Not a car, but I still miss this. Its replacement (same thing but the water cooled generation) is better in every measurable way - but I don't like it as well.
Not a car, but I still miss this. Its replacement (same thing but the water cooled generation) is better in every measurable way - but I don't like it as well.
A 401 CJ said:Woody (Forum Supportum) said:There is only one car that I regret selling.
No photos, but it was the 1967 Plymouth Belvedere II, V8 automatic, two door hardtop that my grandparents bought new, and that I spent a significant part of my first 18 years riding around in.
I sold it because I couldn't find a replacement for the leaking gas tank (pre internet) and didn't know that anyone was restoring old Mopars yet.
The car went to a guy who was restoring a GTX. I remembered his name and tracked him down 20 years later. He said that he cut the car apart and used almost everything from it.
That would be my Powerball / Graveyard Carz Phantom Build.
'68 to '70 ('71 for E body) exploded first. There for awhile everything else was still pretty much unloved. When I was in college ('88 to '92), '72 - '74 Mopars were still just used cars. Even with an original Hemi, a '66 or '67 anything wouldn't break $20k. To this very day I still remember the ad in my local paper from the summer of 1990. "'72 Roadrunner. 440. Runs good. $1800" And I went and looked at it since it was just a few blocks over. Not a bad looking car. But it might as well have been $180,000. I didn't have it.
The truly stupid aspect of this is that I was really, really in tune with the Mustang restoration world at the time, and probably thought "why would anybody bother restoring an old Chrysler?"
Idiot.
I don't have regrets selling anything. There are a couple I would like to own again. I tend to drive cars hard and by the time I am done they are all used up. I think I have only sold a hand full. Most get given away or recycled.
chandler said:
How you got Darth Vader's car is probably a good story, I can see why you would regret letting it go.
I don't regret selling anything, but I would not mind a nostalgic trip down memory lane with another B14 Nissan 200SX SE-R.
I've sold the Datsun twice:
First in 1984, I bought it and realized I really need a mini pick up for my race bike and so I sold it to my buddy the next day.
Second in 1998, I had a Showroom Stock Miata race car as well as a D-Sports Racer and the Datsun was the slowest of the three cars. Thankfully I was able to buy it back in 2001.
Since I got it back I'm not sure I can say I regret selling it but had I not been able to buy it back pretty sure it would be on the regret list.
I owned about half a dozen Datsun 1200s over the years. Sold the last one because it wouldn't pass smog, but do miss it. Underpowered, yes, but oh so light. At track events, it was easy to drive "flat out" and I never had to worry about its value being so traumatic that balling it up would be a disaster. At autocross, my high point was doing a Porsche event, and it took half the day before any Porsche beat my time... still remember the bumper sticker on the Porsche... "Der Panzerwagon."
Since then there have been many faster cars, but they were harder to drive fast and their value was always in the back of my mind, preventing really pushing them. On a related note, someone above posted that they miss their Datsun Roadster... ugh, well good for them. I had a '69 with the 2-liter. Nice to look at, fun to drive, and an absolute b*tch to work on. Even in the mid-1980s, parts were becoming an issue, so, no love lost there.
A couple come to mind.
My '91 Acura Integra GS. Bought in 1996; left me in 2002. The engine ran fine, but everything else was starting to fail in it. It was even fairly rust-free for a rust-belt car. I traded it in and didn't get much for it. In hindsight, I should have kept it and built it as a track-rat/autocross car. Doing so would have likely saved me from a few headaches later on.
My '90 E-150 conversion van. Bought in 1998; sold in 2007. This one is a little more painful. When I sold it I knew I was making a big mistake. Sold it because I needed the parking space after buying a truck. A truck mainly purchased from influence from my ex-, who didn't like the van at all. Keeping it would have saved me from headaches I'm still dealing with to this day. If I had kept that van, my current DD fleet would likely be a lot different. And I'd probably still have the TDI.
I miss my 1993 Toyota T-100. It was the first year of production and just about the perfect build spec, but it was getting tired (3.0 V6) and couldn't handle some of the work I needed it for. I also found myself needing a backseat pretty often. Selling it was the right move, but it was damn cool and drove great. I miss it occasionally, especially when I have the Stupid Duty in small parking lots.
'86 Peugeot 505 turbo diesel with a stick. Bought it for a song, drove it for a few months. Got hit up by a family member who had a friend down on their luck that needed a cheap car. I relented. The car lasted one tank of fuel. Yup, you know what they did. Blew a hole in the block the size of a softball. Wasn't worth fixing so it was scrapped. That car didn't have to go out that way man.
kb58 said:I owned about half a dozen Datsun 1200s over the years. Sold the last one because it wouldn't pass smog, but do miss it. Underpowered, yes, but oh so light. At track events, it was easy to drive "flat out" and I never had to worry about its value being so traumatic that balling it up would be a disaster. At autocross, my high point was doing a Porsche event, and it took half the day before any Porsche beat my time... still remember the bumper sticker on the Porsche... "Der Panzerwagon."
Since then there have been many faster cars, but they were harder to drive fast and their value was always in the back of my mind, preventing really pushing them.
