Happy Friday, Autopians! Today we’re looking at two cars I pulled from the Underappreciated Survivors For Sale group on Facebook. They’ve got to be just about the cleanest examples of their breeds left; seriously, wait till you see these things. But first, let’s see how yesterday’s pint-sized pair fared:
Narrow win for the 126P. That would be my choice as well; if I got a kei-sized truck, I think I’d rather have a Hijet with a dump bed on it. And I have always wanted a rear-engine Fiat or Renault, for no good reason.
One of my favorite used car categories is the well-preserved ordinary car. There’s just something about seeing something that should have been beaten to death, junked, and recycled into toasters decades ago still gleaming in the midday sun that makes me smile. They’re not the bargains they once were, but clean survivors are still out there if you look. One of today’s pair is certainly overpriced, at least by my standards, and the other is borderline, but it’s so charming that I still think it’s a good buy. Let’s see if you agree.
1992 Dodge Shadow Convertible – $4,950
Engine/drivetrain: 2.5 liter overhead cam inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Black River Falls, WI
Odometer reading: 84,000 miles
Runs/drives? Great, according to the seller
The Dodge Shadow is one of those cars that instantly places you back in its time when you see it. Once upon a time, Dodge Shadows and Plymouth Sundances were everywhere. But as cheap cars tend to, they got used and abused, and had nearly all disappeared by the end of the decade. They exist now almost exclusively in memory, so when you see one, especially this new-looking, your mind goes back to the days of Bill Clinton and Jurassic Park. And it’s teal, with pink pinstripes. The only way this thing could be more early ’90s is if it were driven by the bass player of the Spin Doctors.
Everyone knew someone who had one of these. An ex-girlfriend of mine drove a Sundance for a while. She really liked it, except for a draft of cold air coming from somewhere under the dashboard in the winter. I told her I had never noticed a draft when I drove it, and she replied, “Yeah, but you’ve never driven it in a skirt, have you?”
Fair point.
Plymouth never got the convertible version; it was strictly available as a Dodge Shadow, in various trim levels. This looks like a mid-level one, with a 2.5 liter version of Chrysler’s long-running four that debuted in the K-car. The 2.5 has a bit more power than the 2.2, and is equipped with balance shafts for a little more refinement. The seller says this one runs and drives like it should, and everything works. It even still has the tonneau cover that fits over the top when it’s down.
And it really is clean. Central Wisconsin isn’t exactly a forgiving environment for cars six months out of the year, and I have a feeling that this one has never seen a single winter. Which is fine, as long as it gets plenty of use the rest of the year.
1988 Mazda 323 SE Hatchback – $8,999
Engine/drivetrain: 1.6 liter overhead cam inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Sylmar, CA
Odometer reading: 62,000 miles
Runs/drives? Flawlessly, from the sound of it
I try not to make fun of the ads for cars, but one line in this ad jumped out at me: “Disclaimer: Offers from discerning classic/collectible auto enthusiasts will be considered ONLY.” Well, pardon me, but I’m off to play the grand piano. It’s a Mazda 323, dude. Come on. Granted, it’s probably the nicest Mazda 323 anyone has seen since they were in showrooms, but it’s still a mass-produced economy car, not a hand-built Italian exotic or something.
This BF-platform 323 is powered by a 1.6 liter engine making 82 horsepower, but a good chunk of that is sucked away by a three-speed automatic transmission that someone probably paid quite a lot extra for in 1988. The seller says this is a two-owner car, and the original owner was elderly, barely drove it, and kept it in a garage. It has had a recent timing belt service, all fluids changed, and a new battery installed. However, if I were you, I’d check the date codes on the tires; no mention is made of them having been replaced, and they could be twenty years old.
Honestly, I feel a little sorry for this car. Cars like this were meant to have been bought by recent college graduates, proudly driven to their new job at the office park, carried them through all kinds of adventures, taken them on that first date with Mister or Miss Right (and countless Mister and Miss Wrongs), been traded in on a Honda Odyssey after the second kid came along, and gone on to become some teenager’s first car, loved and abused at the same time. Instead, this one did pretty much nothing.
There’s still time to take it to Radwood or something, I suppose, where it would undoubtedly draw a crowd, but I would hope that whoever buys it would take it to an event five states away, and drive it there. This poor car needs some exercise.
