My budget priorities say I'm grassroots. The choice part of it is that I'm in a paid for '97 Miata instead of a Camry or other transportation appliance with the soul of a toaster.
I understand the whole "what is grassroots?" argument - one guy's beater trade in is another guy's "new car". For me, grassroots is buying and driving and occasionally working on one of the cars I used to read about in Car and Driver but couldn't afford when new.
Well, I can tell you from experience that being lectured by your boss about how calling in and saying that you'll be late b/c your windshield wipers stopped working is NOT FUN.
I think the New vs. Old = Which to you enjoy more? Working on your car or driving your car? I did the "old" car thing for a while and then realized I was spending more time working on it than driving it. I like to work on my car but I get more pleasure from driving it.
And I don't think that being "Grassroots" has anything to do with a car being old or new. It's all about the approach you take to modifying the car and what you do with the car once modifed.
My neighbor has a 944 that he has put some Hoosiers on and runs time trials. I have a Ford Focus that I have modified to the point that I can run right with him on the track. Which of us is more "Grassroots"?
Hmmm where do i fit in my cars are a 84, 85, 85, 91, 94, 94, 95, 96 budget wise 4 of them cost little to nothing but the modifications will make them much more valuable to me, I wheel and deal for parts and fab what i can. I can't image selling any of them before they either rust to the frame or rack up so many miles they are beyond my abilities.
I do all my own work up to building a trans. I almost never pay retail, I beg, borrow and scam to get deals on what i need and I'm proud of them all.
Four of these cars are for my small business and four are toys, I have in different periods made no money and made a pretty good living over the past 9 years.
I am proud of the fact that al of them are RWD and V8 powered, grunt grunt
I have a very, very simple definition of "new". OBDII. So if it's 1996 or newer, then it requires OBDII diagnostics, and it's therefore new. A 1995 can still be scanned with a paper clip so it's "old". Good?
I still like the definition of Grassroots to be actually using what you have. I don't care if it still has the window sticker or if it's old enough to be my grandpa, if it's at the track on the owner's dime then it's grassroots.
Nah, that wasn't funny. Deleted.
I think that there is a pretty big gray area. A 1991 E30 seems old in the sense that it is a classic (to me), whereas a 1992 E36 seems new.
David S. Wallens wrote: I simply recorded the model years for every car that participated in our local autocross series during 2007. We had 161 cars participate at our events, and the average model year was 2000.
19 years old. Not my daily driver.
Hal said said: And I don't think that being "Grassroots" has anything to do with a car being old or new. It's all about the approach you take to modifying the car and what you do with the car once modifed.
well said... i dont know that i want to try and define what Grassroots is, id rather define what it is not.. and thats paying others to do the work for you. id make an exception for a few things, like safety items, tire mounting, chip reprogramming, stuff that even most advanced back yard mechanics dont usually do. another words buying a solution instead of creating one whenever possible would not be grm qualifying to me...id rather see garden hose, duct tape and tin foil under the hood done in a "professional" (and safe) manner, than a host of new replacement parts..
In reply to 924guy:
Grassroots is the "run what you brung" world. Some people can't afford to do ANY major modifircations on their cars since they use them as a DD. Yet you'll see these guys at every autocross, every trackday, every drag race. These people qualify as grassroots. We see a stock MINI in the GRM mag running and that is considered grassroots. Grassroots is doing it for the fun NOT for the trophy. The trophy is just a perk.
I think it's running at your level. It's about maximum enthusiasm. I did 72 track days in my E46 M3 in two years. I bought the car as a one year old CPO and it cost $42,000. Was that grassroots? Probably not, but I was out there every week, burning my fingers off changing brake pads at the track, smudging up my rich nappa leather by toting around Pilot Sport Cups in the back seat...
Now my budget has changed a bit and I have my LS2 GTO. I am so upside down in this car I couldn't get out of it if I wanted to. But I bought it new, I absolutely love it, and I am happy to come in near the bottom of my autocross class in it because it's so much fun to drive. Grassroots? Eh, maybe. It's my "real car" and I bring it out to events.
Now my toy cars... The '01 P71. Certainly grassroots. Cheap, easy to modify, rewarding to drive, cult following.
'93 Roadmaster wagon: I don't know if it's grassroots but it is certainly cheap. Maybe it will be a grassroots project if I decide to set my target at the Impala SS and start modifying it, but now it's just the winter beater.
'86 Volvo 745t: Sure, I'll go grassroots on this. $5 on an eBay manual boost controller and you can turn up the fun with the twist of a knob. I prefer it to the E30s and other older German cars I've had. But I haven't taken this one out to any events and I just enjoy tweaking it and driving it. Grassroots? Sure.
