Cool California Coupes: 1986 Nissan Pulsar NX vs 1985 Mercedes 300CD

Good morning! Grab your tool boxes and find that latest RockAuto discount email – it’s time for another Shitbox Showdown! Today we’re in the San Francisco Bay area, looking at a couple of sweet two-doors you rarely see these days. But first, let’s see which cruise ship you chose yesterday:

It’s an absolute blowout for the Caddy, by three to one. I can’t fault anyone for voting for it, that’s for sure. But I think I might be on Team Lincoln. It’s the color combo, I think, that does it for me. Big black cars are common, but big butter-yellow cars? That’s something you don’t see every day.

And speaking of cars you don’t see every day, today’s choices are mighty thin on the ground too. One has a far more famous later edition, and the other is not too hard to find in four-door form, but hardly ever seen as a two-door hardtop. But in sunny California, you can find one of almost any car for sale if you look hard enough. And sometimes, they aren’t even expensive. But are they worth it? Let’s take a look and see.

1986 Nissan Pulsar NX – $3,000

Engine/drivetrain: 1.6 liter overhead cam inline 4, five-speed manual, FWD

Location: San Jose, CA

Odometer reading: 123,000 miles

Runs/drives? Yes, but not currently registered

First off, no. This is not the cool Pulsar with the T-tops and the “Sportbak” interchangeable rear hatch. This is the generation before that, basically just a doorstop-shaped Sentra. It’s not a performance car, with only sixty-nine horsepower to its name, either. But for rarity, it can’t be beat, especially these days. And it’s a stick, and low horsepower is really only a problem when you can’t choose your own gear ratio. It weighs less than the cargo capacity of many light-duty trucks these days, which also helps.

This one has had a whole bunch of work done to it recently, and the seller says it runs and drives great. But for some reason, it has a salvage title, and is on non-op registration. It’s probably worth finding out what the story is there before getting too excited about it. It does look a little bit pieced-together; the headlight doors don’t quite line up with the hood, and the front seats don’t match the rest of the interior. They’re cool seats, and they look great in there, but I doubt they came with the car originally.

Still, it’s only three grand, for a little classic Japanese sporty coupe that should be reliable and economical enough for daily use. And where are you going to find another one for sale? If you can live with a few cosmetic flaws, and can square the branded title with your insurance agent, it could be a good deal.

It is kind of a shame it’s not the later one with the T-tops, though.

1985 Mercedes-Benz 300CD – $4,000

Engine/drivetrain: 3.0 liter turbodiesel overhead cam inline 5, four-speed automatic, RWD

Location: San Mateo, CA

Odometer reading: 252,000 miles

Runs/drives? Yep

Here we have our old friend the Mercedes W123, but in a form rarely seen. Of the more than 2.6 million 123-chassis cars built, fewer than 100,000 of them were coupes. One of them ended up on the cover of Jackson Browne’s 1983 album Lawyers In Love, probably never to drive again after being so waterlogged. Fortunately, the rest of them went on to live long and fruitful lives, like this one, which spent twenty years as a daily driver for the same owners.

In 1985, the C123 (as the coupe version was officially known) was only available in the US with a five-cylinder turbodiesel engine and an automatic transmission. This combination did not a speedy car make, but much like the fabled tortoise going up against the hare, these cars played the long game – and won. There are a shocking number of 300Ds still on the road, many of them with far more miles on them than this one. It still runs and drives strong, according to the seller, and likely will for quite a while yet, with a little care and feeding.

Inside, it looks pretty good for a nearly forty-year-old car, but not great. The MB-Tex upholstery is showing a few signs of wear, surprisingly, and some of the carpet is missing, which isn’t surprising at all, since the seller says it leaks water when it rains.

Outside, there is a bit of the 123’s Kryptonite – rust. It’s not bad yet, but it’s there, even on a long-time California car. And the seller says the air conditioning doesn’t work, and the heater is stuck on. But it also has those cool Mercedes “Bundt cake” wheels, and since it’s a bona-fide hardtop, you can roll down all four windows (after you fix two of them) and let the cool breeze in. There’s a sunroof, too, if you’re brave enough to try opening it.

So yeah, neither one of these is exactly showroom-fresh. One has a checkered past that warrants investigation, and the other needs some tinkering if it’s to have any future. But they both run and drive well enough to make it home, and showroom-fresh isn’t what we do here anyway. With all that in mind, what’ll it be: the Japanese wedge, or the German diesel?

(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)