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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 another too-close-to-call one yesterday, with the Toyota 4x4 Van and the Dodge Caravan Turbo locked in a 176-171 near-tie, according to the Choose Your Eternity poll . Today we're going to escape from Suburban Minivan Land and roll down the mean streets of the Early Gangsta Rap Era, with the kind of rides that Ice-T wannabes might have selected for high-speed runs to Vegas back in the day. And, yes, it's another upstart challenging a mighty PCH Superpower: Japan versus Italy! It's bad enough shoving a Japanese car into the PCH ring with a Ferrari, but a Honda ? However, when you want an NSX yet you don't want to spend more than 20 grand… well, you have to figure that the Soichiro Stamp Of Approval was probably removed from the car (with 50-grit sandpaper) a few years back. And so it is with this 1992 Acura NSX (go here if the ad disappears...
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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 all knew that the Nixonian Cadillac Fleetwood limo had no chance against a Citroën, and our most recent Choose Your Eternity poll confirmed our assumptions. Any Citroën is tough to beat in a Project Car Hell Challenge, due to the off-the-scale readings Citroëns always register on both the Hell-O-Meter and the Cool-O-Meter. And a Citroën SM? Forget it! Even with a fairly nice SM, you'd need some kind of weapons grade project to have any hope against the car made by the French and Italian governments, the pure Essence Of Hell Project centrifuged down from a large quantity of seriously cool machinery and then offered at a price that draws you in like a black hole dragging you past its event horizon. Well, guess what? Even if we'd found an ad for the actual Apollo 16 Lunar Rover , hauled back to Earth by a North Korean spaceship, burned up on reentry...
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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 were not quite shocked to see the backyard-turbo'd VW GTI obliterate the rod-knockitty Toyota FX16 by a 76:24 margin in the Choose Your Eternity poll . Today we're going to consider the Fauxrrari, and- just to make it more interesting- we're not considering Fiero-based cars. That's right, no Fierraris! You've got your Fauxrraris based on Fieros, or Corvettes, or 280Zs, or even Mitsubishi Eclipses. But say you want the reliability and VTEC power of a Honda product in your Fauxrrari? Sure, sure, it's front-wheel drive, and maybe that makes a Ferronda even more of an abomination in the eyes of Ferrari purists, but horrifying the purists to the point where they have to start dumping extra anisetta shots in their espresso just to maintain the will to live… well, that's why we're here, isn't it? Of course it is...
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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, a majority of you felt that the Porsche 928 would be a better LeMons car than the Lexus LS400 , citing the alleged reliability of the big Toyota as a factor in the decision. Would a car designed to haul well-to-do realtors in utter comfort be reliable after a few hours of full-throttle hoonage, bashing into tire walls and other cars, even with Japanese engineering on its side? Only one way to answer that question! But maybe we should forget about homemade race cars for a moment and talk about factory race cars. Who hasn't toyed with the idea of waving the Magic Wand Of Legality over a factory race machine- say, one with an absurdly cheap price tag- and making it into a profoundly satisfying daily driver? How hard could it be? You like the Ferrari 360 , but you say it's just not extreme enough for you? Well, then you're an obvious candidate...
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Taking care of recent Hell Project business first, the Bentley roared- or, rather, was towed - right past the Rolls in our most recent Choose Your Eternity poll , winning in a 75/25 landslide. Those cars were all right, but where's the eternal torment when you can simply walk away from your hopeless project after shelling out less than ten Gs for it? No guts, no glory! That's why you need to forget all about ordinary cars, hock all your possessions, and dive headlong into the Inferno. That's right- Ferrari and Lamborghini Hell! The last time we had this matchup , the Lambo drove over the Ferrari like a big angry Italian tractor crushing Enzo's Fiat 128 beneath its wheels. Let's see who comes out on top today! Isn't it great how Ferrari has never built any car you can buy for nickels and dimes nowadays? Maserati has the shameful Biturbo episode cheapening even its best products to this day, but every single Ferrari- no matter how wretched- is worth quite a bit (with...
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While the 8-door '57 Chrysler limo almost beat out the stretched Ferrari 400i limo in our last Choose Your Eternity poll (and what an upset of reigning PCH Superpower, Italy, that would have been!), V12 power and Italian build quality seem to have triumphed over fins and rust. Today we need to see how Italy fares against its fellow PCH Superpower, Great Britain (with the winner moving on to take on France, of course). And, just to make things more fun, we're going with some serious Malaise machinery today, because Euro-Malaise is inherently cool-yet-hellish. Can you get a Ferrari project for just $5,500? As anyone who has gone car shopping on any Craigslist site from Florida to Texas for the last year can tell you: Yes, you sure can! I've been running across the infamous Eddy, Texas Ferrari (go here if the ad disappears) for as long as I've been doing Project Car Hell, because the seller just won't give up! Many readers have sent in tips on this one, and now- finally...
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Can an American car- even a 60-year-old American car made by a long-defunct manufacturer- compete with an entry PCH Superpower Italy? Not according to our most recent Choose Your Eternity poll , in which the '38 Studebaker Dictator lost out to the '68 OTAS 820. That might have something to do with the fact that most of the OTAS now resides in the belly of the Rust Monster, but it also points out just how tough it is to beat a PCH Superpower. However, Project Car Hell is all about beating your unstoppable head against an immobile brick wall, forever, so we're coming right back with another Italy-versus-America matchup. And not just your quotidian-type X-1/9-versus-Pacer deal, oh no- today we're plunging headfirst into the molten sulfur of Custom Stretch Limo Hell! Ah, the custom stretch limo! Conjures up treasured memories of projectile-vomiting Bacardi 151 all over your prom date's Very Expensive Dress, don't it? Keep in mind, however, that renting a custom stretch...
