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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! We had as close to a tie as you're going to see in the Hell Garage, last time around, with the '77 911 Turbo just barely beating the '78 911 Turbo in the poll. Now it's time to return to some mano-a-mano PCH Superpower action, and not only that- it's time to look at crazy orphan cars from across the ocean, cars that will make passersby shun you like the freak you are admire your rebellious spirit. France versus Britain! Simca versus Humber! You got your Reliants and your Lloyds, but when you're talking about weird British marques that Americans can't identify… well, it's tough to beat a Humber. You get your Rootes Group-ish Chrysler-influenced styling, Lucas Electrics, and ahead-of-its-time technology (well, not really, unless the time is being set in Detroit) with the Magnificent Humber Sceptre ! Just look at that fine hunk...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! When we last dove into the triazadienyl fluoride -filled Garage-O-Pain, we learned that eternity with a Lancia Scorpion would be better- or maybe worse- than eternity with an Austin Healey Sprite race car. We've been neglecting our four-wheelin' friends for too long; in fact, the last time we pitted one four-wheel-drive truck against another was last winter's Farm Equipment Edition PCH . So here we go- does PCH Microbe Japan have any hope whatsoever against PCH Superpower Britain? We'll find out today! You hear a lot about the Toyota Land Cruiser , but don't forget that Nissan also made an off-road truck back in the day! That's right, we mean the Nissan Patrol, and you can get this '69 (go here if the ad disappears) for under a thousand bucks. Well, that's the asking price; reading the statement "i have it parked behind...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Yesterday, the Ferrari 328GTS vanquished the Japanese upstart NSX in a PCH Superpower Smackdown, which should make fellow PCH Superpowers Britain and France- unsettled since a Glas beat a Lotus day before yesterday - breathe a sigh of relief. Today we're going to let a couple of Superpowers have at it, in a Sub-$500 Race Car Challenge: Britain versus Italy! With UDMan's '63 Corvair raising the Index Of Effluency stakes for next year's New England 24 Hours Of LeMons , anyone who shows up with the same ol' snoozeworthy RX-7 or Camaro will be the object of well-deserved ridicule by his or her peers. You need to limp roar onto the track in a car manufactured by one of the Big Three PCH Superpowers, and we've managed to find one that already has a roll cage! In fact, this '68 Austin Healey Sprite is a proven racing champion, having...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Yesterday, we found a way for a Citroën SM to lose a PCH challenge: set up a pretty nice example as a clay pigeon to be blasted to dust by a heap of vaguely Ferrari-ish parts. No, it wasn't fair, but it proves the point that the SM still reigns as the King Of Project Car Hell. Now that we're in an upset sort of mood, let's see if it's possible for a German project to take on one of the Big Three PCH Superpowers and win! What the hell is a Glas ? Glas was the company that built the beloved Goggomobil , but it got gobbled up by mean ol' BMW and the marque disappeared after 1968. Before BMW axed Glas, however, you could buy the sporty 1700 GT from BMW dealers as a sort of Glas/BMW branding mashup, and that appears to be what this 1967 Glas is. The top bid of $260.55 failed to meet the reserve price, so we're pretty sure the seller will...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Yesterday, the "get out of jail free" supercharged Beretta edged out the "must stand 100 feet back to take the photo" Mazda Millenia in the Choose Your Eternity poll , in a 54:46 split vote. For today, we're going with a couple of cars suggested by 24 Hours Of LeMons -loving readers who were inspired by the Corvair and Peugeot 505 Turbo racers to look for even better LeMons entries… When you think about a Chrysler-engined British car, the Jensen Interceptor is probably the first thing that comes to mind. While the Interceptor makes a fine Project Car Hell candidate , its perceived value to Jensen masochists aficionados is such that you'll never find one for anywhere close to the 500-buck 24 Hours Of LeMons limit. Hold on, though- what about the Bristol 408 ? Powered by the good ol' reliable Chrysler 313 , the Bristol combined...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! In our last foray into the Burning Garage O'Pain™, the Buick Reatta beat the Olds Troféo by a 53% to 47% poll split. We've had unifying vehicular themes for most of our Hell Challenges recently, but sometimes you need to choose between two totally different eternities- say, one in which St. Helena earwig s colonize your bile ducts, and another in which you are stuck in an Amway PowerPoint presentation 24/7. And, just for fun, we're going Warsaw Pact versus NATO, with one machine from the hottest period of the Cold War and the other from the wild and crazy endgame. Back when we were gearing up for some toe-to-toe nuclear combat with the Rooskies, a man could walk into his friendly Dodge dealership and order him up a Town Wagon, to haul six or eight passengers reliably (if not comfortably), or he could opt for the military-truck-based four-wheel...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Yesterday, we had the chance to choose between two potential moonshine runners, with either of which one might keep bread on the table during the coming Financiapocalypse , and the Mercury Maruader beat the BMW 850i like Junior Johnson beat the North Carolina Highway Patrol's '53 Ford Mainlines back in the day. However, some of you- I'm not going to use the word "whiners," though it did occur to me- complained that those two cars didn't rate high enough readings on the Hell-O-Meter™. In other words, Hell isn't hot enough for you! We aim to please here, so let's flood the garage with chlorine triflouride , park some more challenging projects inside, and slam the door on you… for eternity! We all thought it was a pretty good score when Seatbelt123 picked up two Alfa Romeo Milanos for his 24 Hours Of LeMons team for just $299...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Yesterday, we saw the "Bentley" (actually a Rolls with Bentley grille) beat the "Rolls-Royce" (actually a Vanden Plas Princess with a Rolls grille) in the Choose Your Eternity poll in a 59/41 vote. Today we're going to contemplate the concept of fame . Now, none of us can afford to buy JFK's Continental or the Gremlin from Wayne's World , but that doesn't mean we don't have a shot at a famous car- we just need to aim lower! And today… well, we're aiming really low! When you want to drive a car that was once owned by a famous actor, you can expect to pay big bucks, and when the car is a vintage Italian machine with suicide doors? Forget it! Hold on, though, because we work miracles here at Project Car Hell… and we can put you behind the wheel of this 1960 Lancia Appia (sorry, the ad got pulled from Craigslist, so...