Greetings:

I am contemplating the purchase of my first brick and will be looking at two 740s this week - an '89 744T with about 185K miles on the clock and a '91 744 non-turbo with about 150K. Both are automatics. The information that I have so far is that they are clean cars but I am a bit gun shy of the turbo since I do not think the service history is available (both are at a used car dealership over an hour away.)

I have two questions:

Are the non-turbo 740 sedans underpowered? I felt that my parent's '88 244 B230F with 4 speed auto was adequate - would the '91 740 NA "feel" about the same? I live in hilly NE Pennsylvania and do a lot of highway driving and I hope that it would not be as bad as my current '91 Jetta NA Diesel is on long highway grades (even with its tweaked injection pump and 2.25" exhaust.)

Should I shy away from an '89 turbo if the service history is not available? I have read all of the information that I could find here (and over at Swedishbricks.net) but I am still on the fence. I do all of my own work but would like to avoid a time/money pit if possible.

Any thoughts (especially on the NA 740 acceleration characteristics or possible lack thereof by current/past owners) are greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Andrew S.