I want my first car to be an 80's car very badly. I really love the boxy design to them, like the Marquis shown here...

I want my first car to be an 80's car very badly. I really love the boxy design to them, like the Marquis shown here. Any recommendations for around $1,500-$2,500?

Good asthetics, but have fun with electrical gremlins, air conditioning faliure and getting stuck on the side of the road time to time
>t. 1989 Deville owner

Of course a FWD HiTech-powered C body is gonna be less reliable than a 302 Panther body.

True, but then again, any Corolla can beat both in reliability. Also, panther bodies aren't immune to issues either, I've had pic related break down on me before. Also, nobody buys a barge for reliability anyway

>Any recommendations for around $1,500-$2,500?
Yeah, whatever the fuck you can find that's not rusted up and clapped out.

To be fair the big Panther issues are well known and documented, and vary from a ten minute replacement (coil packs) to an afternoon or weekend (intake manifolds, timing chain guides).

>Also, nobody buys a barge for reliability anyway
I did, plus the interior and cargo space, the visibility, and relative ease of repair on a budget. A few million police cruisers and taxicabs can't be wrong, right?

You can get a really nice box panther for that price.
Get a 86-91, SEFI cars are leagues ahead of the early CFI cars and much more mod friendly. They do have their common issues, and remember, it's a 30 year old car at this point in time, well past it's expected lifespan. It will need work.
I paid $1500 for this rust free damn clean 89 Town Car.

Is this close enough to 80's? Buy and nickname it Boi.

That's a Grand Marquis, not to be confused with the Foxbody based Marquis.

My parents had an '86, super reliable apart from the AOD. Pretty slow though, and really slow compared to modern standards.

OP image is an 83+ Grand Marquis, but the standard Marquis was still a Panther body until '82, with Grand Marquis just being the higher trim. '83 was when they changed around the nameplates to leave Grand Marquis and LTD Crown Victoria as the full-size Panther-based cars and dropped the Marquis and LTD nameplates to the midsize Fox.

The crown Vic is the rare exception in this area, most barges don't offer much in terms in relaliability.

B-bodies are reliable too though.

Also for those keeping track at home, the inset six-segment grille of the late 70's Mercury sedan was the direct inspiration for the '98-'02 Grand Marquis grille.

Do it op! I did. Pic related

98-02's are underrated, especially in HPP form.

volvo 244, 242 or 240 if u fancy a wagon. tough as a boulder. also slow as a snail but does epic skids in the dirt or when it's snowing. tho i'm not sure how available they (and the parts) are in america

>talking about '80s cars
>marquis was a foxbody in the '80s

Um, ok. I already knew everything you said, but I guess it's good for the OP.

I wasn't aware of this, but that's breddy awesome.

I always liked the more rounded box GM, but the really boxy ones have their own charm.

The '01-'02 are better since they got the PI heads.

whatever you can get in that price range on craigslist. not hard to find a 70s-80s landbarge in decent shape for that price

I'm 100% biased towards them due to owning an '01, but IMO they're definitely the best looking years of the whale bodies and not a bad year mechanically given that by '01 you have coil on plug ignition and PI heads so all the newer intake manifolds will bolt right on without worrying about the ports not lining up when you inevitably have to replace it. No rack and pinion steering or 03+ suspension overhaul but you're not a sissy boy so you don't need that, right? Also for 01+ the traction control switch is right by the headlights instead of all the way over in the fucking glovebox which is very, very nice if you live in a shitty snowy hilly area.

>I wasn't aware of this, but that's breddy awesome.
I only noticed it myself stumbling on someone's 70-something Marquis in a parking lot the other day (didn't have a camera with me because I'm an idiot) and noticed how similar the grille was to my own. The 92-97 aero bodies have a sort of segmented grille, but no actual outlines like those two do, and 03+ loses the segmentation entirely for a standard waterfall grille. Hell, looking at there's even a couple other shoutouts- the more defined bulge in the hood compared to the aero bodies, and the protrusions in the bumper to reference the older model which no other 92+ Marquis has period.

240s are still around in the 'states, but Redblock-powered Volvos are all disappearing at an alarming rate as the drift-kiddies run out of low-priced RWD platforms to smash into guardrails. College-aged yuppies also love 'em for some reason, no idea how dirty unwashed liberal arts major Ithacans afford the increasingly-rare replacement parts but you can't spit in the air without it landing on someone's anti-fracking and COEXIST-stickered Swedish brick.

Buy literally any mercedes made in the 80s or early 90s

I always noticed that, in fact, I told this fact to a girl at a bar and five minutes later she was blowing me

you should probably get your tire fixed or carry an air pump