Good morning! Today’s search for the very finest in cheap crappy cars take us back to my old stomping grounds of northeastern Illinois, to check out a couple of nice old imports that might have some scars, but have still got it where it counts.
Yesterday, we looked at a couple of two-seaters, and I kind of guessed where the vote was going to go. I’ve said before that if the rule of real estate is “location, location, location,” then the rule of cheap cars is “condition, condition, condition.” That Fiero was by far the cooler car (yes it was; don’t argue), but its rough appearance made it a hard sell, and the Thunderbird took an easy win.
I have to side with the Fiero, though, because I have absolutely zero interest in those Thunderbirds. Even when they were new, I didn’t think much of them beyond a “huh, that’s new” passing thought. The Fiero, on the other hand, I’ve had a car-crush on since 1984. Yeah, this one has seen better days, but there’s nothing there I couldn’t fix, as far as I can tell.
Car enthusiasts who grew up in places like southern California didn’t know how good they had it. They never saw a two-year-old car with holes in the bottom of the fenders, like the Dodge Aspen my mom had when I was a kid. They didn’t have to pull up the carpets on every $500 beater in the back row at the used car lot, hoping to find one that still had floorboards. And they didn’t have to deal with the pain of limping a perfectly-running car to the junkyard because it’s so structurally compromised that it’s about to break in two, which I had to do more than once.
Rust on cars in Chicagoland is just a way of life, but you develop a sense for how much rust is too much, and you learn to look for telltale signs of hidden and badly-repaired previous damage, which may be hiding more corrosion than you would think. One of today’s cars wears its rust and damage proudly, so you can see what you’re dealing with. The other, I fear, might be hiding something. Let’s check them out.
2001 Honda Prelude – $2,800
Engine/drivetrain: 2.2-liter dual overhead cam inline 4, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Evergreen Park, IL
Odometer reading: 173,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives great
Not long ago, we got some really great news: the Honda Prelude is coming back! Honda’s quintessential sporty coupe was a staple of college parking lots for years and years, but this 2001 model was the end of the road, and the remaining Preludes are getting thin on the ground, primarily due to Honda’s enemy number one: rust. This one is starting down the road to oxidation, but it has some life in it yet.
With the exception of some special models here and there, Preludes were never really high-performance cars. Not slow, but just a little bit quicker than an Accord, just enough to make it special. In its final iteration, the base Prelude was powered by a twin-cam four featuring Honda’s VTEC (yo) variable valve-timing system putting out 200 horsepower. This one has an automatic, which honestly isn’t a big deal in a Prelude to me. The seller says this one runs and drives “excellent,” and it has new tires.
Inside, it’s a Honda, which is to say, awesome. Honda’s interiors, especially during this era, are just about perfect. They look good, feel good, and ergonomically just plain work. And I love that patterned fabric on the seats; nobody does that anymore. It’s in good condition, too. Somebody took care of this car.
But what about that nasty tin worm? Yeah, it’s there, most prominently in the rear wheel arches. There is some rust-through already, but we’d have to get a look underneath to see how bad it is. It’s probably got at least a couple of years left in it, though. It also has a little wrinkle in the front of the hood, and one cracked headlight, though the seller says new headlight assemblies are included.
2002 Lexus ES 300 – $2,999
Engine/drivetrain: 3.0-liter dual overhead cam V6, five-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Zion, IL
Odometer reading: 165,000 miles
Operational status: Once again, I’m assuming it runs and drives
Lexus sedans, with the exception of the flagship LS, are all based on some other Toyota model. The ES, introduced in 1989, is basically just a fancy V6 Camry, but that is in no way a bad thing. This fourth-generation ES 300 is just about perfect: it’s reliable, comfortable, and not so full of gadgets and crap that it gets overwhelming. It sounds boring, but, you know, good boring.
It’s powered by a 3.0 liter V6, powering the front wheels through a five-speed automatic. It’s a combination known for ridiculous longevity, as long as you keep up on the oil changes to keep it from getting sludgy. I wish I could tell you something about this one’s condition, but it’s for sale at a dealership, and as usual, all we get is a laundry list of features. Would it kill these guys to just say “runs and drives well?”
It looks nice and clean inside, anyway. It is missing a speaker grille on the dash, and the glovebox door looks a little wonky, but those are easy enough to fix, providing you can find one in a junkyard, which, now that I think of it, is a pretty big “if.”
It looks all right on the outside at first glance, but let’s look a little closer. Both rear quarter panels have something suspect going on; they’ve obviously been repainted, and now the clear coat is failing. The trunk lid is also misaligned, and go back up and take a look at the photo of the passenger’s side. I swear that spot just in front of the taillight is failing Bondo. Doesn’t that look like a ring of cracks? I have a feeling this Lexus has seen some things.
Even with all the flaws, for $3,000 cars in the Midwest, these two are in really good shape. This is about as cheap as you can find a decent used car anymore, unless you have the skills and willingness to fix stuff. If you want to just hop in and go, these are as good as it gets. So which one looks like a better bargain to you?
