hellcats roamed the streets, it was a the Terminator Cobras.

I bought a house instead.

 

[mindo389]

1982, could have bought a ‘70 Torino 428SCJ 4 speed. Bought a ‘75 Austin Mini instead. Not enough power to pull the skin off of rice pudding but go kart handling. When I bought my first new car out of university I bought a ‘87 Tempo 2 door. My dad loaned me the money for it…should have spent a bit more and got an LX Mustang.

I'm impressed you admitted you bought a Tempo....

 

[mraplx]

1992 Mazda RX7 R1.

 

[noac]

-1993 Canary yellow/white on the showroom floor of Jack Byrne Ford in May of 1993.
-1992 Feature car 10k miles 5spd/EQ with Gatorbacks Jack Byrne Ford April of 1994.
-2004 Mach 1 Orange brand new Sheehy Ford
-2020 GT350r new silver stripe delete black roof…for a great deal when a local dealer owed me a favor.
-every mint 82 GT I’ve ever seen.

 

[Seanuf99]

Cadillac CTS-V wagon in a manual.

I came real close to selling my G35 for a first gen CTS-V 10+ years ago. Read all the horror stories of the the diff blowing up. The lack of wheel fitment.

Second gen came out with the wagon and I fell in love with it. I didn't have the means at the time, but I wish a could have scoped one up.

Ive recently discovered these and have been mildly obsessed with finding one.

 

[Balr14]

There are three cars I regret not buying. I tried, but I just could not put together a deal before somebody else bought them.

The first is the Plumley MG http://www.britishv8.org/MG/DavePlumley-MG-TD.htm. It was only selling for $17k, but somebody else bought it while I was asking questions about the engine.

The second is a 2014 Audi R8 Spyder. It was being sold for much less than most because it had high mileage, which is rare on an R8. But, everything had been replaced that could have been an issue. It sold for $73k and I was $3k short at the time.

The last is a 2020 BMW Z4 M40i. This occurred 2 weeks ago. The car had been sitting on the dealers floor for a long time at a really good price, but nobody wanted it. It was in Salt Lake City in the winter, so go figure. The used car manager sold it to CarMax a few hours before the salesman I was working with knew it. I figured I'd get another shot at it on CarMax, but it lasted 1/2 hour before it was gone.

 

[MrMike]

There's only one. I remember seeing this red NSX on a Lexus lot for $29k many years ago when they were at their lowest.

I absolutely could not afford it at the time.

 

[ay1820]

Back in the late 80's, I came across a '67 Fastback 289 4-speed car for $5,000. The car was fairly clean with typical wear and tear and some minor rust. At that time, I thought that was too much (and it probably was at the time), but in hindsight, I wish I bought it. It would have been a great project that could have been slowly restored over time and worth a mint today.

 

[tobaccokid]

I'm drooling over this post. If you don't mind, could you please share some pics? Also, the "2019 GT50"' is a GT350, right?

My typo. The 2019 is a GT350 - Kona Blue w/white stripes. Second picture.

First picture is #383 at SEMA with Pete Brock.

Third picture is #028 at Amelia Island Concours. Note the steel wheels and the black walls. The first 60 cars were shipped with Goodyear black walls as the blue dots were not ready. They are essentially perfect tires with only 300 miles.
They we’re on the 1964/65 NY World’s Fair Shelby in the Ford pavilion.

 

[ShadesOfBloo]

1967 Firebird convertible. I was about 16 at the time. The seller wanted $7000 for it and my dad laughed and said something to the effect of "Haha, what kind of moron would pay $7000 for such an old car?"

I know it was a 1967 because it had "326" badges, and it was only the first year of the Firebird that came with that engine.

Since 2000 I've seen very similar blue, small-block Firebirds with asking prices of $20,000 to $30,000. To this day, my dad knows and cares so little about cars I can't rub it in his face.

2002-2005 Lexus IS300. The steering assist is hydraulic, so it had good road feel. Always looked like a fun car, with or without the turbo kits.
One of the worst things working against it was poorly thought-out marketing. Somebody started this idea that Lexus was selling it to compete with the BMW 3-series and lots of reviews harped on how "It's not an M3".
It also didn't have the price or maintenance needs of an M3. If only someone had spelled out "It was built and priced to compete with the 328i." Also, sending something that sporty to the same dealership as the ES300 confused the **** out of Lexus salesmen, and those same salesmen made it hard to find one with a manual transmission.

In 2008 I had enough income, and a reason to buy a car; My 1996 240SX was in a wreck and I wanted a 4-door with similar handling and power. In my mind, I kept coming back to the IS300.

Well, the woman I was married to at the time (the one who wrecked the 240SX) said "If you're going to buy something the least bit sporty, it better have a warranty." I ended up with a 2008 Evo. Well, the steering is really good on that car, too. Whatever else could have cost me money on a used IS300, it would never include a $1600 AYC pump.

Now my 1992 240SX is approaching 250,000 miles and having issues with parts I can't find, and I'm not sure how much longer I want to deal with an old Nissan. I think about what other cars could replace it as a fun daily-ish driver, and when I think of the IS300 most of the ones for sale have over 200,000 miles on them, or they're automatics, or both.

 

[asc709]

So many to list, but here are a couple memorable Mustangs.

2004 Cobra in 2012 or so….dealer wanted something like, $18k or so….
1993 Cobra (teal) for $5k about 10 years ago (running and in decent shape!)
Decent running 1991 notchback (nobody wanted the “ugly” notches) about 10 years ago.

Now I’m looking for a notch project and can’t believe the prices!

 

[Buldawg76]

This is not a car I regret not buying but rather a car I wish I still owned. Back in 78 I had a good friend that gave me a car with the one condition of I had to put it back in the road.

The car was a 64 GTO 389 tri power, 4 speed close ratio trans, posi rear end with delete A/C, PS, PB, sound proofing and mastic with only an AM radio. One of my best friends bought the goat from its original owner in 72 with 40k on it for 800 bucks. he drove it for about 2 years and then sold to another friend and so on till the friend that gave it to me had tried to get it running and it had a fuel leak at the carbs and it caught fire when cranking it. All he had to put it out was sand from the ground, so the sand was in the carbs, intake and cylinders.

I was a mechanic as a career, so I got the car and went thru the engine and cleaned and rebuilt it with some added goodies and get all systems back to working condition. I drove the car for about 2 years and loved it since the original owner had modified the linkage for the outer carbs so you could either run on just the center carb with the outer carbs unhooked or hook up the linkage for the outer carbs to open at any one of 10 positions from 1/4 throttle to 3/4 throttle depending on which holes in the linkage you put the outer carbs attaching rod. If you drove it sensibly it would get 18 mpg around town and 22 mpg on the highway at 80 mph on just the center 2 barrel. Hook up the tri power and you could watch the gas gauge drop with every WOT run.

I unfortunately had been out racing one night and forgot a had the tri power hooked up the next morning and went to pass a car ahead of me on a slightly wet road and when I stepped on the gas and the tri power opened the car immediately went into a 360 degree spin on the wet road. I hit a 72 caddy with the left rear of the car totaling it out.

I still miss that car today. it was the car touted as starting the muscle car craze of the 60s and would run a 12.70 second 1/4 mile off the showroom floor and beat the 327 feulie corvette for stock showroom performance in 64.

This is not the actual car but is the same color and model goat I had.

BD

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