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Last time we stepped into the garage in which the gentleman with the pitchfork conducts his business, the choice had to be made between two 1973 PCH Superpower machines, one Italian and one British. Only one car can win, and this time Italy triumphs, with the $2,500 Pantera beating the Lotus Elite, with 70% of the votes. Today we're going with a topic that's been on everyone's mind lately: what will you drive after the Fianciapocalypse? The vehicular options readers suggested were sound, but, in my opinion, the best way to ride out hard times is to become the unquestioned leader of a powerful religio-militaro-pharmaceutical cult, complete with desert compound and "soldiers" on dune buggies… and for that, you must drive a car whose mere presence shouts "Warlord Prophet approaching!" For that, only vintage British luxury will...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! The spirit of the Madman couldn't push the '53 Muntz Jet over the 16 Peugeots in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity challenge , although the Jet did give the Instant French Junkyard a good run for their money. Today we're going with a new concept: two very different cars with very similar engine displacements. Yes, it's Detroit versus Stuttgart, with the super-sophisticated 6.9 V8 taking on the blunt-instrument 421 V8. It's always fun to have a Jalopnik Fantasy Garage inhabitant in Project Car Hell, and JFG-meister Loverman himself gets the blame credit for sending in this tip. Would you believe just 1,200 bucks for this '77 Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 (go here if the ad disappears)? No, we haven't been huffing starter fluid again- that's the for-real price. Yes, a car that sold for the equivalent of $143,000 (in 2008 dollars...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! We had a couple of 2-fer-1 Hell Project deals go toe-to-toe on Monday, and the Nash/Hudson combo triumphed over the pair of '57 Cadillacs by a 2-to-1 margin in the poll. Aren't multiple-car projects fun? Sure they are! And what's more fun than two projects dripping oil in your yard? Sixteen projects, of course… unless you're the type who prefers the challenge of a single project with no possibility of parts obtainment to the "instant junkyard" approach. That's the choice we're giving you today! Madman Muntz was a genuine American legend, and he didn't just sell cars, car stereos, and TVs- he manufactured cars, car stereos, and TVs! His car was the Muntz Jet, a Cadillac V8-powered, heavily-modified Kurtis Kraft Sport , and it was quite the performer for its era. Only about 400 Muntz Jets were ever built, so you're...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Britain has defeated Italy in a PCH Superpower Showdown (after two consecutive defeats , with the Triumph Stag going 70-30 against the Alfa Romeo Giulia Super yesterday. Today we're going to let Italy regain its bruised Hell Project pride, with an all-Fiat matchup! The early Fiat 124 coupes sure are wonderful machines, but they're rarer than honest politicians in North America. The few that came over here became red powder and wistful memories a couple decades back… except for this one in Oregon (go here if the ad disappears), which is priced so low we dasn't reveal it here, for fear of being deafened by screams of disbelief. This one needs some work, we'll be the first to admit, although the seller has decided to spare us the troublesome details in his description. "Good condition to restore" is all we get, and that should be enough...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! In yesterday's matchup, we saw the rear-wheel-drive hot-rod Corolla beat the front-wheel-drive hot-rod Corolla in the Choose Your Eternity poll . And that's great, only we got a bunch of static from readers who thought those two cars weren't punitive enough. Fine, we'll remedy that situation ASAP, with a couple of weapons-grade Hell Projects for you. The initial cost won't be all that high, but you'll have the chance to repent at leisure with either half of this PCH Superpower matchup! Ahhh, the Triumph Stag. It may well be the king of British Hell Projects, combining British Leyland build quality, Prince Of Darkness electricals , and a half-baked SOHC V8 engine that was flaky even by Triumph's incredibly generous standards. Shockingly, the last one we saw in the Hell Garage was beaten by a Porsche , so today we're giving the...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! We had a minor upset yesterday, with longshot Germany defeating PCH Superpower Britain in the Jaguar Versus BMW Choose Your Eternity poll . That's not quite the headline news that, say, Detroit beating France would be, but we still need to give Her Majesty's cars a chance to prove they can still dish out pain and pleasure in very large- yet always mixed- helpings. That's the reason we're going with a couple of fine British super coupes suggested by tipster (and PCH T-shirt winner P161911 I've never seen a James Bond movie- yes, that's right, I'm probably the only person in the world who can say that- but that doesn't mean I didn't have the James Bond Corgi DB5 as a kid. In any case, the DB5 would be an ungodly cool machine on its own merits- just look at it! OK, now keep that mental image of a nice shiny DB5 fresh in your...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Last time we took a lung-charringly deep breath of the sulfur-tainted air in the Hell Garage (where the boombox refuses to play anything other than the 1910 Fruitgum Company), we learned that 54% of PCH readers prefer a Chevy-powered MGA to a Chevy-powered TR6 . Who knew? Today we're going to up the ante and go with a couple of relatively high-buck projects; one is a type of car we've seen before and the other is plenty obscure. After seeing that beautiful DOTS E-Type , it's hard not to yearn for a genunine, pre-Malaise XKE. The prices for nice ones are pretty brutal, unfortunately, but an enterprising gearhead such as yourself should be able to find a diamond-in-rough Jag and turn it into an envy-generator in no time! When you get a California car, such as this '67 XKE coupe , you don't even need to worry about rust... oh, wait. All right...
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