Weekend Quickies, Sunday, July 18, 2010

1988 Renault GTA Turbo - Last week I featured a 1976 Alpine A310. (You can find the post here.) At the end of the post I wrote, "I've always liked the A310, although if I were to buy one I'd hold out for the a more aggressive looking 1980s model." This is one of those cars.

The A310s were nice looking, but a bit bland in my eyes. They almost had a kit car look to them. The later GTA - like this one - had an aggressive, but not boy-racerish look to it. They looked like serious sports cars, which they were.

This car is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It's 22 years old and therefor perfectly legal to own and drive there. It's not legal to own and drive here in the US. We will have to wait another 3 years to legally purchase this car.

Click here to see the eBay listing, which contains a bunch of good, clear pictures.

1978 ARO Military Truck - Wow. How did this truck wind up in the US?

ARO 4x4s were almost sold in this country under the name of Cross Lander. (I've written a couple posts about those vehicles. You can find them here and here.) This is not one of those trucks.

This appears to be a Romanian military ARO. It's a 4x4 and looks very utilitarian.

The seller says the engine (which, along with transmission, is out of the truck) has been rebuilt. He doesn't say what type of engine it is. (ARO built some of their own engines, but also used Renault engines, mostly diesels.)

This truck, like all military vehicles, is most likely not very fun to drive on paved roads. However, it's probably a blast to take off road and I would pretty much guaranty that you'd be the only one with a military ARO at your local hill climb.

I'd love to know more about this truck and I've e-mailed the seller. If there are any ARO aficionados out there with some more info, please leave it in the comments section.

Listed in Dallas, TX, click here to see the Craigslist ad.

1995 Volvo 850 5 Speed - Most Volvo 850s sold in the US came with automatic transmissions. It was a notoriously bad transmission and the failure rate was high.

Prior to the 850, Volvo enjoyed a reputation of building solid, dependable cars that would run forever. The 850 was that type of car too, except, of course, for the transmission.

This is an 850 with a 5 speed. The 5 speed manual is a very good transmission which, like the rest of the car, should last for quite awhile.

This car was a European Delivery car. According to the seller, the original owners, neighbors of the seller, "picked (it) up directly at the factory in Sweden ... They were given a V.I.P. tour of the factory, treated to a Swedish meatball dinner with executives of the company, and even allowed to drive the car on the Volvo test track." A cool car, a dinner of Swedish meatballs and the use of a test track... Sounds like a great way to spend a day.

Located in Lake Worth, FL, click here to see the eBay listing.

Triumph TR WTF - There's nothing I can say about this. It's a fiberglass kit car sitting on a Triumph frame and sporting a 3 cylinder Kubota (as in tractor) engine.

$2500.00 and it's all yours.

Located in Middleboro, MA, click here to see the listing.

Jon, friend and master of all things automotively bizarre, sent me the link to this car.

*** Update *** JaCG reader, Alden, actually knows what this car is. See "Comments" section below.