Back in 2008, I helped start Texas A&M's Grassroots Challenge program as part of the chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers when I was a student there. Some of you may remember this car from the $2009 Challenge:
Well, yesterday around 9:30AM my friend sent me a link to a Craigslist ad, 118 miles away:
selling a 92 Honda civic road race car shell. no title but I have a bill of sale from Texas A&M university, they used this car as a project.
body and paint is clean and straight, doors were gutted for weight and has dash and all of the wiring and lights. I have all of the suspension and brakes but not installed. I do not have the shocks/ struts.
$500obo
A few frantic text messages were exchanged, and myself and one of the other guys that started the program back in the day agreed we HAD to do something. So, approximately 24 hours and 30 minutes later, I loaded her up on the trailer.
The guy that posted the ad was the same guy I sold the car to 1,246 days prior when we parted out the car to raise money for a new build. He had intended to turn it into a road racing car, but never did anything with it. Just parked it under a tree for three and a half years. When I showed up to pick it up, he had bolted some stock GSR suspension to it and washed it off for me. We agreed on $440, and rolled it on the trailer. He admitted that had I not contacted him when I did, it would have been sold for scrap the same day along with two other DC2 shells. So I very literally saved it from the jaws of a crusher by a matter of hours. He was very happy to see it return to someone who would rebuild it, and I was ecstatic that my favorite Civic has a new lease on life.
She's tucked safely away in my garage outside Houston.
I floored how well it still looks. The paint looks far better than I would expect given it was painted by unskilled students and left outside under a tree for three years. The inside is full of leaves, but nothing that can't be cleaned up. We're racing against the clock, but we'll be entering her in the $2014 Challenge in a few short months. I'll start a build thread as we get moving. Thanks for listening. I think I need to just drink a beer and sit in the garage and look at it for a little while to fully comprehend what I've done. It's been a tumultuous past 36 hours.
