QotW: What car do you not regret selling or letting get away?

Every car enthusiast has a few stories of the cars that got away. Perhaps it was a car you regret selling when times were hard. Maybe it was a car you should’ve bought but didn’t. On the other end of the spectrum are the ones we couldn’t get rid of fast enough — the money pit projects, the cursed cars that kept breaking down, used examples that slowly revealed a scammy seller. Personally, I owned a 240SX convertible that was just terrible. The ASC conversion was poorly assembled, the roof never sealed right, and the extra bracing was so heavy the doors sagged. I should’ve bought a coupe and I was glad to be rid of it.

What car do you not regret selling or letting get away?

The most entertaining comment by next week will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “What car(s) from Japan would you import right now?“.

We’re honestly surprised that we didn’t just get a slew of Skyline variations, but we shouldn’t have been. JNC readers have excellent taste and tend to look past the trendy cars of the moment. What we saw instead was an excellent list of fun, quirky cars that are guaranteed to stand out at the local cars and coffee meet.

Answers ranged from kei cars, like Ryan S.‘s Suzuki Wagon R RR or daniel‘s Mitsubishi Pajero Mini, to unobtainium limited-production performance cars, like Ian Gopez‘s Subaru 22B or Ian N‘s Toyota 2000GT. We did get one Skyline from Styles but it was the completely unloved (at least in the US and Australia) C210 generation, an excellent pic with plenty of opportunity for Seibu Keisatsu cosplay.

Luxurious Toyotas were chosen in the form of ra21benj‘s Corona Exiv, or Hachibrokeyou‘s Soarer AeroCabin. There were also completely utilitarian Toyotas, like Alan‘s picks of Toyota HiMedic ambulance, Toyota Type 73 military truck, or the ultra-rare Dyna 200 HMV. There were sporty cars from all makes and eras, such as StreetSpirit‘s Mitsubishi Galant FTO 1600 GSR, Lee L‘s Z31 200ZR and S12 RS-X, or Yewnos100 Mazda 323F Astina.

One class with a rather astonishing popularity was wagons, a class nearly extinct on American roads, like Taylor C.‘s many picks that included a Subaru Legacy GT-B, Toyota Mark II Qualis, and S170 Crown Estate, or エーイダン‘s Ttyota Caldina GT-T, and Nissan Stagea. That leads us to the champ, and this week’s winner was Sahir Virk, who made a case for why we need to import cars like the Honda Orthia:

My choice would have to be the Honda Orthia. A quick summary, it’s the wagon version of the beloved 6th generation Honda Civic that North America never got due to our lack of faith of the station wagon.

It came in FWD and AWD variants with either a 5-speed manual or 4-speed auto. The majority of engine variants were either D series but you could get the B series in certain trims. This would make for a great “hot” wagon with an engine swap from either the spicier Si or Type R. Or maybe even a K series if you’re really serious!

Or just keep it stock and toodle around with the extra rear capacity for your errands yet still be stylish next to all of the drab crossovers that have crowded our roads.

Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!

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18 Responses to QotW: What car do you not regret selling or letting get away?

  1. Fred Langille says:

    Out of the 40 vehicles I’ve had since I was 17, I’d say it was a Kia Spectra5 that I was relieved to be rid of when it was paid off … mainly due to paying it off difficulties but, it appeared that some of the difficulties in keeping the car were more financial than mechanical. Although, a tough car, there seemed to be more mechanical problems (after our daughter got it … then, cracked it up) but, Kia Motors Finance (and Hyundai, too) are nightmares to deal with! The cars have their own quirks but, the finance departments S**K! If you go Korean, get your own financing! Easiest financing I’ve had is with Mercedes-Benz!

