Project car Earworms..

53 Studebaker Champion with a fastback rear window section from something like a late 60's Barracuda.

A "Maxi Cooper" (or Mega Cooper?)

Mid-90's Caravan/Voyager, setup with 2 3.0 or 3.3 powertrains. Ine stock, 2nd in the rear. White roof; chromed oval mirrors, Mini badging. 

Heck, you maybe call it a Continent. 

The Maxi and In Continent jokes alone make me chuckle. But not enough to actually build it. 

I've had this idea rattling around in my head since about 2000 or so...

Take a 1997 and newer white Ford Econoline cargo van. Build a 5.4L that can take a crap ton of boost. Add a big Whipple supercharger. The exhaust would be NASCAR-style boom tube side exhaust. Tub the rear end to accept stupidly wide drag radials. Add bracing to the cargo area making is useless as a cargo van.

Drive a 700+hp street terror that looks like a crappy work van. Enjoy epic burnouts. Call it "The Fridge".

Appleseed said:

Dirt modifid for the  street.  Body doesn't matter.  Engine doesn't matter.  Just need a cheap, non-competitive chassis and a way to make it go left AND right. 

it's an idea that-will-not-die.

I turned a feather light modified in to a road course car. The left right problem is a non issue if you get an older chassis that is square. You can make the changes in less than a day.  I put a 4age and a trans from a Toyota truck in it. The thing was a hoot. A go cart for big kids. 

Taking a Suzuki Swift/Geo Metro, and putting the G13B in the middle. Problem is, this gets you almost nothing, as It doesn't address the glass stock transmission with its lousy gearing.

Lots of work for little gain. I need to get rid of all my old parts, and maybe I'll stop thinking about it.

I always wanted a reliable European cabrio.  I want to take some Spider (Fiat 124, Alfa Spyder, Spitfire, TR6, etc) and drop in a super-reliable drivetrain and more modern suspension geometry.  Drive it every day.  It could be something as bulletproof as a 1NZ-FE, or something equally juggernaut like a 3.8 Buick V6 or a Mazda/Duratec.

Did you know that a 2000's WRX is about the same weight as a 1973 Ford Maverick?  And if you do some surgery to the Maverick's shock towers, the entire AWD STI drivetrain would give you a killer AWD Maverick?  I had the Maverick and a super-built Suby happened to be in a government surplus auction.  It was all done with billet bits, AN plumbing, and lots of forged stuff.  It was built for a light rotor aircraft, so seriously overkill.  I was going to boost it to the moon and drop it in the Maverick with the whole AWD bits, strip it bare with a cage and a sheet aluminum dash, weld the doors shut, put a big number and some Ford livery on the side.... and a radio, A/C, and a cup holder.  I would have daily driven that thing.  Imagine pulling up to a stoplight beside a full-on race-looking car while the person in it listens to NPR and sips a Starbucks.  Just another day, driving a race car to the office.  I would have opened that box of all the stickers you get when you buy performance parts and slapped them on the box-flared flanks as if they were sponsors.  I didn't win the auction for the Suby, but I never gave up on the idea.

And, of course, who hasn't wanted a water-cooled, porsche-powered split window VW bus?  No one?  Just me?  Ok.

I also had the bug for a ford-powered 87 Cutlass.

I had the Cutlass.  It was really cherry with only 60k on it.  It was a Cutlass Salon with the 442 appearance package.  It got you all of the 442 options like rally gauges, floor shifter, wheels, and gold rocker decals, but not the 442 engine.... which was no great loss.  In 1987, the standard 307 made 140 hp and the 442 only made 170.

I had a 302 longblock and some GT40 heads and found that there were some oil pans that might fit with a little help.  I would have built it for about 325 hp and put a T5 behind it.  Then, just to piss people off, I would put some 5.0L badges from a Mustang on the fenders.

Instead I built the 302 and sold it.  I figured the Cutlass might bring good money and it eventually did

My re occurring build is much less ambitious than a lot of you here. Start with a early 2000s XK8 tin top and put a mildly worked over LM4 in it with a manual trans.   In my mind it is the car they should have built.  
 

