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Typical newbie question

Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 5:04 pm
by mammonista
First time on this website. I'll be spending a lot of time here in the coming months/years.
For the past 10 years or so I've owned 'Vanomo' an '87 DIY DOKA (work in progress) that I started building about six or seven years ago. 'Vanomo' has a IDI 1.9 turbo motor that performs reasonably well and returns about 27-28mpg on the highway at 65mph. With an early model air-cooled trans (currently being rebuilt) she'll run at 75mph all day long but at that speed mpg drops quite a bit.
Now I have the opportunity to buy a pretty rare car. An '83 Jetta coupe with a NA 1.6 diesel with the 3-speed auto trans. The car came from the factory with a turbo 1.6 diesel which the previous owner replaced with the NA diesel. This thing is so slow I think I could beat it running for the first 100 yards or so. The body is in almost perfect condition with ZERO rust and the interior is probably an 8.5 out of 10. It has a beautiful set of aluminum rims and nearly new tires and new coil overs.
The Jetta seems like the perfect candidate for a 1.9 TDI (with a mechanical pump) and a 5-speed...although it would be a shame to screw with such a rare car.
At any rate what should be the top dollar I should pay for the Jetta?
(Remember, nearly perfect rust free body with nice paint/chome, etc, $800 worth of tires and wheels, and the coil overs, nice interior/seats/headliners/glass/window gaskets, etc.).