Welcome to Craigslist Crapshoot, our weekly search for the most bizarre, awesome, and/or terrible vehicles that the online classifieds has to offer.
You know, a funny thing: up until about the early ’80s, if you wanted an American Car that had better than average handling you didn’t buy the “sport” suspension, you checked the box for the “heavy duty” suspension. That made everything a little bit harder and a little less roli poli, but was still a far cry from the taut composure exhibited by their European counterparts.
The thing of it was, that more capable handling was something for which American car buyers acquired a taste, and hence we got all kinds of stop-gap products that talked the European talk, but rarely walked the walk. Last week, you all found some excellent examples of this breed.
Let’s start with a car that really felt about as American as could be, but which was in fact predominantly engineered in Europe. That was the Dodge Omni found by Fuhrman16. The Omni and its Horizon twin were heavily influenced by Chrysler’s European operations, back when that was Simca and not Fiat. This one was a GLH, an edition modified by Carroll Shelby’s outfit, and thus adding yet another aspect of across-the-pond-ness.
Working our way up the food chain a bit comes the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme “International” (so many flags!) located by ptschett. That shared its vote count with a somewhat lust-worthy Celebrity wagon brought to us by Papa Van Twee. If it was in LA, I’d go and give that one a look-see. Speaking of seeing, Lokki spotted a Buick Reatta which at one time was that company’s attempt at a European boutique coupe. Nowadays Buick’s much more interested in what the Chinese want.
Some extreme mental gymnastics were undertaken by mdharrell to justify a Lincoln Continental MKV “Cartier Edition” being Euro-centric, but I think he sold it. Kiefmo went the same route with a Chrysler Cordoba, as it had fine “Corinthian” leather. It did look pretty inviting, I’ll have to admit.
Getting a little more back on the theme, smalleyxb122 came up with another Eurosport, this one a sedan, while our winner, GTXcellent went one better and gave us a Lumina Euro Sedan—and no, its being from the ’90s doesn’t disqualify the entry. That’s not just one of the last of the Euro-Americans, it’s also, at least in my humble opinion, one of the best looking sedans of the era.
Congrats to GTXcellent, and thank you all for your continental tastes. Now, let’s get dangerous.
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