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For the first time, a single car part beat an entire car in a Project Car Hell matchup, according to the results of our most recent Choose Your Eternity poll . Today we're going to celebrate the Fourth of July, but not by getting all liquored up and firing large-caliber handguns into the sky. No, we're going to celebrate our freedoms by sentencing ourselves to years of thankless labor in the garage, on vehicles so patriotic that they're literally named after America. You superpatriots might be screaming about the inclusion of a British car in this matchup- especially on a holiday celebrating the day we told our cruel colonial masters to hit the road (thanks for the backup, France!)- but Britain gave us our language, the basis for our legal system, and Top Gear . And come on, how can you not love a car named for its target market? What if Chrysler had made a version of the Dart called the Dodge Deutschland and sold it in Germany? OK, we admit that argument isn't so compelling...
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The $10,000 Acura NSX ran away with 62% of the votes in Friday's Choose Your Eternity poll , though the Corvette put in a good showing (and it's unfortunate that the late-in-day timing of PCH made it impossible to give Graverobber Commenter of the Day recognition for this methtastic Inland Empire tale , because he totally deserved it). Today we're going to look at some projects that, if by some miracle you ever managed to get finished, would give you the highly coveted "weirdest car in town" status that true Hell Project aficionados seek. There's no common theme, other than misery obscurity and slippery slope leading straight to the abyss low price of admission, so let's see how a single Bavarian stacks up against a threesome of Brits! Between the Isetta and the 1500 came BMW's 700 , which still had an Isetta-style tiny motorcycle engine in the rear but was shaped more like a normal "three boxes" car. You don't see them around much, since...
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The French car beat the German one in our last Choose Your Eternity matchup , which means we need to give France's cross-Channel rival an opportunity to snatch the PCH Trophy (which features several rods hanging out the side and a spreading pool of oil below) today. We're going with something a bit different this time, however; ever since the What Should Mad_Science Drive To Work QOTD, we've been thinking about non-petroleum-fueled car projects. Not boring ol' electric cars that can barely buzz up to highway speed, or seen-one-ya-seen-em-all veggie-oil-powered Mercedes-Benzes, though. Something fun! Something... HELL! There's no law that says you have to run dinosaur juice in your diesel; vegetable oil or animal fat works just fine! Oh sure, some worrywarts will tell you that you need to use some kind of witches' brew of methanol, lye, and who-knows-what-all and make actual biodiesel, but that's only if you want to run the stuff in an unmodified diesel engine...
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We learned on Friday that Dante Alighieri would prefer to drive a '58 Fiat 600 Multipla in Hell , and that's an important lesson. Another lesson that all those sentenced to eternity in Project Car Hell should learn is the joys associated with buying a Hell Project without a price. Yes, literally priceless cars await us today, and not just any priceless cars. Old race cars! See, this way you can negotiate endlessly with some hardball seller, drag your newly-acquired dilapidated carcass diamond in the rough home, and dream of old-timey racing glory as you recreate hand-fabricated components for the next decade. These days, you can take your 3rd-gen Camaro or Fox Mustang and build a credible 9-second drag car without too much trouble and only a few wheelbarrows full of Benjamins. Sure, you'll be quick, but there's bound to be some old guy at the track who remembers blasting down Lions Drag Strip in a barely controllable 392 Hemi-powered Anglia or Topolino with a cigar clenched...
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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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