My 1981 GTSi Inspection / Test drive results....

Well, lets just say that this is NOT the car for me. The paint was advertised as "excellent" which upon initial glance it was. However closer scrutiny revealed cheesily repaired door rust on both doors along the bottoms. It looked like silly putty along the door bottoms.

When we got there, the car was supposed to have been charged up since it has been sitting a while. The charger was hooked up but not turned on. Meh. So, we charged it for a while while we combed over the rest of the car. The interior was decent overall but needed a good amount of TLC. Not the end of the world. The passenger seat had a small tear and the seat itself was as hard as concrete. The driver side was actually quite nice. The dash and door panels were presentable and overall the inside wouldnt need a ton to make it solid as a driver car. The engine compartment struts were both busted. The gas tank cap was missing as well. Strange. The spark plug wires looked like they were bought at K-Mart. The engine had a lot of iffy looking hoses and other bits. Dirty looking. Always a pet peeve of mine.

This car is part of a collection of about 25 cars and the owner simply wants to thin out the collection so it has been sitting for a looooong time. It was driven to and from a local exotic car shop for some work but thats about it.

We finally got it to fire up after some charging and heres the scoop:

- I heard a faint vibration/deep rumble type noise while it idled. Hard to explain but my buddy noticed it too and wasnt to sure about it. It was NOT a normal 308 exhaust sound.

- There was a small yet consistent stream of white smoke coming from the left exhaust pipe but not the other side. That seemed to go away eventually but its hard to tell.

- There was also an annoying cyclic squeak coming from the exhaust area. We dont believe it was a belt though...sounded different than a belt. The windows barely moved up or down but did "work" per say.

- Once we let the car idle for about 10 minutes we both(my buddy drove it and I then drove it) took it for a drive. Hes an '84 QV owner so he knows the cars well.

The car actually shifted and drove away decently. Steering felt OK. Lots of rattles, squeaks and groans. The engine pulled reasonably well. The idle was set WAY too high, it was idling at about 2200 rpms. That wouldnt stop. The AC didnt turn on and the oil temp gauge didnt work. I did notice when we got back from the drive that the water temp was reading pretty high. We got out of the car and let it run as we talked more. Then... we opened the bonnet to see if the fans were working. Only one of them was on and it was running at a slow speed.

Then.... we saw some coolant coming from underneath the car somewhere. Then, we heard a loud gurgling noise, then.... like nothing Ive ever seen/heard before - A loud pop was immediately followed by coolant spraying 20 feet in the air all over the place. We were lucky to have started running when we heard the gurgling or we would have been covered in super hot coolant with 2nd degree burns or worse. The entire engine, the trunk, and both rear quarters were bathed in steaming hot anti-freeze. I havent seen that much smoke in my entire life pouring out of a vehicle. The whole parking lot area we were standing behind was filled with white smoke and the nasty smell of burnt coolant. My buddy joked: "Two Ferrari geeks almost killed by coolant explosion...details at 11pm". The car looked like the 58 Plymouth Fury in the movie Christine after it caught fire and ran those kids over. The entire back half of the car was steaming/smoking. Never in my life...

So, the guy just throws his hands up and says, well, I cant sell it like that! I was like "No, probably not". I thanked him for his time and we got out of there.

The moral of the story is:

1) Forget cars that are owned by "collectors" that just stuff them away.
2) Forget cars that have been sitting for a long time.
3) Unless you get lucky, those that say you cant buy a good 308 for $20K-ish are probably right.
4) Dont expect too much for smaller dollars. Thats probably my main problem. Who deosnt want the best they can possibly get though for even modest dollars? Do people really buy cars like this one and think they made out good somehow? I cant believe that.

Oh well. Thems the breaks in the land of the Frugal Ferrari shopper I suppose. I just assumed in this "buyers/slow" market that there would better examples. I havent a seen a ton of them but the few I have seen or have had others check out, its been disappointing.

That being said - Onward I search. Sorry for the lengthy ramble. Just wanted toshare this ultimately funny experience. Still beats going to work this morning

 

It was odd. Ive had cars overheat before and you usually get a little coolant puddle with some white smoke that disappates rather quickly. The large bursts of fluid must have been caused by tremendous preesure in the system. Thats all I can think of anyways.

I actually felt "bad" for the car. Its like showing up at a dog pound and the dogs stare at you with solemn eyes just screaming "please take me!" The car was probably happy that someone came to rescue it. Oh well. I hope no serious damage was caused by this, like a head gasket or something. I shall pray for this cars recovery....