Nice Cars With Battle Scars: 2001 Honda Prelude vs 2002 Lexus ES 300

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)