Maybe the crown vic?
My reading of Lexusâ most recent sales report does not jive with the articleâs premise. Lexusâ Crossover and SUV sales for 2019 were 217,139 units, up a respectable 5.6% over 2018. BMWâs total crossover sales (no SUVs) were 159,277 up a whopping 35.5%. Mercedes is now larger than Lexus in America, but the two have swapped that role off and on. Mercedes does not have any crossover or SUV that sells as well as the RX (111,036 units in 2019). While I respect Jake Fisher of CR, and I agree that Genesis makes three great cars, Genesisâ overall sales are absolutely tiny compared to Lexus and Genesis has not sold a crossover. Ever. Yet.
Now thatâs a very desirable list of cars you came up with. Iâd take any one of them (and already own the 2nd generation version of the CRX).
A few I would add:
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May I add an 80âs CJ7 and a Toyota Landcruiser fj60? I had a couple of those 80âs Mustang GTâs Whitey showed a photo of. Pretty neat little cars with the 5 speed. Theyâre bound to be a classic some day. Everyone drag raced and/or wrecked them. I imagine theyâre getting rare in unmolested form.
Now that non-US spec cars from the 1980s can be imported, the list could be expanded greatly.
There were several models linked that are awesome looking and quite desirable.But a few episodes of Counting Cars indicates that everything gets a small block V-8 stuffed in that operates on an after market ECM which is attached to a TH350 or 700R4 transmission. Classics like that seem to be dolled up Rat Rods.
My wife has been yelling at me about using the 62 Caddy as a daily driver.
I didnât want to go too exotic or expensive on my list, so I deliberately lest those cars off.
BTW, some of those cars arenât 80s models. It was the feed back carburetors and odd throttle body injection systems operated by early ECMs that resulted in poor performance and many drivability problems that makes that decade so undesirable.
Well the MR2 and the RX7 probably wonât be all that expensive. 
Which is good because the rest of 'em, youâre right, will nuke the bank account.
I had an '88 CRX with one of those. âDual Point Fuel Injection,â it was called, and it was really more of a glorified carburetor than true injection. The higher-end model than the one I had used multi-point fuel injection, which put an injector into each cylinderâs intake, but mine had two injectors in a throat just below the throttle body. It was pretty common to swap from the DPFI to the MPFI system, which required an ECU swap as well as the TB/intake headers from the better car.
Some of them were designed in the late 1970s, but I was careful to choose only cars that were sold during the 1980s.
Donât make me go through the trouble of proving it.
I think he was talking to me. The 2000GT was made between '67 and '70, but itâs so cool I couldnât resist posting it. 
All the others I posted were 80âs cars, though (although he might be excused if he thought the Toyota Century was older, because if I recall they made that in almost the exact same body style for something like 20 years).
Yes I recalled seeing that 2000GT on the road in Japan in 1970.
But are cars considered classic that are only the shell of the original car?
That is a deep philosophical question. The rule is anything older than 25 years is a classic, but if the owner replaced an engine with a rebuilt engine of the same type, Iâd still call it a classic.
If the owner of a classic Checker A11 installed a brand new Chevy crate engine in it, Iâd call it a Frankencar.
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Old âclassicâ body style with a modern drivetrain is sort of the best of both worlds, if done well (in my opinion). Now, I wouldnât advise stuffing a small block Chevy and an overdrive transmission into a true classic / icon and decreasing the value. If itâs a run of the mill car that isnât super rare or a special edition (Yenko Camaro or something like that), Iâd actually prefer the modern drivetrain.
I talked to an older gent at a fast food restaurant who was driving across the state in a restored 55 Chevy with a modern (Corvette) engine, power windows, AC, remote alarm, etc. Pretty neat car. I know the original engine might make it worth more. But I think the modern engine and AC probably make it more fun. Especially driving long distances.
At the local âBlue Suede Cruiseâ the repowered old cars were called âstreet rodsâ and that seems to make some sense. A 1950 Ford with a fuel injected 350, TH 350 transmission, AC, etc isnât a âclassicâ to my way of thinking but it could be a fun car to own and drive. I see such cars on Meecum auctions and they just matter of factly describe the engine as though a GM engine in a Jaguar was an option on the car.
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Another name is âresto-modsâ, like a former 6-cylinder '65 Mustang with a modern Coyote V8, discs all around, etc, etcâŠ
No great loss of a Mustang 6.
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