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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! Last time we stepped into the Liquid Sodium Garage, 78% of you felt that the WRX-powered VW Beetle would be your eternal torment , leaving the poor Granada hearse unwanted and unfeared. But that was last week; today we're locked into Presidential Election Hell, and that means it's time to vote on projects similar to cars driven by two of the 20th century's most powerful presidents. Men who didn't hesitate to grind political enemies to dust (the way your project will grind you to dust)... men who bombed the living crap out of third-worlders who threatened their empires (the way your project will bomb the living crap out of your bank account): Richard Nixon and Charles de Gaulle! While Richard Milhous Nixon drove a man-of-the-people-esque '48 Mercury woodie wagon during his first senatorial campaign, once he got to be president, by God,...
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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! Last time around, 64% of you opted for an eternity in the trunk of Coyote Shivers' 1984 Volvo DL rather than having your bodices ripped by Fabio's Lancia, according to the Choose Your Eternity poll . But enough with the pseudo-celebrity cars- today we need to get back to basics , with a return to the very soul of project car hell: France versus Italy! Right now, Italy is in sole possession of the PCH Superpower trophy- which is in the shop with a bad oil leak and a rod knock- thanks to a very one-sided Pantera-versus-Lotus drubbing , but can the Italians hold firm against the Tsar Bomba of Hell Projects? We'll find out! Remember the Lancia Zagato? Of course not, and you Europeans are probably totally confused about that name slapped on what's obviously some kind of Americanized Beta , but enough of them were sold on these shores that it's...
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We had a bit of an upset in Monday's Choose Your Eternity 3-way Superpower Showdown poll , with the French car coming in last! Yes, the '63 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint won handily, with a 55-24-22 split. That means the Italian car industry can feel the pride that comes from building the coolest- yet most nightmarish- cars very large sums of squandered money can buy! Just to show that we haven't forgotten the special place held by France in the Project Car Hell Pantheon, however, we're going to do an all-French matchup today. Thanks- and a Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt - go to Hotrodelectric for these tips! Just where do we draw the line between a project car and a parts car? Always a tough call, but we've found an even tougher question: when does a single part become a car? Because of the near-impossibility of reading the huge, CAPS LOCKED, red-and-blue font used by the seller of this 1925 Renault Type 45 , it took me a while to realize that this auction is for just...
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In a stunning upset, the Borgward Hansa wagon handed Germany a one-sided victory over the Peugeot 304 in our most recent Choose Your Eternity poll . With France long reigning as the world's lone HyperGalactic PCH OmniPower, we would be remiss if we didn't give the French a shot at prying the oil-leaking, stripped-fastener-thread PCH CryptoChampion trophy from the Germans, in order to prove that the Borgward's victory wasn't just some one-shot fluke. That's why we're rolling out some Hell Project heavy artillery today, with a pair of undeniably cool- yet just as undeniably nightmarish- machines vying for long-term residency in your Garage Of Torture. It wouldn't be fair to break out the H-bomb of French Hell Projects (the Citröen SM ), because we're fairly certain that nothing on the planet can beat the SM in a Project Car Hell matchup. But how about the Citröen CX ? The early CX has many of the features that made the SM so wonderful and terrible, but with...
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The V12 Jagchero vaporized the Electric Renault R10 in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity voting , but the lopsidedness of the matchup had some supporters of liberty, equality, and eternal torment crying foul. It's bad enough that the British entry was packing a V12 versus the French car's electric motor, but to make a sedan compete against a Rancheroized machine? That's why it's only fair that we have a PCH Superpower rematch today, featuring a more level playing field and one Bargain Hell Project from each side of the Channel. Those postwar Jag saloons sure are pretty, aren't they? For most of us, ownership of such a rare and valuable cat has seemed so far out of reach that we've never even contemplated it. It turns out we've all been too pessimistic! You can get a 55-year-old Jaguar saloon for the price of a 15-year-old beater Civic! Can't believe it? Take a gander at this 1953 Jaguar Mark VII , my friends, and witness the easy attainability of your...
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Was it the Muppets connection that grabbed an overwhelming 80/20 victory for the Studebaker Starlight Coupe over the 1929 Model A in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll? We may never know, because the past is behind us now. And, speaking of the past, how about a pair of cars from waaaaaay back for today's challenge? And just to make things more fun, we've got a couple of project cars that are more idea than they are car! Do you feel like tackling an 81-year-old car that's so incomplete that the seller isn't even sure what it is? The seller's best guess is that this $500 car (go here if the ad disappears) is a 1917 Overland. If so, that means it's the great-great-great-grandaddy of every Jeep ever made! Now, you figure a price that low for a car this old, well, it might be missing some stuff. You figured right! Still, it's a vaguely car-shaped collection of rusty parts, which could be the start of a staggeringly frustrating and costly restoration project...