(Image credits: sellers)
What are the odds the timing belt on that Lexus is way overdue… I looked at another $2900 es300 locally and the timing belt had been on there for 11 years and 150,000 miles. That could be a grenade with a toothpick where the pin should be
I guess I will take the *slightly* more exciting Honda Quaalude, but mostly because I agree about the lovely cloth seats. Today, if you can get cloth at all it’s always that nasty crap made out of recycled soda bottles. Sigh. What happened to all the nice velour and tweed of yesteryear? Or a good broadcloth?
Last year I bought the Lexus ES for my grandson out of Florida with 100,000 miles for 3 grand a great deal.
However consider that it needed cam cover gaskets and spark plug tube seals (a much more involved job than one might think because the intake manifold has to come off to do the rear bank) and the 100k timing belt/water pump replacement (another days work, at least for an amateur).
Parts cost inconsequential but if you have to pay market rates for labor these repairs are significant costs.
I will continue to boycott these threads till a BOTH !!! choice is made available.
It really needs a “neither” choice as well. Many of these are just equally gross, absolutely not buying either one Hobson’s Choices.
“Just wait til that VTEC kicks in, YO!”
Definitely the Prelude…which I’ve always loved along w/ the CRX, Accord and of course NSX. The Lexus is just so unbelievably boring and bland that I’m about to fall asleep…
My vote goes to the Lexus since there is less evidence of rust and seems to be in a bit better shape. Now if the Prelude was manual, that would have swung my vote the other way.
Going Prelude on this one. It’s certainly going to be more fun to drive than the Lexus, and the rust looks like maybe it’s not too bad. The Lexus is ridiculously clean for a SBS car, but the dealer handily lists no pictures of the engine bay and the issues mentioned just make it all look a bit too sketchy. I’ll go with the devil I know.
Rust is like an iceberg, what you can see is only 10% of the total the overwhelming majority of the time. I bet this looks like the Titanic underneath.
Boy, that Prelude looks a LOT like my mom’s old one, including the visible damage. But the milage is wrong. Pretty sure it was over 170,000 when we sold it.
I’ve been in a pattern of choosing the more boring choice lately, and here’s where I break out of that cage…into a rusty cage. I’ll take the Honda. Both of these things likely run/drive just fine, but the Honda looks like it would be more fun and yeah, I’m really into the interiors of this era as well. I might be tempted to even try to mitigate the rust and do some front end/hood stuff on it as well.
There is nothing wrong with an ES300. Its a Camry. Its like going to McDonald’s. Nothing Fantastic, but 95% of the time, nothing bad either.
The Prelude, even with the auto, is the more interesting choice. Hondas are like legos: If you don’t like something about it, somebody has modified it and made it available via the aftermarket.
Rust around the wheel arches? Perfect candidate for removing the necrosis metal for some bolt-on flares and wider wheels/tires.
Prelude for 2800 bucks its FAFO mod season. Prelude all the way.
I’ve been thinking of a retromod project (yes I meant retromod). I’d buy a modern Honda, say a Civic hybrid, and then find a doner mid-late 90’s Honda and swap it’s dashboard in. Probably also swap over the 15 or 16 inch wheels too.
I feel like they are both overpriced given their condition. I let a very nice Prelude go some years ago, (and bought a Subaru Legacy GT Wagon instead, because turbo wagon, which was great on paper but financially ruinous). If I had to choose I’d go with the Prelude because of lost opportunities as mentioned, and there looks like something seriously dodgy about the Lexus, but I’m not really happy about either.
Rust be damned, I love the interior of the Prelude.
I had an ’86 Accord in California but was shocked when I moved back east and saw rust on the seams under the taillights on virtually every Accord in the salt belt. Of course, I also saw a lot of rusty Volvos and thought those would hold up better, but apparently not. I had a co-worker who had steel plates welded over the holes in his 244’s floor pan.
Volvo 240s didn’t get decent rust proofing from the factory until 1986. And even then, they were merely OK by better European standards. 740s and 940s are MUCH better, and the FWD cars are better still. Owned 14 of them all-together. 13 of them in salty Maine…
in the pics and on paper, the Lexus is the clear choice, though boring and the clincher of course is the shady BHPH stealership attached to it, definitely makes me feel like the more honest Prelude is the route to go.
Objectively, the Prelude is better, but I prefer four doors, so Lexus for me.
I’m so confused! These cars are both preludes. The Prelude is literally a Prelude, but it’s figuratively a prelude, too. In this case, an inevitable dissolve into a patch of rust flakes. The Lexus is a prelude, but a prelude to what? With no assurances as to its running state, potential hidden structural issues, and tin worm, it seems the greater gamble. Neither is long for the world. I need an interlude to ponder the probable postlude of either choice. Or maybe a quaalude. Screw it. Honda.