Friday, October 14, 2011

For sale forever: An '87 Chevrolet Sprint Turbo



There's been a 1987 Chevrolet Sprint Turbo for sale on Portland's Craigslist for quite some time. If I had to guess, possibly a year, maybe a year-and-a-half. It's there nearly every week. The price? $4,600. There has been the occasional price drop, but it usually bounces back to $4,600 or so. I've often wondered what the story was. Holding out for the right owner? Maybe the wife says to sell the car, and each week he says, "I don't know, honey, there just aren't any takers."

The car has become a topic of conversation among some of my car friends. In fact, my friend, Jim, sent me an e-mail when the car had dropped in price. However, it went back up the next week as the ad expired. It's apparent the owner is holding onto it for the right person. I still lust after one, what with its turbocharged, intercooled 1.0-liter three-cylinder.

I logged onto Craigslist today to find the car is not there. Could it have possibly sold? Well, good for the seller for getting his asking price. But wait ...

Amazingly, while YouTube, I ran across this video. Yes, that's the car, and as of October 5, 2011—you guessed it— it's still for sale.

Mechanically, the car seems to be very sound, as the owner has put a heap of new parts onto it. It certainly appears that, aesthetically, the car needs work. The $4,600 seems a bit ambitious to me, but perhaps he'll find the right buyer.

I wish the owner the best of luck selling his beloved turbocharged subcompact; a car I hope to add to my subcompact stable some day.

4 comments:

CGS Motorsports said...

If the car had the right words to say, it would have said, "Pick me, pick me!". Or words that say something like, "Hey you, you're not worth it enough for me!". =)

Projector Headlights said...

The body needs to be repaired badly. Still it functions fine. I don't see anything wrong with the engine.

DJ Kenny said...

I sold it 2 weeks ago. Dropped it $100. He got a gem, I will miss it big time. Must admit I had several calls about it, they would come in streams. Only two folks actually came out to test drive and tried to bargain, I would not budge. usually desiring a grand off... "no. thanks for coming to see it though!" Would I have paid this much for one? Likely, NO. But I knew someone would. Finding one, unmolested, maintained exceptionally well, new parts galore, CA car w/ out a bit of rust, 1 owner since it was barely 5 yrs of age... not an easy task. At the end of the day, if things break you either need to the time to fix it with a background in mechanics, or dropping money on a mechanic to get it to even remotely as nice as mine was. That costs $$$. One day when I have a good income (the lay off forced the sale originally), and he wishes to sell it...I hope he calls me 1st. We shook on this. Glad you guys have been entertained by my constant reposts. :) If you find one... buy it. I pretty never drive anymore and have a 16v 92 VW GTI that sits all but 600 miles a yr max of use. 2 cars make no sense. You think this was a pretty nice Turbo Sprint? You should see my Mk2 GTI. I put twice as much care, or more into it.

Andy Lilienthal said...

I'm glad you found this post! I tried to leave a comment on the video, but for whatever reason, it wouldn't let me.

Someday I'll own one of these gems! Glad you finally found a buyer. In fact, I've been checking craigslist to see if it was going to be reposted, then I checked the YouTube page and it said SOLD!