Yesterday THIS showed up

If you think "that is a pile of hot garbage", then you would agree with my wife. And truthfully, I would mostly agree with you as well.

However, it was $150, and has many parts that may be relevant to our challenge effort. The shell might even be a better starting point that the car we already have. That is still TBD.

Interesting parts this car has:

• Fiberglass hood, doors, trunklid
• aluminum front splitter
• aluminum dashboard
• front and rear anti-roll bars (none were ever stock on fiat x1/9s to my understanding)
• widened stock steel wheels at all 4 corners
• various "bolt-in" structural braces and the "roll bar"
• a few other race-car mods
• 2 extra rear lower a-arms including ball-joints (these ball joints are NLA and if they are good they command a reasonable value on the used market).

Here are some more pics for those interested.

I agree with your wife. What's your challenge car right now?

Very cool!

I agree with your wife, but still it was only $150 what's the worst that could happen?

I'm having trouble with the steering wheel set up. Is the driver supposed to sit crookedly in order to reach the pedals?

Otherwise awesome! Good score.

That is one steaming pile of awesome right there. Any chance you could make it the other kind of "barely legal" and drive it to work, at least once?

It looks like a fun pile of hot garbage!

I looked at it at first and thought it was a dirt track Fiero.

You know that car's name is Ron, right?

Love the apparently homemade front bumper.

Appleseed wrote: You know that car's name is Ron, right?

Your wife needs glasses.....

Sandblaster purchase in 3, 2, 1...

I am sure your neighbors are not nearly as proud of you as we are!
Very cool!

Another +1 for a steaming pile of awesomeness.

Reminds me of the theoretical car that my friend and I thought about back a long time ago. An 164 powered X1/9.

Although, I would really consider a 2.0l TS as that power instead of the v6.

Realistically, though, I think one of the best of the best engines for that comes out of an Integra Type R if it can be found.

Some serious E-Mod thinking there.

BTW, Robbie- do you know anyone in chassis design? I don't, but I'm sure they could come up with a pretty special suspension design for that.

That hot pile of garbage is cool

Left foot braking would be interesting in that fella.

To answer a couple of questions:

1. Our challenge car is another x1/9 we bought last fall. There is a build thread I have not updated in way too long (though most of our big updates are in parts acquisition during the winter). I'll try to link these two threads together soon.
2. There is a custom gas pedal on the right side of the steering column. I think this was driven like a go cart, with one foot on each side of the column support (yikes). Hopefully there was a trustworthy anti sub belt. But clutch and brake must have been done with left foot.

Finally, I do have a dirty little secret. Rather than drive 16 hours round trip to go pick this thing up, I did get it shipped to me with uship. I paid $540 ish to ship (of which, $40 was my fee, and the shipper pays 19% of the $500... So uship takes $140 of the $540, which is nuts).

BUT! I have rationalizations!

The first Fiat we bought for $250. So far, I have already sold 686.14 out of that Fiat. $150 purchase plus $540 shipping is $690. So I'm telling myself that I have purchased two fiats for $253.86, which is still a good deal in my mind.

I haven't really worked out the challenge math yet though.

stroker wrote: Sandblaster purchase in 3, 2, 1...

Don't need one. Just get a vacuum-bagging leaf blower to clean out the interior and instead of bagging, just blow the debris back at the car. GRM walnut shell blasting.

+2 for a steaming pile of AWESOME!

Looks like it shouldn't be too hard to build a competitive car within budget. Just a lot of elbow grease.

Due to the placement of the hood pin latch plate, I read the race number as 7.7

vwcorvette wrote: Love the apparently homemade front bumper.

Sadly those are stock

This is great! Leave the patina. Stuff huge motor, safety, and go!

Sadly, i think a d16z6 would be the big motor for this. With boost. And aluminum flywheel. Plenty of power at that weight, compact, and cheap. The turbo would be optional depending on space.

In reply to Robbie: Real math and car math are two different things. Real math is for the banker, car math is for your wife