I also have wanted to put a supercharged i6 in one from an XJ but that would just be building a DB7  unless the xk was free it would probably be cheeper to just by a db7.  The one Tyler Hoover had just sold for about 35k so maybe it would make sense to build a DB7 clone  

Drivetrain from a 3.7 V6 Mustang into an early 2000's Cougar.  RWD conversion and all.  Sounds like fun to me!

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

In about 1968, someone was doing their daily commute past my school bus stop in a VW van with a Porsche flat six. Rumor was that it was mid mounted.

I'd wait for that thing every day. You could always hear it coming, crackling and popping as it slowed for the intersection.

If I ever come into some sort of money to do it right, I've always wanted to take a Bradley GT fiberglass body, put it on a full tube chassis with a mid-mounted Turbo 4 and make an autocross / track day kart.

When I had my '96 MX-6 V-6, I dreamed of somehow converting it to RWD, with a 250-ish hp V-6. Those were the only two things that car really needed. Now I have more realistic, but also never going to happen, dreams of a 2nd-gen MR2 V-6 swap and a 3rd-gen Camaro LS swap like the DSE Camaro.

I've got three unfinished projects.  Want to finish two of them. Then take Frankenfiat plus a salvage ghia and make a rear-engined, Subaru turbo-powered  rallycross car.

Ever since I read an issue of Car and Driver in a waiting room that was talking about the guy who flipped a Corvair transmission upside down to mid-mount a V8 I've been taken with the idea of building a mid engine car.  I've even gathered the parts to build a transverse mid-rear mounted H22 Prelude.  My wife wouldn't let me buy an MR2 Spyder when we already had a couple Preludes, so...  I think falls under the term "malicious compliance."

A nostalgia driven idea: Ever since I had an old 94 Escort wagon I’ve wanted to do a turbo BP powered Escort, nothing too racecar, just something fun and 90s retro to drive around in the summer. Preferably it would be another wagon if I can find a non-rusty body, but I’d settle for a two door without the GT body work. Both my grandpas had two door Escorts when I was a little kid so the warm fuzzy memories are strong.

Also... all the jokes I could make about my grandpas and their Escorts.

from a few years ago:
1) finding an Altima Coupe VQ35 (or maybe a Venture) and building an unlimited class TT car, that's sorta an homage the Nissan Nismo GT-R LM

2) lately I've thought a little idly about an e or d mod R53 or R56 MINI 'vert

3) some kind of street/track mod CR-Z, gen1 veloster turbo, or possibly a 4th gen prelude

4) I stumbled across Iron Trap Garages '39 Ford w/ a y-block.  Which had me learn about the Lincoln Y-Block that's in a '54 Lincoln of the in-laws that supposedly becomes my responsibility someday.  Which has me looking around at Falcons and Fairlanes as possible "OHV pushrod ford motor learning car"...

5) General GRM$Challenge and OneLap... stuff

One I've had in my head for years is a '65 Falcon with a souped-up T-bird Turbo Coupe Motor and 5-speed, good suspension bits, Minilites and yellow foglamps on the bumper

I want an rs200. I have wanted an rs200 forever and as many times as I bury the thought, it always returns. There are kits available in the UK, but there is no way I could just put a kit together, even if I could afford it. Pretty sure I could dimensionally adjust a Midlana build to fit an rs200 replica body.

I'd hafta unload all my current projects and focus on one build; that ain't happening....

The only one I'm still hell-bent on is a turbo slant six valiant. I'd rather buy one already "done" though, or I'll never finish it.

Put acvw trans with a kennedy adapter to a zetec in a Renault 8. Use miata front spindles and 80s vw fwd spindles and struts on the rear 

The rearward power takeoff on early K24 CR-Vs is low enough on the trans that you could rotate it forward and it would clear the oil pan with minor notching at worst.

In reply to Appleseed :

Like this? From the model car build.

I want a 2008 2009 two door focus coupe with a Fiesta ST drivetrain. An updated B13 SE-R of sorts. Lowered on coil overs with meaty tires and big brakes. 

You guys are berkeleying with my brain.  I had a nap today and dreamed I was putting a VG30DETT in an early Fiat 124 Spider.

Always wanted Vega GT with a Buick turbo V6.