It’s time once again for Shitbox Showdown! For today’s installment, we’re looking at custom interiors. Both vehicles featured today have been extensively modified on the inside, and the results are, well, a bit hit or miss, let’s say. But we’ll get to those in just a minute; first we need to settle up with yesterday’s red coupes:
Naturally, the Honda took the win. But honestly, that Mustang put up a better fight than I expected it to. For those wondering about the turbo claim: yes, it’s there. On these, the turbocharger is under the carb and boosts the air/fuel mixture coming from the carb – it’s called a “draw-through” turbocharger, and no one makes them anymore because they’re a pain in the ass. But never mind, you’re all correct; the Prelude is the better deal here. Kudos to whoever snags it before the seller comes to their senses and raises the price.
One of the biggest complaints about newer cars that I hear is the lack of interior color options. Sure, at the Porsche end of the market, you can get almost any color interior you want, but the vast majority of everyday cars are black inside, or gray, or maybe tan if you’re lucky. More colors used to be available, but tended towards monochrome; if you ordered a green interior, everything was green, right down to the seatbelts, and it got a little overwhelming. And a green interior looked just like a red one, only green. For some folks, that just won’t do, so they take to altering the interior to better suit their tastes. But can you go too far in this pursuit? Take a look at these two, and then you tell me.
1980 Pontiac Sunbird – $4,250
Engine/drivetrain: 2.5 liter overhead valve inline 4, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Cedar Park, TX
Odometer reading: 66,000 miles
Runs/drives? “Completely roadworthy,” they say
Lots of cars in the late 1970s had styling that didn’t match their performance, but GM’s H-body compact, in all its various forms, might be the worst offender. Available as a two-door notchback coupe, a three-door hatchback, and a two-door wagon, all the H-body variants looked sharp. Unfortunately, the engine choices didn’t back up the looks: you were stuck with a heavily reworked Vega four-cylinder, a Buick V6 in its bad old odd-fire days, an awkwardly-shoehorned-in 305 small block V8, or what this car has – Pontiac’s much-maligned but generally pretty good “Iron Duke” four-cylinder. Its horsepower rating is somewhere in the neighborhood of diddly-squat, and this one loses even more power through a mushy TH200 automatic. “It is not a quick car,” says the seller. Yeah, no shit.
The good news is that this Sunbird runs great, and has had a ton of recent work done, including a rebuilt transmission, new cooling system, new fuel system, and new brakes, to name but a few things. Even the air conditioner works, though the seller says it’s a little weak. Maybe this one really does “just need a recharge.”
Inside, the dashboard is brown, which I believe was the original interior color. However, the original bucket seats have been replaced by black racing-style seats with bright yellow stitching and piping, with matching carpet. It looks sharp, but with the brown dashboard and that clunky factory steering wheel, it looks unfinished. What about the back seat, you ask? Um, what back seat?
Yep, it’s gone. In its place are a sheet of plywood, a whole lot of speakers, and what looks like a laser-cut or water-jet-cut ’50s style Pontiac logo. It looks cool, but I’m not sure it belongs in a car that represents the nadir of the marque’s performance.
1978 Dodge Maxivan – $3,800
Engine/drivetrain: V8 of unspecified displacement, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Oakland, CA
Odometer reading: 119,000 miles
Runs/drives? “Ready to go” according to the seller
Before there was the minivan, there was the Maxivan, a long-wheelbase Tradesman with a couple of extra feet tacked on the end. Need more space? Just weld some more van onto the back, kind of like making an extra-long bread loaf by adding slices from another loaf somewhere in the middle. Add standard windows and a few rows of bench seats, and you’ve got the quintessential “church van.” Without the windows, you’ve got some extra square footage of blank canvas for a sweet mural.
Whatever the outside looked like, it was against the law in the ’70s to drive a van without several square yards of shag carpeting covering every imaginable interior surface. No worries here. There’s so much blue fuzz inside this thing it looks like someone skinned Cookie Monster. And the requisite captain’s chairs look like they were made from Kitty Forman’s curtains.
