1988 Pontiac Fiero Formula- Total Restoration on 2040-cars

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Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

Want to buy a worst-in-show-winning Faux Ferrari Fiero?

UPDATE: This heap sold for $5,001. But don't fret, there are more terrible cars out there for the taking if that's your thing. Today we bring you something truly terrible. It's not just a fake Ferrari built on the guts of an old Pontiac Fiero, it's actually the world's worst fake Ferrari built on the guts of an old Pontiac Fiero. And it's got the award from the Concours d'Lemons to prove it. It's so heinous, in fact, that it has somehow managed to become desirable, at least judging by the bidding history of this bright red affront to Maranello. Powered by a 140-horsepower 2.8-liter V6 engine (covered by an unconvincing and broken fake V12 cover) hooked to an automatic gearbox, this gloriously poor Prancing Horse won't be winning many stoplight drag races. There are bundles of stray wires hanging down from the dashboard, it has high mileage, most of its lights don't work, and it's ugly. Like, really ugly. And to top it off, this Fauxrarri can't currently be registered in its home state of California because it has failed its most recent smog test. Put simply, you're looking at a total piece of junk. But a piece of junk with internet notoriety, having been featured on an episode of Jay Leno's Garage after attending the 2019 Quail Motorsports Gathering — by mistake at first, and then earning a special place next to the porta potties — being the focus of a video series on YouTube and winning the aforementioned ribbon for Worst in Show at Lemons. Somehow, bidding has topped $4,000 at the time of this writing. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. If you want to earn the ire of your neighbors — and to be clear, we really wouldn't recommend it — click on over to Cars & Bids to view the auction. There are four days left to hit the "bid" button. Consider yourself warned. Related Video:

Sell Your Own: 2006 Pontiac GTO

This is part of an occasional look at cars for sale in Autoblog's classifieds. Want to sell your car? We make it easy and free. Quickly create listings with up to six photos and reach millions of buyers. Log in and create your free listings. In the early '60s, Baby Boomers born immediately after World War II were beginning to buy cars and enjoy their own distinctive music. This wasn't yet the drug culture; rather, it was the drag culture, more Jan and Dean "Dead Man's Curve" than Beatles "Lucy In The Sky." And a Baby Boomer's desired ride, more often than not, was Pontiac's GTO. Introduced as a manned-up option for Pontiac's compact Tempest, the early GTO was 389 cubic inches of romp and stomp. And with a marketing campaign that hit Middle America via what it watched and ate (TV ads and cereal-box promos were a big part of the GTO launch), there was no escaping it. Like most performance coupes and convertibles, 10 years later it was became an emasculated version of its once lusty self. And then it was gone. Its revival, championed by General Motors executive Bob Lutz, was not by any stretch the Second Coming. Starting in 2004, GM modified its Australian-built Holden Monaro to approximate the excitement of the original formula: a coupe body propelled by a big V8. But the Holden's sheetmetal was quietly styled, and even the 400 horsepower available by 2006 didn't electrify buyers. With hindsight, the resurrected GTO is enjoying more attention and, slowly but surely, increasing in value. This for-sale example shows well, enjoys low mileage, and is – naturally – priced well above what is perceived to be its market value. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.