Remember Trump's lengthy diatribe during the 2024 campaign about how stupid electric vehicles are, the one that started out with cars, drifted into tanks, meandered into boats and sharks, and wound up hitting on a truck driver? This one:
That was December 4, 2024, a little over three months ago. On March 11, 2025, Trump bought a Tesla and did an infomercial for it in the White House driveway:
What prompted the change? A newfound commitment to the environment? A sudden rush of interest in new technology? A change of heart regarding the Green New Deal? Or maybe it was the $260 billion Elon Musk donated to his campaign?
I'm not saying Trump is for sale, but his taste in cars is lightyears behind Biden's. Remember this?
OBX Dave never got his own WCSAGD, largely because I don't know enough about him to pick something right on the nose. I have ideas given his life at the beach, but I don't want to screw up something so important.
I can, however, find him a regional, attainable car. Thank god for Al Gore and the internet.
Much like Joe Biden and TR, I love Corvettes and I've written about them multiple times. OBX Dave is an American man living in the southeast so he probably likes Corvettes too. Lucky for him, there's a 1987 Corvette convertible for sale in Moyock. Unfortunately for him, the owner had it painted with Line X and added a bunch of Batman logos to it.
For the uninitiated, Line X is stuff you use to paint the bed of your pickup truck to keep it from getting damaged when stuff bounces around in there. I have never, ever, seen it used to paint anything else, let alone a sports car. But I guess it's a cheap alternative to matte paint and it's likely plentiful in the OBX--I dredged this up from Craigslist because all of the local car dealers only have pickups in stock. Anyway, the C4 is a fantastic car with clean lines, 240 horsepower, 345 (!) pound-feet of torque, and plentiful parts. If you can chisel the Line X, remove the Batman stuff, and replace the wheel spikes with proper lug nuts you'll have a gem of a beach car (fiberglass won't rust in salty air).
Before you chisel off the Line X, chisel the seller down by telling him it will cost you $10k to straighten this thing out and no one wants it in this condition so he won't do any better than your $5k offer. I suspect the seller is a salty dog, and an old one at that, given his statement "No Texting or emails will be answered. A good old fashioned telephone call with a real human on the other end will be the first to buy this when they see and drive it."
Maybe this is a little too Mad Max for OBX Dave. No problem! Here's a 1964 Triumph Spitfire in Moyock! Moyock hooks you up!
Perhaps I should have used quotation marks around 1964 Triumph Spitfire though, here's a quote from the listing:
The tub is in great condition. The floors were replaced. No rust. Nice interior. All gauges work. Paint is old with scratches and dents. Engine and trans are from a 1975 Spitfire. Differential is from a a GT6 with 3.27 gears so cruising on the highway is comfortable. 70 mph at 3400 RPM. Weber 32/36 carb and manifold with a powermaster tubular exhaust manifold. GT6 front springs cut down to lower suspension. Heavy duty sway bar. Wire wheels with good tires. NOS soft top that fits well.
Mr. KQ, Marls, and anyone else who's been around an old British car knows the first few statements smell fishy. The tub is in great condition? No rust? Impossible--I suspect that's why the floors were replaced and there's more rust lurking somewhere. All gauges work? Also impossible--the gauges probably didn't work when new, let along 60 years later. And that last line? A new old stock top that fits well? Again, the new new stock top didn't fit 60 years ago.
It only gets better with important components like the entire powertrain coming from at least two other cars and a front suspension "cut down" from a donor car. Luckily it has that heavy duty sway bar though.
But it's green over tan and I'm a sucker for that. And it's British, and the hood hinges forward, and it has antique plates and wire wheels, and the way the line of the door dips down right before the hips jag up ... what's not to love? You can definitely take it to the beach in this car, just make sure you have Uber on your phone and a AAA membership.
Fine, fine, you're saying "c'mon zman, you can do better than this!" I can. This 1997 Porsche Boxster is for sale in Nags Head for $8,900. The seller had the IMS bearing replaced so OBX Dave can drive it forever, worry-free. That work cost about $2k by itself, just ask to see the receipt to be sure it was done. Have your local service station do a pre-purchase inspection (that's maybe $50-$75) so you can get it on a lift and see what's going on underneath, and/or ask to talk to the guy who's been doing the work on it recently to verify it isn't a time bomb. I would totally take a punt on this 986 if I lived locally.
So there you go, OBX Dave. Let me know which convertible you wind up with.
I like cars. Always have. Some of my earliest memories revolve around my father's 1969 Butternut Yellow Chevrolet Impala convertible which as much a member of the family as any human being ever was. I do not take poetic license I say "earliest memories"--I remember driving along the West Side Highway with the top down (it was always down) and an American flag flying from the antenna to celebrate the Bicentennial. That car was more than a car, it was the first big purchase my father made after he graduated college and got a job, and for a young man who came here in the 1950s (as a refugee, really) it allowed him to tell the world that he made it. As a result I've always had a fondness for big American V8s and convertibles. If you think you don't like convertibles you're wrong. You've just been driving them in the sun too much. Convertibles peak at night.