But it doesn’t stop there. A blue velour bed fills the entire rear end of this thing, complete with matching curtains over the windows. (Fifty-five gallon barrel of Febreeze not included.) It looks like there are two sunroofs, and a button-tufted headliner between them. It’s all well done, and in good condition, but holy crap is there a lot of fuzzy blue stuff in here. Think we’re done? Oh, no. There’s a kitchenette, too:
Blue fuzz aside, we don’t have a lot of information to go on regarding this van. The seller says it runs great, but doesn’t specify what size engine is in it; it could be anywhere from 318 to 440 cubic inches. You’d have to check the tag under the hood to know for sure, I guess. Otherwise, the seller says it’s ready to go, perfect for camping at a Blue Oyster Cult concert.
Custom interiors aren’t much of a thing anymore, and I think that’s a shame. The interior is the place where you interact most often with a car; it should be a place you like. And if that means some modifications, so be it. Modifications like these are highly personal, of course, but one of these might fit your personal style. Which one?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
My name should give away which one I’d go for.
Realistically though I just want a more typical conversion van–don’t need a kitchenette or the like.
Did Dodges of that period have the rust problems the 90s ones had?
For the Pontiac cue the meme picture of people rolling on the floor laughing saying “you want
it whenhow much?” It’s not entirely unattractive but that excess price is just the starting point before an engine/transmission/rear end swap, and you’d need to ditch the nonsense where the back seat used to be. Too much money and work for not enough result.The Dajiban is also just a starting point, but the potential fun is endless and the Maxivan configuration is just the ticket to increase the “activity space”. Fair weather only, but this offers opportunities as ironic entertainment, conversion to a beachside camper, etc.
My skin is crawling just LOOKING at the inside of that van. I love it otherwise, but the biohazard team you’d have to hire to strip all of that out and sanitize it would be expensive. I’ll take the scrappy little shitbox that would be hilarious to drive around in.
I am blindly voting for the van, then I am going out to buy an ozone machine and some detailing tools.
There are so many HOA infuriating items here. I love it. I want to buy both of them and park them in a few choice neighborhoods in Denver and watch the Sequoia driving folk recoil in horror.
But the biggest “OMG what a disaster” of these two has to be the Iron Duke / TH200 combo. That one made me recoil in horror.
The Sunbird is an interesting specimen for a Sunbird fan. But in the end, even the wacky speaker box doesn’t make it interesting or fun. The mural on the van is worth the price alone. While I do appreciate the extent of the mods, I’d have to change the carpet. In which case, it starts getting too expensive to drive a boat of a van.
I kind of love the van but wouldn’t get within ten feet of it without a Tyvek suit and respirator.
The Pontiac is actually kind of cool looking, other than the speakers the interior is ok, and I dig the wheels. I had no idea these came with a 4CYL, I’d have thought this could have had at least a 3.8 or 301 v8 (I think Pontiac was still using the 301 at this time). With an LS swap this would be a cool sleeper.
Went with the van. I made up my mind before even clicking on the link to this article.
Sunbird for me in a second. Lots of new parts, runs good, looks super clean inside and out, even under the hood. Yeah not the best options for engines, but for the day, what was? A future engine swap would be pretty easy too. I might just remove the boomage for extra cargo capacity. No need for more than 2 people in my rides anyway.
The van, well it’s gotta be the opposite of clean. Porno set, or Matt Foley special, A can of Lysol to make it just palatable enough to get it sold. And even if it was the cleanest van out there, I’d still probably pass. RWD, low ground clearance (never drive it off the beaten path or in winter), horrible gas mileage. engine a bitch to work on.
Gimme Papa Smurf’s portable perv pad.
In the late 90’s I drove a 1978 van conversion with blue shag interior. I had to warn everyone who got in not to touch the shag on the headliner. Everyone who did got flakes of dried carpet adhesive in their eyes. It was surprisingly fun to drive because it had a 3 on the tree and a 351 Windsor.
Let’s just call it carpet adhesive…
It was the family vacation mobile when I was a kid, so it never saw anything raunchy until I started to drive it, just ski trips, camping trips, and beach days.
I hate to shatter your childhood’s innocence… but you were probably conceived in that van.