This sums up 1200 ownership so well.
Since I started vintage racing the F500 the 1200 has been mostly a track day car but I raced the 1200 a weekend before last; it was glorious fun, I four wheel drift it everywhere and like you said you don't feel like you're beating on a valuable car. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to race.
Tom1200 said:This sums up 1200 ownership so well.Since I started vintage racing the F500 the 1200 has been mostly a track day car but I raced the 1200 a weekend before last; it was glorious fun, I four wheel drift it everywhere and like you said you don't feel like you're beating on a valuable car. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to race.
And the cost of tires and brakes were miniscule.
My first VW was a 1999.5 Mk 4 GTI with the VR6 in tropical orange. It was constantly broken due to old German car issues but I really do miss how much fun it was and the great noises it made.
In reply to kb58 :
I've been running on used tires, $300 a set for the year and the brakes literally go 60 weekends.
My 98 Trans Am 6-speed T-tops, it was basically stock and nothing special but I absolutely loved that car and miss it to this day. I would jump in that car and just go drive for a couple hours just to be behind the wheel. Got a speeding ticket for 73 in a 35 and being a poor college student, the increase in my insurance forced me to sell it and buy a cheap beater.
2003 Mazdaspeed Protege, I bought it as a non-running project but it was 98% stock and in pretty good shape but I ended up selling it before I got around to fixing it. Wish I would have at least got it running and drove it awhile before I sold it. Been on the lookout for another one but they are typically pretty rough condition wise or more $$ than I want to spend on one.
1971 Mazda RX2, 74 RX4, 74 REPU.
I don't think my 85 GSLSE will ever leave my hands.
I'm really sorry to have sold my Black Jack Spl Since I was 14 I've known that car Post Vietnam it helped me deal with that . For decades it was much of the focus of the spare time in my life The choice was made to save my home 
The white 1992 B13 SE-R i sold in 2003 to buy my 1st house. It had 80k when I sold it and was really fast for a stockish SE-R. I ran a 14.9 in it at Gainesville with only a hotshot header and a place racing cold air intake. I have bought eight B13 Sentra's since trying to replace it.
I guess its all good since I still have the house which has almost tripled in value since i bought it...
The 1991 V6 MR2 i sold several year back. It was an awesome car, that I probably should have kept. The oil starvation aspect of the V6 scared me and I sold it to move on to a more trackable vehicle
Datsun310Guy said:
Well, well, well - life must be too short to have regrets. For only $30,000 I can squash that regret.
1997 Miata. Had the torsen diff and I added a hard top, enkei rpf1's, and a pretty well dialed suspension (good coilovers, all new bushings, swaybars). I owned it for a decade and it was my only car for the first 6 of those years. When I sold it, it had nearly 300k miles and was somehow still on the original clutch. It never left me stranded or had any major failures and even up to the last day it shifted great and the engine happily tached up to redline without consuming oil. I've been in MUCH faster cars - both handling and acceleration - but nothing has ever come close to being as fun to drive as that miata.
After dailying it for years in the rust belt and coming up near the triple century mark, the rust on the car had started to get pretty bad. I figured instead of fixing it, it would basically be cheaper to just sell the car and get a better chassis. I contemplated keeping all my parts but they had racked up the miles too and I didn't know when I would move back into a miata so I sold them with the car. That was 2019, right before the miata bubble started. Now the cheap miata magic is gone and I'm missing the best car I've ever owned.
In reply to frenchyd :
You sold at the right time and it escalated value enough to save your house. My house is way more important than my cars.
In reply to Tom1200 :
Actually I sold it 2 twice in the recession. The first time for less than 1/2 of what I'd regularly been offered for it. When he couldn't come up with what he offered I was forced to resell it the next week for less than 1/2 of that because bidders were scared off thinking it had been rejected.
Luckily that was enough to prevent foreclosure.
In reply to frenchyd :
I get it but the value of the car meant you were always going to end up selling it at some point.
You made some cool memories with that car and again it rescued you when you needed it.
I miss my Golf dearly but I cannot say that I regret selling it, because I miss the Golf that I started with and not the Golf that was so rusted underneath that it would no longer corner on three wheels, it just popped the door open.
I bought a 92 ram, extended cab, dually, Cummins, with 45,000 miles on it in 2009 for $4500. Rust free, 2wd, garage kept, true grandpa truck.
I sold it for $9000 in 2011.
If it had been 4wd I would never had sold it. Would have been my dream truck but, I figured doubling my money was good enough.
If I kept it I could ask $80,000 for it in today’s messed up market.
Most of the cars that I owned didn't look or drive all that well when I owned them, car ownership has been an extremely steep learning curve for me. So with that in mind, I would like to own a few of the cars that I used to own...but better, much better examples.
73 Capri 4 cylinder,
74 914 Porsche (mine had the 1.8 engine, would want the better 2 liter),
66 Mustang V8 coupe (my 06 Mustang convertible comes close, tho)
09 Crown Victoria (but only if someone else paid gas and maintenance)
60 TR3
80 Fiesta
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