I don’t imagine the sellers of either of these cars wants to see them get used like regular cars, but the fact is, they are just regular cars. Time capsules, yes, but just cars. It’s my opinion that all cars should be driven, even the “priceless” ones, and these are certainly not those. The age of gasoline is going away all too quickly; do we want to leave behind pristine examples of vehicles that can no longer be driven anyway, or a bunch of worn-out husks full of awesome memories? Which one of these do you want to use up?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
These prices drive me crazy. I sold a Dodge Shadow convertible ES, the faster one with the V6, in beautiful condition with 90k miles about 2 years ago. I got $2000 for it.
Just because they list it for the price they do, does not mean they get it. it would be a cold day in hell before I ever paid nearly 9K for 35 year old Mazda anything, regardless of how it presents. Certainly I would far and away not pay a youtuber extra money especially since they might have already been paid to do the work via Youtube revenue.
The issue with low mile convertibles is the tops, especially the stitching becomes rather stretched or brittle it seems. I have a feeling this car was towed behind and RV or Parked in Florida half the years it has been on the planet. it is kind of perfect for that actually being Front wheel drive and tropical in color. I suppose if I inspected it and did not feel like I needed a top immediately I would go shadow here. But it would be a hard thing to swallow to give 5K for that thing as well.
I thought it was a typo on the price for that Mazda, even did a triple check. Vote for the not so shady Shadow it is.
Neither car appeals to me whatsoever. However, since Jason is apparently wandering around with a rifle somewhere, the prudent thing to do is play the game. In this circumstance, convertible is always the right answer. BTW, that under the dash cold draft is considered a feature by Chrysler engineers.
And a few of the women I’ve known over the years…
Febreze for the crotch as they say.
I’m not a convertible guy at all, but the price for that Mazda is batshitcrazypants, so teal convertible it is!
For that price the Mazda would have to be a GTX version with a 5 speed and AWD. 3 speed auto base version? I’ll pass and I’m a fan of Mazdas from that era. I knew a few people with Shadows and Sundances and they were mostly durable machines. I can’t see the convertible being a corner carver by any stretch but as a top down cruiser it would be fine. And at half the price it gets my vote.
Catch me outside your ladyfriends house, looking like a jazz paper cup in my mint Shadow. When you look that good, there’s no reason to go fast. Rolling modern art, they’ll call me Guggenheim. Good thing it’s an auto, cause my hands will be occupied. No one can resist the absolute steeze of that Shadow.
Typically I’d prefer the 323, but with a manual and for far less money. That Shadow is a time capsule in a fun way at a reasonable price for a survivor car, especially considering the fun colors and the fact that it’s a convertible. I love an old, good example of an economy car, but 9k is way to rich to experience what being cash poor was like in 1988.
I actually want the Mazda, but that price makes it impractical so I’d have to go with the drop top shadow. It’ll probably be more fun anyways, my old Sundance was more fun to be than it should have been.
At this point in the voting, the Shadow is rightfully running away with it. The top going down makes an otherwise unexciting car cast a longer shadow. The 323 is just, well, a boring hatchback
I hafta vote BarbieMobile. The ask on the hatch is way outta line, and the ad turned me off.
Nothing turns me around than the “I know what I’ve got” mentality (Autopian membership notwithstanding). The Shadow got my vote, and I even like it a little.
For a few years in elementary school there was always a sportier option 4-door P-body in white parked outside the cafeteria. Can’t remember which one, could have been a Plymouth in Duster spec, maybe. Even then I remember thinking they weren’t really common against all the other small cars out there.
The convertible option is maybe one of the less interesting things about the Shadow/Sundance – the regular 2/4 doors having the concealed liftback design, the myriad of powertrain and trim options available, Shelby variants, and so on. Even though you could get an ES-spec convertible, a regular one would draw me in more. For this one, the teal w/ pink striping is almost too on-the-nose, like “yeah we’ll really get the rad crowd with this!”
But the Mazda is just too expensive. A clean well-optioned 626 maybe, or a 323 GTX – I tried looking up any of the latter, and I actually found at the German lighting site, Mercedes found a GTX for marketplace madness in May 2022 with 74k miles for $7500. (it’s in a slideshow so I won’t link it)
I’m clearly not discerning or enthusiastic enough to appreciate an 20+ year old Japanese economy penalty box; give me the American iron teal droptop time capsule…
Dodge Shadow for me. It looks more fun, the colors are better and it’s way cheaper. That and the 323 looks exactly like a car that was double parked and blocked us in late one night many moons ago. My friends decided to move it to the middle of the street but damn was it an annoyance for like 5 minutes. Haha
I was torn on this one. I’ve owned variants of both of these cars. I had a Shadow, but not a convertible, and a Mazda GLC, the not-so-distant ancestor of the 323. Both were pretty decent cars, but I had the advantage of having a manual transmission in both of them. I’ve since gained a (probably unfair) distrust of Chrysler products and a greater appreciation of the reliability of a Mazda. However, given the age of both of these examples, I don’t think the manufacturer really matters. They’re both older cars that have apparently been cared for fairly well. Both have a bit of nostalgia for me. In the end I had to go with the Shadow. I think the 323 is a bit overpriced for what it is, and the convertible would fulfill the wish for a droptop I had back when I owned my hardtop. It would be more fun with a stick, but it’s purpose is tooling around on a nice day enjoying the sun, not corner-carving. (Which is good, since as I recall, the Shadows were a bit floppy with the convertible.)