  2. BlitzPig says:

    Without doubt my second gen. 1984 Tercel SR5, purchased brand new from my local Toyota dealer at the time. Without a doubt the most boring car I have ever owned. I bought it because of Toyota’s renowned reputation for reliability, and being an SR5 it promised a more sporty experience. Little did I know that slapping on some “SR5” badges, adding a tachometer and some nice seats do not a sporty car make. True it was very reliable, and thrifty to operate, but those attributes could not make up for the fact that the car was so utterly, excruciatingly, boring. I traded it after a year for a 1985 VW Jetta, which was far more fun to drive, but became a nightmare of unreliability in league of it’s own…

  3. Joel says:

    My 1987 Conquest Tsi. The maintenance was bankrupting me, but I miss her.

  4. Taylor C. says:

    Oh man, easy one for me, and no doubt about it. The 1991 Honda Accord EX sedan with the H22A swap that I bought back in end of 2022. I owned it for about 5 months, and just couldn’t come close to enjoying / liking the car whatsoever. I had a long-time VTEC itch, and wanted that in a larger sedan.
    This Accord popped up and on paper it looked fantastic: CB7 in manual guise that was driven by an old lady. The previous owner documented the H22A swap on Youtube, and seemed like a straight shooter when we conversed multiple times on the phone. Even did a walk-around and the car checked out.

    The car was from California, so I bought sight unseen. Upon delivery and getting into the car to drive it home, I immediately started feeling it was too raw for me. The motor mounts were so stiff that the car just vibrated at anything under 3000RPM. The second gear grinded unless you were double clutching. The radio didn’t pick up local stations. The driver’s seat springs had become soft, and so my butt sank into the seat. There was a power steering leak. The throttlebody was from Skunk2, who are notoriously known for sticking throttlebodies. The clutch engagement varied as the car warmed up.
    The car had a great profile and screamed 1990s, but it was literally a large paper weight on the driveway.

    I worked hard to try and appreciate the car. I fixed the power steering leak, managed to remove the stickyness on the throttle body, and then started working on the clutch engagement. I spent at least 2 bodies of brake fluid and two OEM cylinders to get the clutch to disengage; yes, the clutch ultimately couldn’t disengage, even when I could see full travel from the clutch slave cylinder. I was so done with this car, and just wanted to offload it.

    I ultimately sold it for a huge loss, as the buyer used a tactic that got the better of me. It was his childhood dream car, and I couldn’t be any happier to offload to him. If he fixed it, great, more power to him. A few months later he texted me a short video of the car driving up and down the street, which was good news. I texted him, “Looks like you got the clutch properly bled.” He responded w ith, “actually, I had to drop the transmission and install a new clutch, as the previous one was a cheap unit that was installed incorrectly.” At that point I thought, “well, you still got a great deal.”

    No regrets in getting rid of that car, and it seriously left a huge distaste in my mouth for buying any future cars that are modified. You just don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.

  5. StreetSpirit says:

    Mine is a tale of a begrudging partnership turning into a short, intense and abusive love story plagued by reliability issues followed by a rescue performed by a former classmate.

    So early 2021 I was a fresh-faced graduate engineering my way around storage tanks instead of following my true passion and working on cars. days were long and work was boring but I had a big old trans am that took me from A to B at Mach Freedom with the T-tops off.

    Mach freedom however was only possible due to some very un-streetable tuning, rock hard suspension and weight reduction beyond sanity, it was not suited for client visits, passengers or summer as the lack of insulation AC and big greenhouse made it…. well, a greenhouse.

    So after getting my umpteenth complaint from HR about the ‘noisy eyesore’ in the parking lot, and life throwing me some pretty heavy curveballs it had to go.

    With a thoroughly broken heart and a mildly padded wallet I set out to browse the marketplace and found an 84 prelude that would suit me just fine. Pop-ups, sunroof and 2 doors. It was a wry comfort but comfort still.

    On the drive home I found the prelude a nuisance on the highway, buzzing gutless and even though I finally had a radio the thing wouldn’t do more than whisper…

    But at the gas station I couldn’t help but look at it, small, efficient, so well designed and the finish was great!

