When it comes to VWs some people think diesel engines are a gas. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Corrado is perhaps one of the least expected of oil-burner conversions, but will its price be low enough to convert you?
With its 53% Nice Price win, yesterday’s project 1978 Fiat 124 Sport Spider proved that few of you are afraid of rolling up your sleeves and marring your manicure when the price is right.
Of course that was an older car, and one that offered little in the way of horsepower (about 84) without the commensurate efficiency of high mileage to counter. What if we came across another project, one that melded a sporty body with an amazingly efficient and reasonably perky diesel mill? Would your sleeves still be rolled?
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Have a gander at this 1991 Volkswagen Corrado which is presently about three-quarters of the way to being bad ass. Well, that is if you think diesel sporty coupes are bad ass. The car you see, comes with two engines, the original supercharged gas G60 freed up to serve its new role as garage art, and an ALH turbo diesel (TDI) that once upon a time lived in a 2003 Jetta.
Now, the 2003 Jetta was a damn-fine looking automobile, perhaps one of Volkswagen’s best internally-generated designs. The Corrado however is pure, angular sex. It’s sort of like the Iman of sporty FWD coupes, and the kind of thing DuffMan would direct pelvic thrust at, oh-yeah.
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VW had a swing and a miss when they replaced the Giugiaro-designed 1st-gen Scirocco with their own homely 2nd-gen car, but boy did they make up for that when they did the Corrado. All was forgiven.
Of course, in America at least, the Corrado sold like Groupons for Rio getaway lamaze classes, and hence we only received one generation before it was unceremoniously yanked from the market. Now VW won’t even give us the new Scirocco, perhaps as a punishment for our insouciance.
At any rate, this one comes with 80K on the clock and a five-speed stick paired with that transplanted TDI under its hood. It most definitely is project as the ad shows a ton of loose parts in the pics, looking like a junkyard shoplifter’s baggy pants haul. A number of those parts are from the interior which is presently in stand-down mode.
Plugging all that back in shouldn’t be too terrible a chore seeing as almost all the parts are shared with other VW models and there’s a massive community of Volkswagen fanatics on the VWVortex and Samba just itching to offer advice on the best way to do it.
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They might be able to help with the wiring and fuel pump as those are two issues noted in the ad. Again, VWs of this era are in many ways plug and play when it comes to engine swapping so don’t consider the electrical issues necessarily a deal killer. That is, unless the changing of the batteries in your flashlight is something you approach with trepidation.
Aside from the diesel, the Corrado looks to be pretty stock, with some sweet BBS alloys and a nice dark green paint job. The work done to it so far includes removal of the security immobilizer, a new clutch and flywheel, and like Monday’s Supra, the removal of the EGR on the chipped TDI.
The seller says that a move is forcing the sale of the incomplete project.
The cost to take over for him finishing this sporty fuel sipper project is $2,500. Add to that the cost of a trailer and something with which to tow it home and you’ve got yourself something to keep you out of trouble on those warm summer nights when another beer seemingly always sounds like a good idea.
What’s your take on that $2,500 price and this diesel Corrado as presented in its ad? Does that seem like a fair price to take up the challenge? Or, is that too much to swap for this engine-swapped VW?
Kansas City Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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