Finding a low-mileage Subaru Forester from the early to mid-2000s is like finding a needle in a haystack, but we did manage to find a 2003 Forester that’s currently up for sale on eBay.
I've learned that finding discarded vehicles with astronomical figures showing on their odometers can be very difficult. Most manufacturers stuck with five-digit odometers well into the 1980s and even the 1990s, which rules out a majority of potential high-mile candidates right off the bat. With more recent vehicles, electronic digital odometers won't display unless you power up the main ECU— theoretically possible in a junkyard, but a real hassle. The most likely old cars to rack up interstellar mileage (Mercedes-Benz diesels) are also among the first to have their instrument clusters harvested by boneyard-prowling eBay sellers. Fortunately, Honda began installing six-digit odometers around 1981, and so today's Junkyard Gem (found last winter in a Denver car graveyard) can share its very impressive final odo reading with us.
In early 2009, the Google Self-Driving Car Project was born, evolving over the years into what we now know as Waymo.
It’s cars like this 2004 Acura NSX-T that present a serious dilemma. Do you buy one in order to drive it as it creators intended, or do you just store it as an appreciating asset? Why not a bit of both?
You know what's an awesome way to save gas? Well, buying an original Honda Insight with a manual transmission is a start, but an even better way is to not really drive at all. Like, specifically, drive only 5,400 miles in the span of 20 years. Or ... does the maths ... 270 miles per year. Considering that the OG Insight had a 10.6-gallon tank and got 53 mpg combined, well ... gives up doing the maths ... let's just say the owner didn't have a frequent pumper card at the local Chevron.
This 2000 Honda Insight with manual transmission and yes, a mere 5,392 miles, is up for auction on Bring a Trailer. It looks as brand new as the mileage would indicate, the result of spending the first 19 years of its life barely moving in the Pacific Northwest. It's painted a sharp shade of New Formula Red with a gray cloth interior, and is quite the delightfully cute thing. It even has a tape deck.
Chevrolet no longer makes a high-performance, street-oriented pickup. But if you want a new one, you're in luck because there's a 1990 C/K 454 SS with 26 miles on its odometer listed for sale for the price of a Toyota Supra.
Florida-based Classic Cars of Sarasota describes the truck as a brand-new example that has never been used, and the photos suggest that's no exaggeration. It looks like it rolled off the assembly line a week and a half ago. The protective plastic lining hasn't been removed from the seats or the carpets, the window sticker hasn't been peeled off, and there are still crayon marks on the instrument cluster's protective film. It came from a private collection of pickup trucks, and it was stored in a climate-controlled warehouse until the dealer purchased it.
Our long-term 2019 Subaru Forester has been a real workhorse in our fleet from the time we took delivery late last year. We've managed to rack up over 12,000 miles in the first five months — it's been east and west of Michigan so far, but nowhere further than a day's drive away. We'll take it on a longer road trip soon. Since Subaru calls for 6,000-mile service intervals, our local Subaru dealer just finished up the second service call on the crossover.
Both services have housed mini-events on top of the scheduled work. Subaru changed the oil, replaced the oil filter, rotated the tires and performed a multi-point inspection on both occasions. However, the first service also involved a windshield replacement. Days before our appointment with Subaru, one editor met with a rather large stone that was kicked up on the highway. This caused a large chip in the windshield that quickly developed into a crack meandering across the passenger side of the glass. After the new glass was installed, the Subaru techs had to recalibrate its Eyesight technology so the adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping tech would work correctly. It wasn't cheap — Subaru charges $250 for an Eyesight calibration after a new windshield is put in.
This jaw-dropping 1971 Datsun 240Z has just rolled onto the proverbial block at Bring a Trailer, and it's hard to imagine that it won't end up setting a record price for a first-generation Z. First of all, we have to take a moment to appreciate the rare Racing Green over brown color combo. And the factory rocker-panel stripe. Oh, man. The story is that an Indiana Datsun dealer gave this car to his son as a dental-school graduation present. The owner drove it sparingly, and the car was kept at the dealership and later at his home. A mechanic from the dealership continued to maintain the car for the owner until the owner passed away last year. The car has traveled less than 22,000 miles, none of which — it's claimed — were in inclement weather. This 240Z is said to be unrestored, and the condition certainly lends credence to the claim. Commenters are nerding out over details like the original (green) distributor, original radiator cap, and original hoses. Note also the factory AM radio, and the plastic still covering some of the interior bits. One knock against it: The wheel covers are from a later 240Z. Somehow, that seems unlikely to dampen the bidding, which at this writing is at $30k on the car's first day. One suspects it has a long way to go.