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Is there any Hell Project that can compete against a car with chain drive, one carburetor per 200cc of engine displacement, and pretty much zilch in terms of parts availability? We can't say for sure, but we now know that more than 60% of Jalopnik readers surveyed believe that the Honda S800 out-hells the Lotus Europa. Today we're going for a unifying theme that doesn't have much to do with the type of vehicles involved; instead, the theme is the cleansing by flame that each entrant has undergone prior to making an attempt to insinuate itself into your garage. The last time we had a Ferrari in this series , it lost the vote to a Maserati. Today we'll be giving one of Enzo's machines another shot at a Project Car Hell victory, with this 1975 Ferrari 308GT4 , currently bid up to just over two grand and with an unknown reserve price. Some prospective buyers might feel intimidated by the fact that this car has fire damage, but don't let that put you off- the seller wants...
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Sometimes you need to ask yourself: How bad do I need a Ferrari? Actually, in Project Car Hell, the question goes: How bad can a Ferrari project be? Either way, the problem with Ferraris is that most of them are so expensive that you're spared the torment of actually owning one... that is, until now. We've managed to round up a couple of Ferrari deals that cost less than most Fiero-based Ferrari-influenced kit cars, and one of them even comes with a bonus Lotus Esprit! See the car in the video above? That could be you behind the wheel, and all you need to get started is $2,500! Whoa, that must be a typo, right? Two-and-a-half grand for a Ferrari 365? I'm crapping you negative here, folks; just take a squint at this here genuine 1969 Ferrari 365 (go here if the ad disappears) and tell me you can't afford a vintage Ferrari! Now, don't think you can hop right in this car and roar off in a cloud of V12 noise and glory, because there's no V12. Matter of fact, there's...
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It's been a few days since our last Choose Your Eternity Poll (in which the overwhelming majority of voters opted for Hopped-Up Crown Victoria Hell), but the series returns today with a vengeance! We've been spending a lot of time in British Car Hell lately, but we mustn't forget England's perennial rival for the Hell Project Crown: Italy. And we're not talking Fiats or Lancias or even Bianchis this time around... nope, get ready to dive into the real inferno! What kind of world is it where the asking price of a real Ferrari is lower than a lot of Fiero-based kit cars? Who would take the Fierarri over the real thing? That's why we couldn't quite believe our eyes when we saw this 1985 Ferrari Mondial Convertible (go here if the ad disappears) with an asking price of just 12 grand. Sure, the Mondial isn't quite as high-zoot as its more powerful siblings, but its owner can still hold his or her head high! This one looks pretty good, although it needs that TLC...
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Looks like the voting is still neck-and-neck on the Plate-O-Shrimp Edition Choose Your Eternity poll , so those of you who feel strongly about J. Frank Parnell's Malibu or Bud's Impala better go and cast some votes. Today we're going to ditch the common-theme-between-entrants idea and go with a couple of compelling-yet-markedly-different choices. Thanks- and a Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt - to ZZMarcus for the tip! How would you like a stealthy sedan with design by Giorgetto Giugiaro and a Ferrari 308 Quattrovalvole engine under the hood? Say, perhaps, this 1989 Lancia Thema 8.32 , which just failed to sell when the top bid of $7600 didn't meet the reserve price? That means the seller's probably in a price-cutting mood! Never heard of the Thema? Well, head on over to this bitter and heavily pro-Thema-biased Wikipedia entry and check it out! This particular example is in "excellent original condition," according to the seller, needing only some minor paint...
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After seeing the '49 Cadillac cruise to victory over the '68 Cad in yesterday's Project Ambulance Hell poll , we realized that we've been making the choices too easy lately. See, the whole point is to make you need the car, even with full open-eyed awareness that it will soon reduce you to a broken, weeping heap of misery crawling across the garage floor. And what better way to reach that goal than via a staggeringly difficult engine swap ? We've picked two cars and four engines, giving you eight wonderful choices! First, the cars: Old British cars have a storied drag racing history in the USA, with the V8-ified Ford Anglias being the most famous examples, and seeing the Morris Minor family tree yesterday put us in a Morris sort of mood. Therefore, the obvious choice for Mix-n-Match Car #1 is this 1957 Morris Minor . The seller seems to think it's a Mini, but he'll be even more confused when you tell him what kind of engine you plan to stuff under its bonnet. It's got some rust, but that...
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After seeing how the Deutschland V12s went over in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll , with the 850i just barely beating the pair of 750iLs, we've learned that it's possible to raise the price of admission charged at the Fiery Gates of Vehicu-Hades and still have legions of madmen ambitious project lovers forking over the cash and diving into the flames. So get ready to whip out ever-thicker rolls of Benjamins, folks, because we're on a one-way trip to Dante Land today! The 80s may well have been the decade in which the Ferrari made the most sense . Ferraris of the era didn't have the ungodly awesome racecar cool of the 60s models, and they weren't as loony fast as the current crop, but what goes better with looted S&Ls, Learjets paid for with junk bond profits, and sniffing coke off a $10,000-a-day Brazilian prostitute's rock-hard belly than a Ferrari? Exactly, and it's that sort of immediate-post-Malaise decadence you want when you have the prancing pony on your car's hood ornament...
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