    Over the weeks the prelude and I grew closer with me finding joy in corners in ways the trans am never forced me to, it tought me FWD driving, conserving momentum over everything instead of letting the v8 handle things and most of all the precision in its steering was unlike anything I ever had before.

    A set of pioneers gave the radio a voice again and I put some work in color matching the bumpers and stock wing to the light blue body color as well as mounting a second wing, chopped up golf-3 lip and some vintage 15’s. I liked the prelude and the prelude liked me or so I thought…

    These were pandemic times and after a soul deadening work from home period I was let go from my job, no goodbye, not even an exit meeting with my supervisor, he just ignored me as the sack of potatoes he was…

    On a rainy October afternoon I drove home in my prelude after dropping off my stuff at work and a rough 10km before home it completely died on me.
    Hours of pushing later I was soaked, the lude home and my legs felt like jello.
    I spent the following weeks trying to fix it and it was one issue after another until the carbs needed a rebuild but were completely seized up inside.

    Being unemployed I sold the lude, it went through about 6 owners and in the meantime, I got a new job, a near free Pontiac grand prix which I fixed and traded for an sb3 civic.
    That civic later caught fire due to degraded wiring and the 06 civic daily we had also became an electrical nightmare so Hondas and me are not really a good combination.

    The lude however ended up with a former classmate who since fitted some motorcycle carbs and made it SING for real.

    The prelude was awesome, just not the car for me, please wish me luck on the little Honda vision build in the streetspirit shop right now!

    • Land Ark says:

      I’ve been living my life wrong. In my world 3 years ago someone doesn’t own a T-top Trans Am as their only car. That person also doesn’t tthen trade up to a 1984 Predule. Kudos to you for living the life of someone in the 1980s in the 2020s.

      • StreetSpirit says:

        Never lived the 80’s and spent most of the 90’s in a stroller but the third gen has been my dream car for a long time, saved up for it ever since I was 12 or so and it was every bit as good as I hoped!

        Right now we have a 2nd gen GS300, an NA Miata, a Hijet foodtruck project, a turbo Volvo 940 I share with my father in law and a Honda vision show project but most of my commutes are by bicycle.

        There’s definitely some more 80’s and 90’s rides on my Wishlist after I finish all the other projects…
        Having my own custom car shop means NOTHING can be stock after all…

  6. speedie says:

    Mine is letting a 92 Subaru SVX get away. I had been looking for one for a while and what appeared to be a decent one was listed locally so I went to look at. The photos in the ad were taken about five years before the car was parked in the owner’s yard. It had been sitting under a pine tree during those five years (why people do we do this!), there were four dead mice visible when you opened the trunk, the engine compartment had three wasps nests and was loaded with pine needles, it was a smokers car and there were burn holes in both front seats (the astray was full of butts), and all four wheels were six inches deep into the soil. While there were no visible rust spots, holes or dents on the body panels, the fact it had been sitting on New England soil for years meant the undercarriage would be a rust nightmare. It was so bad I did not even consider it a parts car. The owner was so desperate to have it out of their yard they almost begged me to take it away for $500. I drove away thinking about the poor person who might actually buy the car.

  7. James Gilboy says:

    Isuzu Impulse RS. $2,000, full service history, like 100k or 150k miles IIRC. It resurfaced a few months later with a blown head gasket. I really shoulda saved it.

  8. Bryan Kitsune says:

    Probably a 1985 Celica GT-S. That says a lot since I would love to own a 3rd gen Celica.

    The one in question was sitting by the road with a For Sale sign. Only about 2 miles from my parents’ house (I was still living at home, this was late 90’s or early ’00’s, I believe I was still in high school or recently graduated).

    It looked decent, and it drove OK. The lady said it was her sons car, but he wanted something different, or something to that effect. I gave her a check for the requested $600 (you could actually buy running/driving cars for that amount back then – heck, a few years LATER I still bought an AE86 for $1,200…but I digress) and drove it to my parents.

