Hello fellow bricksters,

For the first time in nearly 30 years of being almost born in, grown up, injured, driven to hospitals, hockey, skiing, learned to drive, bought, sold and almost killed in, I seem to have my first problem buying a Brick. It will be my first real toy brick and I don't want to go wrong. I have found 2 of them as per my subject line, they are both west coast cars, they have their good points and bad points. Here are the candidates and their issues:

1984 244 Intercooled Turbo. Auto trans, factory intercooler. All options except cruise and leather. Rear headrests, all pads, oil temp, factory fogs, 196,000 km, starts up well, pops into gear nice. Air does not blow cold, 80% original paint, no accidents, rust crawling on the rear wheel wells, both spare tire wells, above the bumper trim and into the trunk, and rusted through in front of the driver's rear wheel rocker panel. All rust easily fixed/welded. It is that gorgeous blue colour that I remember from the showroom when my dad bought his '85 Volvo. As i said it starts up nice and runs very smooth. When it gets hot, it idles with the turbo in vacuum, but spools up nicely under load. I noticed an oil smell and this is what turns me off about the car. When you pop out the dipstick, you get a nice even chimeny of blue vapour (burnt oil) that intesifies with throttle application. HMMMMM..... WHAT COULD THIS BE??? (I'm serious, input please)

1979 242 GT. The last year of the 'pure' GT's. All suspension goodies, factory sunroof, power windows, original alloys, LSD in the back end. Currently the guys loaner car to customers and his personal car. 225,000 km and very strong. Zero rust, 30% original paint, no accidents and GT striping carefully masked off when it was repainted. Starts, runs, drives, smells, etc... just wonderfully. Although I could see myself stuffing a heavily modified B230FT under the hood to get my jollies, but that would be a couple of years down the road. Not to mention that I had a '78 GT in college that I loved.

Anyhow people, your input would be appreciated.

Happy Bricking,

Richard
87 245 DL 338,000 km and counting
Toy Brick... undecided....