Where do all of the former challenge cars go?????

Just a thought. Years ago I was able to purchase the Mongrel Motorsports Miata(2003 Challenge winner) and rebuild it. There are hundreds of old GRM Challenge cars in garages, behind sheds, bootlegging moonshine, running contraband to Mexico and ????

I've been thinking of starting a Lemons car build and thought that a former challenge car might be a decent starting platform. The "spirit" of the build is similar, start with crap and end up with better crap. Is my thinking right or completely off?

Interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks and stay safe.......

I sold me first one to a guy in Savahana who was going to use it's Miata suspension as a donor for an Opel GT.  My Q45 I raffled off here in the for sale section.  My 350z got sold here in disgust at the amount of sludge and me realizing I didn't want to own it afterall.

Widebody spirit was sold, gmiata is locally uncompetitive xsb car, neon is and will be a nice day driver.

My 2002 Corvair was sold to a local guy who caged it and prepped it for SCCA EP road racing.

my 2003 /2004 Corvair was sold to a restaurateur from Rochester NY, who's still got it.

my 2006 probe gt was my daily until 2010, then winter beater until I sold in 2011. Last I heard, the next owner after that turbo'd it.

my 2008 SBC 944 was sold to a guy in Chicago area in 2009 and never heard from again.

Haven't sold it yet but plan to after the 2021 Challenge.

I imagine Crusty the CRX will go to a GRM'er who wants to run it again or a local Honda kid who has a couple thousand and a death wish.

Kinda worried about that latter option.

Somewhere in a junkyard in NM. 

CrustyRedXpress (Forum Supporter) said:

Haven't sold it yet but plan to after the 2021 Challenge.

I imagine Crusty the CRX will go to a GRM'er who wants to run it again or a local Honda kid who has a couple thousand and a death wish.

Kinda worried about that latter option.

Once sold a crx to a kid. Saw him later at a gas station. Told me he went through two red lights thanks to brake lines not being zip tied away from the wheel.... whoops. 

I still have my 2013/2014 Firebird, but its for sale.

The 2017 S-10 V8 was sold, haven't seen it since.

Hard to remember it all clearly...

My 2010(?) Saab 9000 was sold to a BABE rally competitor and I think it made the trip without much issue. Chris might chime in to correct me on this...

2015ish e30 actually saw some track use but eventually my wife figured out how much fun it was and took it from me. We sold it when it became too small and old for us. 

2017 maybe was the Integra and I wound up spending some time doing a unique turbo setup and enjoying it a bit. Sold it when I needed to downsize the fleet.

2020 celica just left for a new home in Texas. I feel bad that it gave the new owner some trouble on the trip from Philly, but I also think I gave her a good deal on the price. It might have made her a convert so look for it next year. 

Anything earlier has been lost to the sieve that is my mind... I just started on next year's car earlier today and I plan on keeping it for a few years so that I might improve on my typical mid pack performance. 

I saw the Clown's 343 "Coop" Nissan Challenge car all the way up here in Northern Illinois at a used car dealership...for $3,500.

tb (minimally supportive) said:

Hard to remember it all clearly...

 

My 2010(?) Saab 9000 was sold to a BABE rally competitor and I think it made the trip without much issue. Chris might chime in to correct me on this...

 

As I recall they had no issues with the SAAB on BABE which weren't self induced (ie. hooning incidents)

My only challenge entry changed hands a few times came back to me and was basically given away to another forum member.  There's a build thread for it, he went a different direction but its still cool.

The YFH was originally my build but I didnt take it to the challenge, it was taken over by SVReX and went to the challenge and then eventually I ended up with it again and then it went on to other hands and I suspect is a refrigerator at this point.

Skidpad challenge car was stripped of its drivetrain and sold as a roller to someone who thought they'd set it up for offroad.  They'd have been better off with a chassis which wasn't dropped into the weeds but hey, its what they wanted, I suspect its a refrigerator as well.

I could go on for quite a while about the fates of the BABE cars over the 10 or so years we ran in it but the bottom line is, gone...dont care and this was about challenge cars not the more interesting stuff I played with.

Future builds, should any occur, will be stripped of usable parts and crushed.  Its just easier.

In reply to JThw8 :

Glad to hear it, I really liked that car. Also, good to hear from you, old friend. Too bad that I just moved to the Philly burbs only to find out that you have gone south...

tb (minimally supportive) said:

In reply to JThw8 :

Glad to hear it, I really liked that car. Also, good to hear from you, old friend. Too bad that I just moved to the Philly burbs only to find out that you have gone south...