    Upon closer inspection at home, there was extensive underbody and strut tower rust, and I imagine quite a bit hidden under the fender flares. I got that “I’ve made a terrible mistake” feeling, thinking the car basically wasn’t really safe to be driven.

    Fortunately, we hadn’t done the title work – and rather than me trying to back out of an agreement, when we called about getting the title, the lady who had “sold” it to me said “My ex-husband won’t agree to sell the car for that price, so he won’t give me the title.”

    So I happily (and daintily) drove it back down the road and said “good riddance.”

    I am a little sad that that has been my only RWD Celica experience, but…I have a feeling it could’ve been much worse.

  9. Ian N says:

    The early Aussie Mitsubishi Sigma (later Chrysler Sigma) – basically a Mitsubishi Galant in Japan.

    Its fuel pump was always giving me grief. There was a certain steep grade hill on the way to my Brother’s place that I used as a measure of its capabilities (or lack of) – it rarely made it to the top before I had to turn it around (manually) and head down the hill, jump starting it again to to seek an alternative route. Trying all sorts of remedies, I even relocated the fuel pump to a position next to the fuel tank, so it pushed the fuel instead of pulling it. Not much difference – it still stalled just short of the crest of the hill. The last time this happened, I miscalculated my pushing and came dangerously close to the sheer drop at the other side of the road. As I held on to the bonnet (hood) badge for grip (think the Mercedes in Raiders of the Lost Ark), the incline was working against me and it all looked quite serious, with nobody else around as my shoes decided to give up the ghost. I seriously contemplated letting it go, until a small rock was able to be carefully placed in the path of the front wheel, which put a stay on its progress towards the edge momentarily (along with my body weight pressing against the bonnet of course).

    Just as that was beginning to falter, a plumber who had been (unbeknownst to me) enjoying his lunch just down the hill at a lookout point must’ve fortuitously (for me) glanced in his rear view mirror to witness the silent comedy being performed about 50 meters above his position. From my rather worried and decidedly hopeless point of view, he suddenly appeared out of nowhere rather like Clark Kent, to add his fully refurbished – to my dwindling – strength, to finally tame the crappy beast into submission.

    I drove straight home and retired the car (permanently), and after a good strong cup of tea, vowed never to drive the same model vehicle ever again.

  10. ra21benj says:

    My 1991 Isuzu Trooper 2. This SUV looked cool and was the perfect size. The only thing I hated was the Chevy Blazer V6 and automatic transmission. The Blazer V6 had little power and it fuel economy was just okay. The automatic transmission was controlled by a Bosch computer that would randomly put the transmission into limp mode while exiting freeway off-ramps. When this happened, I had to go to neutral, shut the engine off and restart while rolling so I didn’t get stuck and cause a back-up. I tried everything to get the transmission computer repaired and even replaced it with another one, but the problem wouldn’t go away. If only I bought a Trooper with the Isuzu 4 cylinder and manual transmission, I could’ve kept it a lot longer. So happy replace it with my manual Corolla that rarely has any problems.

  11. Lakdasa says:

    I miss my 2001 Primera (Infiniti G20), sold it to get a much newer vehicle. Last couple of weeks I have been watching the classifieds for them to come up and when I see one on the road I always have a second glance. It was such an underrated car in my country and I was brave enough to buy one when everyone said that I wont be able to sell it and it wont have parts. Did over 100,000kms when it was with me and sold it at a profit. Loved the performance handling and the room inside the car and cant get away from the fact that it looks nice still. I had the factory spoiler, front fog lamps and the sunroof which made a difference to the car. Mine looked exactly like this.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/1999_Nissan_Primera_GXE_%28New_Zealand%29.jpg

  12. Sammy B says:

    my 92 SE-R. I picked it up in 2003 for $400 with it needing various work. A friend at an autoshop tipped me off that a customer was in a “just want it gone” state of mind. I grabbed it and drove it for a few months over the summer on temp tags delivering pizza. Sadly when i had to go back to school I couldn’t take it and there really wasn’t space to leave it at my parents house. So i passed it along for $600. I miss having a SR20DE powered car (though I did have a few more after that 92 SE-R) and it would have been cool to keep and wrench on.

