While sporty cars and diesels may seem incompatible, today's Scirocco proves the mix is not impossible. This VW's price on the other hand may come up incomparable.

In the old Popeye cartoons, Eugene the Jeep could make himself disappear at will, usually resulting in animated hilarity ensuing. In contrast, a massive 95% of you felt yesterday's wasn't going to disappear from its present owner's driveway anytime soon at its current asking price. Not only that, but the discussion became quite animated.

For the longest time Jeep's CJ-series was about the most rudimentary 4-wheeled vehicle sold in…

Popeye's drug of choice was of course spinach, that iron-rich leafy green that allowed the cartoon sailor to resolve nearly any situation by way of super-human fisticuffs. Consider if you were faced with the situation of having a first-gen Volkswagen Scirocco and that company's early diesel mill, would it be your choice to contemplate potential outcomes over a vegetable side? Or, would you get those bad boys together as fast as you could, Bluto be damned?

That's the decision that no doubt faced the builder of today's . Sporting bawd-awful wheels, and an iconic can of marbles under the hood, this car gives Americans something that Europeans have had since about 2009, an oil-burner Scirocco.

Of course that new car doesn't feature the awesome Giugiaro styling of our car, and at about 3,000 pounds it's half again heavier. Oh sure, the contemporary Scirocco TDI manages to muster up to 170-bhp from its 2-litre TDI four while this car's 1981 1.5 offers less than 50 ponies in its corral. Pffft.

Fifty horsepower? Or, to be more exact, 49? That might seem like a lot in some instances, like on a motorcycle where that would be enough to let the bike get out of its own way, or in a sex toy where 49-hp would mean its user would never leave the house. Ever.

In this Scirocco however, it probably means that you'll need to look toward the car's famous handling for fun rather than its acceleration. And that's okay because it's an early Scirocco and as an added benefit it likely gets the 50-mpg the seller claims.

What's the good and the bad and the fugly about the car as presented in the ad? Well, the headliner's gone the way of Elvis, and despite the presence of speakers there's no head unit so no NPR for you! It also is claimed to have a couple of rust spots on the body, but it's being in Oregon, that's to be expected.

Overall, the car looks good for its age in the pics. The seats seem to be in good shape, however the dash is capped with carpet, a sign that it may be all it's cracked up to be. There's also apparently no spare, and again, there's those wheels.

That diesel mill is said to rock but 1,000 miles so it's hardly even broken in, and of course there is a stick to back that up, an auto box being the death knell to slow cars like this. The title is clean and, as it supposedly runs on french fry oil and old Stridex pads, so is the car.

The seller gives no reason for selling the car that seemingly has been a fairly recent project, but he does give a price, which is $5,900. That's a lot for an old Scirocco that hasn't been totally reworked, but keep in mind it has that rebuilt motor under the hood and that's a chunk of change right there if it was done right.

What do you think about this diesel Scirocco and its $5,900 price tag, is that a deal that should have the car rattling in someone new's driveway sometime soon? Or, is this a Scirocco with a price that blows?

You decide!

Portland , or go if the ad disappears.

H/T to Nick in Portlandia for the hookup!

Help me out with NPOCP. Click to send a me a fixed-price tip, and remember to include your Kinja handle.