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It looks like the Jalopnik readership did some agonized soul-searching and decided to go with the 308/Esprit combo over the somewhat imcomplete 365 at a 7-to-3 ratio in yesterday's Cheap Ferrari Edition Choose Your Eternity poll. But an Italian car versus an Anglo-Italian 2-fer brings to mind an interesting PCH dilemma: what happens when you pit a geeky-yet-cool Italian car against a geeky-yet-cool French car? No dreamworld Quattroporte versus SM here; instead it's a pair of cars that don't cost all that much and can even be driven... straight to Hell (i.e., your garage). Most Americans have never heard of the Autobianchi A112 , which is why we're providing the quick lesson in the video above. The little Lancia/Autobianchi/Fiat (mechanically similar to the Fiat 127) wasn't sold in the US of A, but it's worshiped as a classic rally-winning hoonmobile over there in Yurp. And now a A112 could live in your garage, simply by handing over $7,950 to the seller of this '79...
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Well, the Jeep FC-150 obliterated the Spanish 2CV in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll, no doubt because even an Hecho en España label doesn't add enough weight on either side of the Cool/Hell scale when you're looking at a 2CV. However, we shouldn't start to thinking that France isn't a PCH superpower just because the 2CV was too simple to be truly hellish... which is why we're going with an all-French matchup for today's choices. How much fun can you have in a car with less than one liter of engine displacement? Aside from jumping a Chevy Sprint , that is? Just watch the video below to see: That's a Simca 1000 there (and yes, we know the car in the video probably has more than the factory's 944 screamin' CCs of displacement), and you can have one! Just hand over $1,300 to the seller of this 1968 Simca 1000 GLS (go here if the ad disappears), and you'll have taken the first- and no doubt easiest- of many, many, many steps towards your goal...
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Is an air-cooled Japanese cartruck both cooler and more hellish than an airbrushed Malaise Detroit Vantruck? According to almost two-thirds of you , it is! Today we're going to hit the mailbag again, adding yet another reader to the waiting list for the next run of PCH Tipster T-shirts , because McGyver managed to come up with a pair of totally irresistible choices. How about a Spanish-built French car with an air-cooled two-banger... versus a forward-control Jeepamino? The agony! You know you're looking at a genuine deal when the seller starts off his description with "YO!!!!!!!!" and finishes it with "BUT ITS ALL THERE!!!!!!!!!" See, that's because extra punctuation equals sincerity. And Philadelphia, where it's OK to pass out on the gas pedal of your Audi , is all about the sincerity. So feel confident when you drop $2500 on this 1963 Jeep FC-150 (go here if the ad disappears), because it "runs good." Oh, sure, even the seller will admit...
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It was pretty close, but the Mazda 323 GTX squeaks out a 55/45 victory over the Turbo Geo Metro in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll. I've been happy to find some Japanese PCH candidates, of course, but it's become apparent that we've been neglecting one of the primary Project Car Hell superpowers; yes, it's been over two months since we last saw a French PCH candidate , and that's just plain wrong! Maybe the first thing you should consider for a potential Project Car Hell candidate is its HJIYC score . Weighing in with a respectable 120 points is this '81 Citröen CX Pallas diesel (go here if the ad disappears), suggested by none other than the Loverman himself and available for just 6,000 frogskins. It would have had more points, only the latitudinally mounted "Euro-trash diesel" cost it 30 points. But don't worry about that; since you'll likely be the owner of the only Citröen diesel in your time zone, the Hell-O-Meter is going to be registering...
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France-based commenter Franzouse , not content to rest on his Project Car Hell Tipster laurels (you may remember him as the man responsible for the Yankenwagen Me, Krankenwagen Me Edition of Project Car Hell), is now looking to climb the rust-and-Bondo ziggurat and achieve Project Car Hell Poster Child Status as well... You see, Franzouse owns a 1981 Citroën Méhari , which appears to be France's answer to the Volkswagen Type 181 (aka Thing). He writes: I was home for the holidays, which allowed me to open grandma's garage where i store my summer drive, which is also my very own PCH, a citroen mehari. As promised here are the pics, wiith the uber awesome Tshirt. Warning,my dad took these pictures after a 3 hour family dinner and the pictures are, slightly blurry. Basically it's a 2CV citroen with a plastic shell on top, and it's a thrilling ride only the Jalops would understand. Mine is an 81' with a larger 980cc (sic) engine developping like 50 bhp. I replaced the tranny...
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After presenting our readers with the soul-wrenching choice between two V12 Jaguars in last Friday's PCH (which, by the way, had the '87 beating the '76 by a comfortable margin in your poll vote), you'd think we'd take a break from British steel for a...
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