  13. Ian G. says:

    I’ve had every iteration of the Toyota MR2 (MKI, MKI SC, MKII NA, MKII Turbo, MKIII MR-S manual +1 more… I’ve regretted selling most of them (kept my ’86) except for the last one…
    It was a red MKIII MR2 Spyder that came with the SMT, Sequential Manual Transmission.
    The transmission worked great when it was working, even used it to auto-x a whole season, but half the time it wasn’t working due to hesitation issues and I went through a couple of months with no reverse gear (car was so light I’d push it backwards on the driveway or at parking lots). That tranny was just too particular with oil levels, type of tranny oil you used, stupid sensors and worst of all most mechanics didn’t know how to work on them including the dealership. Thank goodness for 2 particular MR2 forums. When I sold it, it was perfect for and the buyer had no regrets. Go figure. I checked on it for a year after the sale too.

    Now that I want another manual Spyder, but they are being sold for a lot more than when I sold mine. Oh well.

  14. Franxou says:

    A bit late isn’it?
    I was on vacation so I missed it, but I think I have a good one.
    My JDM early-90’s Nissan 300ZX twin turbo 2+2!
    I already had a S13 240SX, fastback, my dream car back then, but sadly I sent it to sports cars heaven. Really liked that car. Once college was finished, I went to work for a year in the north, and I promptly bought myself the aforementionned 300ZX. I lifted my nose on an MR2 and a Lancer Evo 1 that would have been a better choice, but I wanted the sports car, and being in the remote north, I wanted one that I could find parts for without waiting too much, so a car with lots of domestic parts compatibility was a good idea.
    Great car, very fast for my young 2008 or 9-ish self, the feeling of the wave of torque, then hearing the turbos spool and the wave of power, then the blow-off valves bursting and going at it again in the next gear is something I miss very much.
    But it was haunted.
    I never had to actually change any part in this car, but there was always something wrong with it. It was a 10 hours drive to get back to see my family or my girlfriend, and after every trip there was something wrong. I went to my friendly remote-local mechanic who found something to fix, but it was always that: fixes, and then the car drove perfect. An other 10-hours trip and back and something else was off, they found a fix, and it was alright again.
    But I was never off the hook! I swear this car hated me and wanted to go back doing wangan runs with its chain-smoking japanese owner, and it taunted me all the time. The town I was in was small, there was only one road with a 90 kmh speed limit for hours on end, and big fauna, so not really a place to open this car up.
    As I ended my year contract and was starting to wrap my stuff up to come back home, I put the car for sale. I made a friend with a guy curious about the car but not on the market to buy, and then someone else bought it for cheap because there was just no one else on the market, and I did not want to move with this car.
    Within 24 hours he was clocked something like over 100 kmh just before the speed limit turned from 50 to 90, must have hurt, and within 72 hours he broke the steering rack by hitting a curb trying to drift. The steering rack. One of the only parts that are RHD-centric. I lolled hard but was sad for the car, it did not move again when I moved out almost a month later.
    I kinda miss driving it, but I do not miss living with it. And this car taught me that I had way more fun in the slower S13 240SX than I had in that 300ZX.

  15. Biff says:

    My early 74 260z I got from my Dad. It was so rusty the metal appeared more like cardboard. One day the floor moved under my feet, got under the car and the frame rail was dangling. It came right off and crumbled in my hands. I hoped I could find a donor body and put this Alderman datsun L24 my had swapped into it into a non rusty body. They raced the 240s back in the day. But Mom said nope and i traded it in on a 78 Pontiac GP 301 HO. I ended up liking that but it was not a Z car.

  16. Suyog says:

    Really liked perusing this article post! It’s fascinating to observe how our values for cars are shaped by our various automotive experiences. I enjoyed reading everyone’s accounts of the automobiles they don’t miss; they were all relevant!

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