Not really shattering anything, thanks to the Pandora’s box of DNA testing, I recently learned I was conceived in a shady fertility clinic that mysteriously burned down with all of the medical records inside a few years later. Also, the van was built after I was born.
The van’s Craigslist ad text is evidence of what decades of drug use does to brain cells.
Shaggin’ wagon for me. And the Pontiac’s seller’s claim that “The vehicle is rated at around 118 HP.” is complete bullshit.
The Pontiac 2.5L Iron Duke never made more than 90hp around that time.. unless they dropped in a 2.5L SuperDuty engine… which they clearly did not
On top of that, the Iron Duty, while reliable and durable, is a rough running gutless piece of shit.
And I say that based on 1st hand experience.
So the Shaggin’ Wagon is an easy choice for me even though it will be a horrible gas guzzler.
Having had a plethora of Tradesmen I vote for the van, I think I had the same carpet on the doghouse on one of them too
I wouldn’t get the van, for two reasons: 1. You will be required to register as a sex offender if title to the van is in your name, and 2. at some point, that van will be seized as evidence for something that happened before you got it. So sunturd it is…
I’ll take the van… but only because I know people that know how to deal with biohazards.
America’s greatness died when van culture died don’t @ me
Welp, they brought a great sense of independence, self expression, and “coloring outside the lines,” with them. But the fun sure didn’t last. I’m not sure why, but this bright fragrant candle got snuffed in a hurry. A bong without a match.
I love the van interior, but it totally scares me. I’ll take the Sunturd and LS it or SBC it or something to make those seats worthwhile.
Boy, there are lots of people here with no sense of adventure. Sure the van may have been used to film porn, and may have seen more swimmers than Olympic-sized public pool. The Rug Doctor sees this point and makes it moot. Just wash it twice and it’ll be nice.
One could also do a little upholstery/carpeting work, and the wagon will be fresh for shaggin’ again. Or for sleeping when you tow a track car to an event. With a V8, it should be able to pull a trailer and with that paint job, it should be able pull in the ladies.
I should check if my province would clear a “QAGMYR” or “GIGITY” personalized plate….
I was thinking “6ULDV8”
There’s also Krueger’s Rush-themed vans from “Archer” as inspiration.
Pretty sure that van qualifies as a Superfund site. Still preferrable to that mediocre malaise maven.
I can hear the bass of that Sunbird rattling from here. But the needed interior mods are less involved than the Dajiban, which I wouldn’t touch until literally every part of that interior had been stripped out.
Hopefully, the Pontiac owner’s tinnitus would have distracted them enough to let me make a reasonable offer.
Also, I think we’ve talked about this before, but the Sunbird’s fender badge is peak GM graphic design.
It is a bit impressive that he found and actually used 6X9’s. I have not seen those for many moons.
They have a whiff of “Dude, these just fell off a truck, I swear.”
Every wally mart here down south has them in stock
Around here I don’t see them anymore….but I do recall going to the automotive Aisle in Walmart and you could buy any number of low rent 6X9’s they were even connected to some basic single din head units. Last time I had to replace a speaker though, I had to go to a car stereo place as the local walmart did not even have the display anymore.
They got rid of the displays at most of the stores, the employees hated them as the kids left them at top volume to blow you away when you hit the little button. They were usually inoperative towards their end, and it was no accident……They still have the speakers though.
Not sure I have either… but that’s because I haven’t been looking. Amazon seems to have over a 100 different models from all of the major manufactures…
Van on the condition I could knock the price down $200 to pay for an industrial carpet cleaner rental and a blacklight…
You want the former; you don’t want to be scarred by the results of using the latter.
NOPE Nope nope nope nope… [off into the distance]
Didn’t even read the article, I just scrolled down to vote for the van. If you don’t love 70s custom vans, then you’re wrong.
But for real, it is the better choice here. You’re getting so much more for your money over the Sunbird with some eBay racing seats and an ugly speaker setup.
I know the shaggin wagon is probably a biohazard at this point, but it’s retro awesomeness compels me, and I must vote for it.
Before 1980, you could get a 305 in the Sunbird, so I would expect you could drop a SBC right in and make the go match the show pretty easily.