Moved down here last year, there were a few posts about it here and elsewhere.   Best decision ever.  Still lacking a proper garage but I've been too busy getting the rest of the farm up and running.  Shop will get built next spring then the weirdness begins :)   Hard time to be in Philly though with the whole Covid thing.  Very happy to be away from population these days .

The Zoomboni returned to it's Tennessee birthplace after the 2009 challenge, where it languished in a garage for a decade.  Then a bit ove a year ago it was sold to me and I spent this last season autocrossing it locally in EMod.  It's still getting sorted out and developed but I finished off CKR and KYR region season closer events with FTDs.

It stupid and loud and gets attention and people love to see it on course.  So far about a dozen different people have taken it for fun runs and it even got triple driven at two events (two drivers in EM and another in AM). 

In reply to JThw8 :

Glad to hear you are happy, I can picture you with a farm full of rescue dogs pretty easily. We just moved back east from Denver a couple months ago, it is too crowded around here but the schools and neighborhoods are really good for family stuff.

I actually stopped near your neck of the woods on my way back from the challenge this year without realizing it, maybe next year I can plan a detour to catch up over dinner if it is safe to visit by then...

End threadjack 

I own 4 former challenge cars.  My datsun was 2010 dead last with PO and went 11th, 8th, and 3rd overall with me in 2015-17.  I own the aforementioned Wartburg as well as ka-bluey and John Welsh's 2015 Q45.  I sold my 2019 car before the event was over.  

In reply to tb (minimally supportive) :

2020 celica just left for a new home in Texas. I feel bad that it gave the new owner some trouble on the trip from Philly, but I also think I gave her a good deal on the price. It might have made her a convert so look for it next year. 

You met my friends then, some very cool people and it bummed me out when they moved away to Texas.   (And yeah, you gave them a great price)

The '05 Challenge CRX that I was a part of died an inglorious death.  We RallyX-ed it for a few years and then parked it because of lack of time to go racing.  After it sat for a couple years, my friend decided to try to start it up with no more prep work than finding the key and putting a fresh battery in it.  Jumped timing, bent a valve.  There was just too much rust on the car to make it worth fixing so off to the scrap yard. 

My '06 and '12 Challenge car - turbo 1gn Neon - sat in the garage for a number of years after it spent most of '06 lubricating the drag strip with a variety of fluids.  Once the CRX was killed, I decided to try to turn the Neon into a RallyX car and it's done okay in that regard ever since about '08 or '09 maybe.  I was able to solve most of its problems once I got it registered and insured so I could drive it around and troubleshoot it.  I brought it back in 2012 where it finished exactly in the middle so it provided a little bit of vindication.  Since then it's been re-powered, some new suspension, had a change of livery, and a few other things that would preclude it from ever returning.

The justang, one of my favorite challenge cars, appears  occasionally at local autocross events. 

It looks like a real handful to drive, but I'd sure love to have it!

Tubey is still waiting to fulfill her destiny as a challenge and OLoA car. And a daily.

I sold the Miata I had to spacecadet who poured more money into it and sold it again...

In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah, good people. It bummed me out that they had two failures on parts that were virtually brand new and couldn't be predicted. I hope they come to Gainesville soon one way or another.

Also, I did think it was a good deal until shortly afterwards I bought like $5k worth of parts and car for the same amount...

Challenge cars, if built competitively, are probably not good for much else besides the $2000 Challenge. Lemons would be a good exception to that rule.

My past Challengers: 

• 2019's overall winner "Datsaniti" - I autocrossed it all summer and just sold it last month. It's now in a storage building with about 20 other oddball cars. Owner has plans to do Pike's Peak with it...we'll see. It was built to win the Challenge, making it bad at most other things you would expect a car to do.
• 2016 Roadmaster wagon - I traded to a degen youth, who trashed the transmission within a couple months. It was regurgitated on craigslist over and over for the next year or so. Someone ended up pulling the motor to rebuild it. Probably languishing under a tarp would be my guess.
• Wreck Racing cars circa 2010-2013, including a supercharged 1UZ Miata, 2JZ MG Midget - parted out and/or scrapped.

I used my old one for autox and HPDEs for a few years after competing in the challenge. Eventually sold it when kid #1 was on the way along with my Trans Am. I'm fairly certain that car was not going to a good new owner but the guy paid me with cash in big bills and even offered me all kinds of firearms if I included all the spares with it. 

I still have my 79 GMC Sierra shortbox from 2013. It's slowly becoming a Montgomery Ward shop theme truck and keeps getting sidetracked for other projects.

2019 Challenge - 2009 P71 is still around.