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We had another close one yesterday, but the '69 Crown managed to edge out the '59 Datsun in the race to the Lake Of Fire in the Choose Your Eternity poll . We've seen some pretty affordable cars lately (well, affordable to start with, before you start buying parts), but what about Hell Projects that raise the pressure in the boiler by starting out with gut-punch price tags? You must finish a project that you spent 30 or 50 grand just acquiring, right? And if you need to spend $5,000 on a windshield or crankshaft... well, what choice do you have? Can't give up now! We've picked a couple of cars that, if restored, would bring tears to the eyes of vintage racers and eagle-eyed concours worshipers alike, and would fetch vast sums from the same crowd. If restored. Those who wanted to buy a new Mercedes-Benz 190SL roadster back in 1958 had to come up with $5,020, about $1,400 more than a new Corvette and about the same as a '58 Lincoln Capri hardtop. We're talking...
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What with all the racin' madness lately, I haven't had a chance to descend into the lake of burning 90-weight that is Project Car Hell for a few days. In our last matchup, we almost had an upset for the ages, with a Japanese car nearly beating a French car in the Dangel Peugeot Wagon versus V8 Fairlady poll . And that Peugeot was a tough one, too! You fans of Japanese Car Hell can feel proud... or ashamed, depending on how you look at it. Today we're getting away from the PCH Superpowers and mixing it up a bit, with a perennial German Choose Your Eternity favorite going up against a proud Detroit native. We had a 928 here just a couple weeks ago, but the cool/hell equation is just irresistible with Porsche's front-engine V8 machine. It's fast, good-looking, sold for vast sums when new, and has a scary-sleazeball Tony Montana aura you just can't deny... and you can find them dirt cheap nowadays. Well, dirt cheap provided you're willing to fix everything a few...
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With the '69 Citröen ID19 carrying the French to victory over their British rivals in the PCH Superpower Rematch , I can see we'll need to have some more elimination rounds to see whether France or Britain shall be crushed beneath the weight of proudly display the oil-spraying, parts-shedding PCH Superpower Trophy. Today's challenge, however, is a return to a fine PCH tradition with no nationalistic overtones: Two-For-One Hell Projects! Many of us took a look at the DOTS '56 Willys Station Wagon and imagined ourselves tearing through the woods or desert in such a fine specimen of vintage off-road machinery. Thing is, parts are getting tricky to find for these proto-SUVs, trickier even than fitting a Super-Fructo Distendo-Abdomen™ five-gallon soft-drink bucket into an undersized European cup holder. What you need is a parts car! That's why you'll be overjoyed to find this pair of Willys Station Wagons , a '51 and a '58, for the survivalist-friendly price tag...
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Because not even a burned and wrecked 80s Ferrari can compete with a burned 70-year-old car mentioned by name in a Robert Johnson song, the '38 Hudson Terraplane ran away with the victory in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity Poll . Today we're going to skip the common theme tying the two PCH contestants together and return to that perennial battle between two of the globe's contenders for the Hell Machine Crown: Italy and Great Britain. Here we have two mighty PCH superpowers, each vying to put one of its products in your garage... and France is waiting to take on the winner tomorrow! How did it come to this? We've gone over a month since our last Alfa Romeo in this series. That's like having a hockey team with no Canadians! That's why we're going to skip the frivolous sporty convertible Alfas and go right for the no-nonsense four-door sedan, with this 1974 Alfa Romeo 2000 Berlina . It's got a Buy It Now of just $2,000, it runs and drives, and it's...
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Yesterday's all-Corvette Choose Your Eternity poll resulted in the '68 just barely edging out the '69, no doubt due to the Jimi Hendrix connection. Now it's time to try a different type of theme; we haven't yet seen a selection of cars based on a model year alone, so today we're going with two vastly different- yet vastly cool- choices from Anno Domini 1958, the year Nikita Krushchev became premier of the Soviet Union. Inspired by the DOTS Mercury Commuter that blew away the competition in the Best DOTS Wagon Poll , I figured we needed a Hell Project Commuter as soon as possible. And, really, it's the perfect mix of must-have coolness (four-door hardtop wagon with every conceivable example of Chromium Rococo Excess) and impossible-to-find parts ( MEL engine , weird not-shared-with-any-Fords trim and interior components, wraparound glass). But they're just about impossible to find, and expensive as hell... unless, of course, you head to Texas and score this...
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Here we are at Project Car Hell #100 , and it even comes on a Friday! Yesterday we saw the Katrina-soaked '63 Bentley edge out a hairsbreadth victory over the not-so-complete '52 Benz , and today we're going to shift gears in the theme department and pick two cars referenced by Jalopnik-Approved™ musician Tom Waits. This idea comes courtesy of my brother-in-law, the owner of the deathless Toyota truck we saw a while back , so I guess I'll need to give him a PCH Tipster T-shirt in spite of the fact that he isn't even a Jalopnik commenter. I wasn't able to find a 1958 monkeyshit brown Buick Super, the Duster "trying to change my tune" has no year specified, and everyone thinks "Ol' 55" is an Eagles song... but not to worry- plenty of good choices left, including these two: In Waits' song "Romeo Is Bleeding" (see above), we get the lines: Well it was just another night, but now they're huddled in the brake lights of a 58 Bel...
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The small-block-powered Jaguar XJC whumped the small-block-powered '76 Corvette in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll , and we figure it must have been the slick custom body mods on the Jag that tipped the balance- after all, the Vette just had a taillight transplant and a weird fiberglass hood, while the Jag had scoops and vents on every available surface. Today we're returning to the concept of unmolested original cars, this time with a pair of high-zoot European machines. Wouldn't you jump at the chance to own 1/645th of all the Aston Martin Lagondas ever manufactured? Do we even need to ask? Better start piling up a stack of cash- and don't stop until you get to something in the neighborhood of 20 grand- because here's a 1989 Lagonda just calling your name (go here if the listing disappears). This car has the looks, the temperamental electronic dash, the 4-cam V8... it's got it all! Unfortunately, what it doesn't have is a functioning water pump- well...
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Last week, we learned that 63% of you prefer eternity with a basket-case American kit car to eternity with a rattletrap French beach car . What lessons to be learned from that remain unclear, but what is clear is that today's Classic Ad Watch post dictates that we include a DKW in today's Choose Your Eternity competition. Ever since we saw a Fairlady down on Alameda's street , I've been looking for just the right one to use in this series, and this 1965 Datsun Fairlady seems just about right. You see, a Japanese project car needs to be old, with plenty of mystery, because Japanese cars tend to be insufficiently hellish. This one has the "mystery" part covered, because all the owner says about its condition is "Complete minus interior and top." Could that mean all the connecting rods have been sawed in half, to make them fit in storage better, and the sheetmetal is a thin layer of paint over crumbly ferric powder? Hey, it's 500 bucks! Maybe it will...
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