On my 48th birthday I realized that this ride called life is about halfway over and that bothered me. I'm also bothered by the way things are changing. Our political system is a mess and our democracy might implode in a few years. Liner notes don't exist. Our economy appears to be on the brink of collapse. Former pro athletes who are younger than me have sons who are now pro athletes. Terrible viruses pop up out of nowhere. My kids have no concept of live TV.
I have automotive anxieties too. I will never be able to afford an air-cooled 911. New cars don't have buttons anymore, it's all touch screens. In ten years all new cars will be massive lozenge-shaped electronic transportation pods that drive themselves without your involvement so that you and six other people can stream movies to your phones or tablets while the pod delivers you to your destination. Don't even get me started on the dearth of cool car colors.
Or the dearth of cars! Everything is an SUV now and I have no idea why. I'm sure all of you have one but you shouldn't. The trunks are not bigger than a wagon's and the center of gravity is too high. They are a study in badproportion. Who looks at this and says "Yes! Take my $100,000 now!" Someday we will look back at these massively stretched front grills and laugh at them like tailfins from the 1950s.
And there are no sports cars! In 1995, Nissan sold the 300ZX, 240SX, 200SX, and the Sentra SE-R. Honda had the Civic Si, Civic Del Sol, and Prelude. Toyota had the Celica, Supra, and a go-fast version of the Corolla. Even frickin' Mazda had the MX-3, MX-6, Miata, and RX-7. Today? Nissan has the Z, Honda has the Civic Si, Toyota has the Supra, and Mazda has the Miata. And no one buys any of them.
All of this makes me feel sad and old. So I yearn for an analog car to take me back to simpler days when my future was big and bright and exciting.
But I also hate to let people down. Part of this translates into saving, rather than spending, to assure that I will never come up short if my family needs something. I currently drive a VW Golf Alltrack that costs me $323 a month (financed at 0%) and has a 6 year/60k mile warranty, a trunk bigger than your SUV, and storms through snow with aplomb. It pulls 0.84 g on the skidpad, which is pretty crazy considering that a Ferrari Testarossa pulls 0.87 g. You can't find a better deal--you probably pay more each month on your cable/internet bill, or your cell phone family plan. So I can't justify spending a lot of money on a toy car.
My financial advisor likes cars too, we met in the parking garage of our building when he pulled in with his 1968 Pontiac Firebird convertible. In our last meeting I joked about buying a toy car but he replied seriously with something like "You know cars. Go get something you will enjoy and that will hold value. It's a durable good! Think of it as a way to diversify your portfolio." He gave me a price range to work with and I started thinking and perusing BringaTrailer.com.
The first car I ever remember seeing and saying "Whoa! This changes everything!" was the 1984 Corvette. This was the fourth generation of the model so it's referred to as the C4. It looked like Chevy took a paring knife to a C3 to whittle away all the excess geegaws and indulgences of the 1970s and wound up with a land-going missile. There are no fender flares, no flying buttresses, no ducktails. There is zero chrome. When viewed in profile its pointed nose and notched back make it look like an arrow shot from Artemis's bow, especially the convertible.
Car & Driver previewed the gonzo ZR-1 version of the C4 in their October 1988 issue.
This issue also featured the only letter I've ever written that anyone ever published.
I can explain in the comments why that's funny if anyone cares. The ZR-1 captivated me. It had an engine made by Mercury Marine churning out 375 horsepower and Lotus helped design the whole thing using their Formula 1 experience. It was faster than just about anything from German or Italy but it didn't stand out. Aside from the square tail lights it looked just like a regular C4, and after a year or two all C4s had the square tail lights. Stealth speed!
In high school I wrote my AP English term paper on the history of the Corvette. It held my interest any my teacher's--she gave me an A and wrote me a letter of recommendation that helped me get into W&M.
All this is to say I've been a C4 ZR-1 fan for a long time. It seems like I should drive a 1994 Corvette ZR-1 in Polo Green over beige. And I almost did.
But I waffled. This is the right ZR-1. It's crispy as hell but with 48k miles you can actually drive it without incurring serious depreciation. These used to sell for $20k to $25k but the vintage car market is up and so are ZR-1 prices. This one hammered at $32k and for me that's just too much for a 28-year-old car that has a lot of rare (only about 6900 were made) fussy parts that you probably can't get at your local Chevy dealer. This one won an award or two so the owner is really more of a caretaker than a driver. I absolutely would love to drive this, but it isn't my WCSAGD.
My real weakness is small, light roadsters like the Lotus Elan which inspired the Mazda Miata. Owning an Elan is like owning a sailboat, you're constantly throwing money at it, and I already had a Miata. I want something relatively reliable with readily available parts and that service stations know how to repair. I also want something interesting--I love cars with five cylinders, French cars, three-wheelers, anything that involves a different engineering take on the automotive experience. In a perfect world I would have a Porsche 959 in my garage but that isn't in the cards.
I should drive a 2004 Porsche Boxster S in Lago green over Savannah Beige with a black top and basket wheels.
And now I do.