I had a 323 way back when (manual, champagne, with a stack of 1987 quarters in the coin carrier because that matched the year, and I thought that was a cool move). Nostalgia doesn’t justify the price, but I do often miss that little hatchback.
I’m usually an instant sucker for a hatchback, especially from the 80s, but the only thing that makes this one a hot hatch is the sun. And $9k? Ridiculous. I voted for the Shadow, not hard with that radical teal/pink color combo.
Shadow for the rarity factor alone.
Tangentially, the “regular” coupe version of the Shadow/Sundance are notable for being…hatchbacks. They look exactly like coupes with trunks but no!
It’s the rare opposite to the fastback setup (seen historically on Mustangs but also now on a lot of sedans), coupes/sedans that look like hatchbacks but aren’t.
Yikes! 9 grand for a Mazda 323 with an automatic?? I drove this with a manual as my first car and my dad bought it for 500 bucks. It blew a head gasket 300 miles from home, while I was driving to meet a girl and, by the measure of Mark’s adventure-meter – that was an appropriate level of both love and abuse. This thing just… makes me sad.
I was already sold on the teal+pink bit of 90’s glory (even if it still feels pricey) but then I saw the price on the Mazda and that sealed it. As much as I love hatchbacks in general and Mazda’ in particular, the Mazda is just a nice normal looking example of an old hatchback.
This particular Shadow is pure 90’s nostalgia injected straight into the veins (on top of already having fond memories of my grandmother’s 1991 Spirit that went something like 350000kms before being retired) and I LOVE it.
Yeah… Even taking price out of the consideration the Shadow wins just because of the teal and pink. Teal and purple are the main colors I am hoping to find my next car in. That, or a VW Harlequin!
My mother had a 93 Plymouth Sundance. I learned to drive on that thing, with under 70K the transmission started slipping. I do like them but I’d rather have the four door and the liftback design was super helpful. The Mazda well, I’m voting for it because my first car was one and I loved that thing to death. I see some interior bits that were carried over to my 88 MX-6. If I ever see a blue MX-6 LX in great condition, I may snag it.
See it’s a great car, and would be fun and all, but not at $9k. No way in hell I would ever pay anything close to that for it.
My Driver’s Ed car was a Plymouth Sundance. Ahh, the good ol days!
there’s a content idea. Commenters on this site probably span five, six, maybe seven decades of driver’s training. How FEW models were used over that period for that purpose? Purposed DE cars, with the extra brake pedal. My driving class was through school, with my track coach, in ’85 in a gold AMC Hornet. Think every HS in my district utilized the same fleet of gold AMC’s. (class, not model year, which was probably late ’70s)
It would be an interesting article because it feels like, for the longest time, the district would buy cars and keep them forever. However, once I made it to Driver’s Ed, the local Dodge dealer was loaning cars to the district (probably for a tax write-off) and then re-selling them after the summer class was over. So, our district got new cars every summer.
Our school system used a 3rd party company that was predominantly Tauruses – 4th gen by the time it was my turn, maybe a couple Impalas were mixed in and I think those took over after that Taurus was dropped. All white.
Nowadays I feel like I see all different types of driving schools and cars, maybe because the school system no longer covers driver’s ed costs so people go wherever. Accords, Souls…I even saw a prior-gen Corolla SE the other day.
Our HS was using late 80’s buick lesabre’s. Surprisingly nice, tho I was driving a early 80’s olds 88 that thing was a pos compared to the buick
323 would have had my vote with a 5-Speed regardless of price. But slushy-boxes in both? Shadow deserves my fake money. My real money? It would NEVER go to either of these over-prices Eco-cars.
Auto companies needs to bring back teal as a paint option. Shadow for me today!
I’ve always had an affinity for P-bodies. The design is just so crisp and clean.
If I have to drive a slow-ish car with an automatic transmission, I’d rather have the one with a top that goes down. It’ll be me and my Shadow.