For anyone who wasn't paying attention, or simply forgot about it over the last 4mos, I adopted Stampie's old Bradley GT body.
There is a nearly three month gap in that thread(thanks COVID), where I spent a whole bunch of time mentally building and rebuilding this project before the Bradley ever touched my property. This intro may get lengthy...
Standing at Stampie's bar during the '19 Challenge, several drinks and hours deep in race car talks, I was asked what I thought the proper recipe was for a top shelf Challenge car. I tend to follow the "simplify and add lightness" mentality, but when factoring for the budget aspect our starting points aren't always ideal. There is another quote lost to the annals of racing history something to the effect of, "a race car chassis should be sturdy and simple; and so should the driver." I have no idea where I heard that and surely butchered the paraphrasing, but mix in "cheap" and these objectives play heavily into my program. A proven inexpensive route to working suspension involves grabbing and modifying production based stuff vs. designing 100% from scratch. My autoX Ranger and Datsaniti are solid proofs of concept, even the LMP 360 is using production uprights.
Following that discussion, I really wanted to do an actual Challenge build and was all over the map about what exactly that should look like. My Silly Season thoughts continually returned to using an 03+ Panther chassis. SLA front end with an aluminum cradle, parallel 4link rear with a watts, v8 noises, what's not to like? Yeah, trade some weight for durability no doubt, but budget car building is all about optimizing compromises. I had originally decided that I would cut the chassis down to fit the whole mess under a Festiva for lightness and was using this render I found online as motivation
It was going to be brilliant and I started shopping for donors in January/February. I located a few Panther options and found myself battling with derby guys for the cheapest ones so I called up a buddy in that scene and got as much market info as possible. In March, Brad appeared on the radar and I stopped Festiva shopping. There was a thought that I could slap this together and make it to the Challenge for 2020. COVID had other plans, and with the delivery forcefully postponed, I lost sight of that goal month by month. I did however drag home a running and driving, $400, 2004 Mercury Grand Marquis in April.
2020 has become a year of shifted priorities and wrapping up or selling off projects on-hand to facilitate a narrower focus on this project, once it begins. I sold my F600 project which became the chassis under F-Dat, the Mustang I was supposed to take to Challenge was parted out, I sold the SHO that did go to Challenge, and I got really close to re-releasing my T-bird from project car jail. I am not infallible however as I also brought home a Country Squire and a stray BroncoII...this is my world...
I continued mentally building up Brad and saving more internet images for inspiration.
In May, we introduced Brad to the MGM, made some rough measurements to confirm compatibility, rolled some wheels around, and made vroom-vroom sounds.
And then everything sat while I got my E36 M3 together; working my way toward a clear plate and an "empty" shop. In the interim, a large life change presented itself, and I dialed up a couple locals(we will call them Bob[zilla] and CB) to make this a team effort. I will need the extra hands and the mental support to stay on track. This weekend, I moved things into the shop and removed the first parts from the MGM.
The surprisingly clean body is already claimed by my derby buddy, and I yanked all four of the striker bushings to replace the ones missing from my wagon.
TL;DR, My 2021 Challenge, Free Crappy Fiberglass Car build is officially underway!