I would love to have new cars. I would love to have a CTS-V that I drive every day and a ZR-1 or a GT3 to take to the track. I can't do that. Per wrote a Busted Knuckles a while back about Drivers and Fabricators. I am a Driver. For the most part, the only reason I have cars I work on and repair and tweak are because I can't afford cars that I wouldn't need to do this for.
Car projects with an eye on the budget... Little compromises of performance over comfort... Waking up at 4:30 in the morning, loading up a car, and heading out in the dark to a strange parking lot for a 280 seconds of driving... Commuting in a project car and keeping a vigilant eye on the temp gauge hoping that the StopLeak holds... Changing a water pump in the parking lot at work because it blew on the way home and not even considering having it towed somewhere for somebody else to fix...
These things are grassroots. I don't care if it's a 23 year old Volvo station wagon or a tracked-out S2000. I think grassroots is all about having fun with what you have and not being an shiny happy person to people who have to enjoy less expensive toys.
I think some cars are exceptions to the 'older = more $$$' rule. My '83 Volvo, for instance, is so easily repaired/replaced with inexpensive aftermarket or junkyard supplies that I have no fear when running it hard. The thing is so durable, and so easy for me to work on, that it hasn't seen a repair made outside of my own garage in over 12 years. That makes a good grassroots racer for me.
Lugnut wrote: '86 Volvo 745t: Sure, I'll go grassroots on this. $5 on an eBay manual boost controller and you can turn up the fun with the twist of a knob.
When I transitioned my 240 to 'toy' car status, I actually bought an '89 745T as my DD. I put together a MBC and dialed the fun to 14psi. Grassroots DD!
Coupled with my wife's '93 Volvo, I also have about 90% parts commonality on the major running gear - in a pinch, I always have a backup on hand. More Grassroots thinking!
Note: this is not a plug for you all to run out and buy Volvos - leave my supply alone! 
i'm tired of fixing "daily driver" status vehicles that my parents get because they don't want car payments. it's eating into my project car time.
i prefer to have a newer "daily driver" which is why i bought the 99 P71. by daily driver i mean the car i drive in winter when i am not working, because my true daily driver is a 90 C3500 dually which i carry half my tools around in and build stuff with.
i like keeping everything else old(er). my 54 belair and 76 c30 dump truck are the 2 most relaible vehicles i own. carb + HEI = start every time. no sensors to go wrong and diagnose, no computer funny business. i'm the first guy to step up though and do newer swaps, EFI stuff. it's all fun new or old as long as i can make it go faster and handle better.
Hmm, the cars i've owned have been an 87,89,86,95,92,91 and a 93 now. I've never spent more than $1300 on a vehicle purchase and my road bike is 15 years newer than my dd and I paid the same price for them. The suspension parts in my Escort are from the mishmash Ford family compact car parts pile. I think I qualify for the grassroots part of this equation. On the other hand, When I make enough dough, a Yaris or Accent hatch looks very enticing for sub $15k. Oh yeah, I prefer a car with manual windows due to bad experiences with locking keys in!
Red Green is Grassroots.
I bought a 2006 Rx8 with 17k miles for $15k. I realized that I was trying to turn my FB into what the Rx8 already was.
In reply to joshx99:
I always find that interesting. The pragmatic side of me always feels that you could just buy a newer car that performs very well, is more reliable, safer, and caneven be repaired, for the price of all the money that you put into getting a "grassroots" car to perform just as well.
Then there's that other side...
P71 wrote: ...I still like the definition of Grassroots to be actually using what you have. I don't care if it still has the window sticker or if it's old enough to be my grandpa, if it's at the track on the owner's dime then it's grassroots.
if you add if its there with some of the owners knuckle blood on it, you may have just written the perfect definition of Grassroots.
What is more grassroots, old or new?
My one line generic response, which can be directed at this topic or my wife: Whatever turns you on.
Coupefan wrote: What is more grassroots, old or new?
Whichever one is being driven hard.
I have mix of old and new cars.
For daily drivers for my wife and I perfer newer cars. New as in last 10 years with sub 150k miles. We have two daily cars right now 2003 and 2002 with 80k and 90k on them. We bought them years ago as 2-3 year old cars and plan to keep them to 150k or so. How long depends on how they hold-up. One concern is getting stranded in daily driver is no fun at all.
Now for fun cars I have older ones. 88 Porsche 944 Turbo S and an 84 944 that is made into a race car. I run these cars since they were cheap to obtain and not to complex to maintain. Since I have built the 944 race car from the ground up I know I can maintian these cars indefinitely. If something fails on them I park it until I get time/parts to fix it. Now I could try use a daily driver for track fun, but that is major compromise. It means not as much fun track car and no so comfortalble daily car.
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