2004 was the last year of the first generation Boxster, the 986. The S version has a 3.2 liter flat-6 good for 258 horsepower. That isn't a ton of oomph these days, but it only has to push around 2,911 pounds of car. Flat, or horizontally-opposed, engines are cool. They make it easier to fit more cylinders in a tight space like a V, but because they're flat they allow for a lower center of gravity.
I've owned a flat-4 and a straight-6 but never a flat-6, until now.
Even cooler: the Boxster is mid-engined. This means that the engine sits between the driver's back and the rear axle, exactly where God and Isaac Newton intended. Putting the engine there puts most of the car's weight there, which means it handles really well.
A mid-engined, flat-6, rear-wheel-drive, two-seater convertible? Sounds like a different automotive take to me.
I still have to figure out OBX Dave's car, but the rest of you have already been given your assignments. Go out there and get your WCSAGD.
TR is the Gheorghie I know best. His WCSAGD requires almost no effort.
TR and I have a lot in common. We are middle-aged guys from New Jersey. We are the sons of immigrant fathers who were raised by mothers who divorced said immigrants. We both grew up middle-middle class, but in the bottom tier of that socio-economic strata so we didn't get everything we wanted as kids and from time to time we indulge ourselves with things we feel we missed out on (looking at you, Jets PSL). We now live among upper-middle class people and we're proud of what we accomplished, essentially on our own, and feel smugly (if secretly) superior to those around us who got here with minimal effort. As a result we both revel in our outsider status and brazenly flaunt our contrarian views.
That said, TR gives even fewer fucks than I do. Way fewer. His no-fuckery is downright brash at this point.
TR and I differ in several ways, many of which I learned soon after we first met. For example, TR loves everything relating to the 1970s. The depth and breadth of his knowledge of adult film is astounding--his smut scholarship is nonpareil. And attendees of Pledge Auction 1993 recall his immodesty (no matter how hard they all try).
TR loves PT Anderson movies and he LOVES "Boogie Nights." I mean, he LOVES "Boogie Nights."
TR should drive a 1977 Corvette with a 350 cube, three and a quarter horsepower, four speed, 4:10 gears, ten coats of competition orange, hand-rubbed lacquer, with a dual-plane manifold ... full fuckin' race cams, whoo.
Unfortunately, no such car exists, at least not stock OEM. By 1977, EPA standards had strangled the 350 cubic inch engine down to 180 hp. The go-fast version of the 350 only made 210 hp. There were no other engines available that year. Further, there was no color called "Competition Orange," it was "Corvette Orange."
TR would want the bigger engine. So he gets it.
This C3 is just right for TR. It's brash but vintage. It is simultaneously a workingman's car and a collector's car. Orange is the perfect color--plastered on a C3, it essentially gives his entire neighborhood of German and Swedish black or gray seven-row SUVs the middle finger. But it's still a classic car eligible for QQ plates in NJ so it passes snooty muster. None of his neighbor's dads ever drove a Corvette in the 1970s or 1980s--they were afraid of the guys who did. TR also gets T-tops because, well, they're perfect for TR. Aluminum wheels, no luggage rack. Boom.
Every American man has at least a small part of him that wants to be the louche with the cigarette and the chest hair and the gold chains and the mustache and the sex and the drugs and the rock and roll driving an orange C3 Corvette. And some of them are that guy. It’s fast and brazen and loud and self-confident and I-don’t-give-a-fuck-eriffic. That's what TR should drive.
I never understood how I went to college in southeastern Virginia, NASCAR country, but only met one other car guy (El Weenaldo). We need more car guys. Guys like Joe Biden and his mint 1967 Corvette. 1967 was the final year of the second-generation (or "C2") cars, and I think they are some of the most beautiful sports cars ever, especially the convertibles. Biden's has the base 327 engine but it can still lay a patch.
Any car guy would love a C2 Vette in Goodwood Green. But this is more than just a great classic car to the Vice President. Watch this video.
Every time he sees this car, he's reminded of his father whom I'm sure he loved. Every time he sees this car, he's reminded of his wedding with his first wife who died tragically. Every time he sees this car, he's reminded of his son Beau who also died tragically. I can't fathom the memories and emotions this hunk of iron and fiberglass stirs in him. The smells of combusted leaded gasoline and burned rubber, the clatter of sixteen pushrod-activated overhead valves and almost unfettered exhaust, the feel of the road through the bottom of the seat and the huge skinny wheel, the whole experience has to be moving every time he gets behind the wheel.
Maybe you never worked on a car with your father, or your father never had an American car with a big V8 and a convertible top, or maybe you saw your father every day so your only quality with him wasn't the drive to and from his house on Saturdays. Maybe this video doesn't choke you up from 1:15 to 2:20. Maybe you aren't a car guy. But if you are, you understand why I went from misty-eyed at the 2:10 mark to full-on "FUCK YEAH JOE!!" joyousness at the 2:27 mark.
I'm going to miss Joe Biden. I hope that in a few months he gets to drive his cherry Vette as much as he wants and that he enjoys everything it evokes inside him.
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