Mirages are great little cars. I bought mine new 10 years ago and after 240,000 miles the only major repairs it has needed have been a pair of CV axles and a water pump. Original clutch, original starter, original alternator. Sure, it uses a bit of oil now, but it runs like a top and still gets 40+ mpg. My story isn’t…

Oh, I agree.  “Not meant for car shows” is another way for the seller to say “unfinished project truck”.

Agreed. There is a company out of Texas that makes excellent replacement seat cushions and upholstery for older trucks to OEM specs. Replacement leather lower driver’s upholstery for this Tahoe is $200.

GMT400s are great, but restomods are always a tough sell.  You gotta find that one guy who likes nearly everything you did and that is gonna be hard to do for what the seller is asking.

Probably stolen by some tweeker years ago.

Yeah, it is the modding not the age that actually bothers me. GM trucks and SUVs of this era are actually starting to get expensive if they are really nice and have low miles. They were just very reliable and good looking rigs. People are starting to pay for them now that a new one is $60,000 and a piece of shit.

Seller: “This is NOT your normal 2-door Tahoe.”

Fair enough, but these cars were not meant for the interstate. Complaining about how skittish your Geo Metro feels at 80 miles an hour is kind of like complaining about how clunky your Silverado HD feels on the slalom course or how much your Corvette sucks in the snow.

You don’t think that is going to happen again? I had one of these back in 2008. A guy in a Silverado who had just spent $150 filling his tank offered to buy it from me at a gas station. I had just spent about $35 filling the Metro.

Wow, lotta 'Safety Sally' types here today. 😂 

An ‘88 CRX Si is a “tiny, spartan death trap”, too. Would you drive one or insist on a Volvo?

I wouldn’t want to be hit by an Excursion in an ‘89 CRX, either, but I’d pay $4500 for a nice one any day of the week...and twice on Sundays.

The Suzuki G10 is thrashy, but very reliable.

Nice price. I put 150,000 miles on one of these back in the day. These Metros will get an easy 50 mpg if you drive them carefully. They are geared fairly low, so the 55 horsepower can actually feel peppy in town given the car’s 1800 pound curb weight. They are about as hard to work on as a lawnmower.

If you have $14k in your pocket, sure. Hell, buy a 2008 Porsche Cayenne, a 2012 Mini, a 2010 MDX, or whatever. But what if you are financing? A friend of mine just went through this and it is why cars like the Mirage exist.

The Mirage has the exact same specs as a 1963 Porsche 356.

My 2015 Mirage has 196,000 miles on it now and has never broken down. Not once. The only CEL I ever got was for a broken wire on the VVT solenoid...five minute fix. As far as I am concerned, a Mirage with a manual transmission is the most reliable new car you can buy right now. In fact, the engines in these cars are…

Cars like this exist because they are easy to finance, a fact which seems to be lost on the “800FICO/$80k-a-year” crowd here. If they disappear, it is going to be a problem for young people who are already having a tough go of it.

I am not sure we disagree as much as you think here. The PriusC sold poorly and there was little profit in it anyway, which is why Toyota did not invest hundreds of millions of dollars to redesign to higher safety standards.

Low profit margin cars usually don’t get a complete redesign just because the IIHS invents a new test, which is one reason why there is no PriusC anymore.