Jalopnik
With Italy edging out a narrow victory over Britain in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll and advancing to the first-ever Project Car Hell Superpower Showdown with France, I decided we needed to add an extra layer of Hell to each nation's entrant in order to honor this occasion with the solemnity it deserves. Not that we won't repeat the Superpower Showdown schtick over and over, of course, but this one is first! So, what we got here is PCH Superpower cars with Japanese engines. Now, you figure maybe a Japanese engine would make such a car more reliable, but I've been careful to select car/engine combos that involve twin-turbocharged complexity and fragile-chassis-twisting power. France? Italy? You decide!
The Renault 4CV was a sort of French interpretation of the Volkswagen Beetle... which meant that it wasn't much like the Beetle at all, other than having an ass-engined configuration and being cheap. Would you like suicide doors on your tiny econo-car, monsieur? Of course... and we'd also like a twin-turbocharged Subaru engine putting out 275 horsepower (i.e., sixteen times the original power rating of 17 horses), like the Arizona crazyman who started this 1957 Renault 4CV project (go here if the ad disappears) has. You get acres of description of what's been done so far to the car, which is considerable yet makes it clear that it's nowhere near finished. Not even close (cue evil laughter, odor of sulfur, hellish choir singing the Marseillaise)! But the engine starts up! Look, here's proof:
See? How hard can it be? And how long would you survive once you finished the project? Thanks, and a half-credit towards a Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt, to Skaz for the tip!
It's going to be hard to top the Twin Turbo Subaru-powered 4CV with an Italian engine swap project that's already as far along, so I'm taking the liberty of finding a car and a separate engine, letting you fill in the frightening blanks. You know the routine here, of course, so let's see what we've got! The main ingredient must be an Italian car with an extremely high Coolness Quotient, and I think I've found just the thing: this 1959 Maserati 3500GT coupe. In stark contrast to the 4CV, there's no description whatsoever, and it's got a little extra something for those of you who like mysterious car deals: the car is in Portugal, with no information of any sort explaining how the seller plans to get the car to you. That's right, a 49-year-old Maserati "Restoration Project" in Portugal, and you know nothing about it! Now, the 3500GT came with an incredibly finicky inline-six engine and fuel injection by you-know-who. That engine was rated at an impressive 220 horsepower... but we say you need to dump it on your garage floor and forget all about that wimpy hunk of Italian iron, because what you need is a Maserati-purist-enragin' twin-turbocharged 1JZ six out of a JDM Toyota Soarer! Once you're done adding more boost (waaaay more boost), you can figure out some way to make the Maserati rear end withstand all the power (or deliver another thudding kidney punch to the already-reeling Maserati purists and put a Ford 9-inch in the back). It's really quite a simple process, from purchase of Portuguese Maserati to complete Toyota drivetrain swap... so get busy!
Comments
maserati, any of it in a car means its going to be PCH
Suicide doored, boxered snailmobile for me, please.
I just want the suicide doors, honestly.
Masaradi, mainly because the otherone actually runs. Oh and BTW it looks like the Masaradi is one of the Portugese barn-cars. [www.intuh.net]
A Subaru engine in a Renault is moderately funky, a Toyota engine in a Maserati is a sacrelige - right away it's the bigger hell. And, uhh, how many parts on the Renault are there to go wrong?
A watercooled intercooled turbocharged 4-door suicide-doored Bug? I'm in.
Subaru/Renault all the way, because when you finally get it in driving condition, you'll just snap-oversteer to a tire-screeching, painful death.
Maserati.
Of course, plugging a mass produced, robot assembled, Japanese motor into the engine bay of a hand crafted, emotively shaped, Italian touring car is like putting a trucker's cap on Monica Bellucci.
Because of this, half the hell you would experience would be tracking down (Nicholas Cage-like) all the matching serial numbers parts and reassembling them into a factory-authentic restoration that would make Gioacchino Colombo and the four original Maserati brothers proud. Well, maybe not Bindo.
@Froggmann: That was my first thought too. Look at the seller's other items and you're probably right. Hopefully, they'll all get sold off so that my non-car friends can quit sending the Portugese cars in the barn thing that they've been barraging me with daily for the past year.
My God, man - just because you can, doesn't mean you should!!
They both make my eyes hurt--I'm not voting today!
The Mas will absolutely break you. No matter how much blood, sweat, tears and money you pour into it, you will lose.
before you get all moist about suicide doors and boxer engines just consider for a moment the majesty of the Maserati 3500GT coupe and imagine the hell-like possibilities as you struggle to return it to original condition. AND it's in Porto!
@junkman: Nah those emails will be circulating the internet until our robot overlords crush us. Then they will continue sending the same email replacing the cars with skynet componets.
The Maser is 15K and hasn't hit reserve yet. If a car of unknown origin stored for many years with obvious neglect in another country (pardon me - continent) doesn't qualify for PCH, I don't know what will. That's without even applying Ms. Martin's engine swap!
As long as the sub-box is included with the Renault ,I'm sold. The Maser's lack of discription and zero feedback leaves me too believe it's a scam..
I've been back to this 3 times - I initially voted for the Maser, but the French thingy just looks so cool. I dunno.
@TheBrewPub: The Maserati was at $600 last night, when I wrote the post.
The 4CV actually looks pretty tempting. Hey, it runs. You're practically done, right?
That said, the JDM mongo-6 in an Alfa is clearly more hellish. Fussy Japanese ECU + passionate Italian design = pain.
Hmmm ... let's have a look at that Maserati. Seller has no previous, no description of the car, and the photos are from the mythical Spanish / Maltese / Portuguese barn find collection. Is that in any way suspicious? Could it be a scam? Course not. Gets my vote.
at least the maserati would be cool if you ever completed it. i had a renault back in high school that i never could coax to run. french cars are hell
@Murilee Martin: Wow.
And at $600 it still scares me!
What, is this Subaru powered frogrocket still around? I thought sure someone from the USMB [www.ultimatesubaru.org] would have bought it by now.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the "Renault" is actually a VW Beetle with some Studebaker parts grafted on.
@SLRSpeedshop: I do not think that's a sub-box. I believe that's an engine box. Two intercoolers (or radiators, or one of each) with radiator fans mounted on the front. The round items on the outer edges are air intakes. The amp-like device is a fan controller.
And yes, I will take the 4cv before I would ever touch the Maserati. The Maser would be prettier, but the 4cv just grabs me right. I'm hosed if I end up with a larger garage.
While the Maserati might allow a quicker entrance into hell, the humility of driving a French car would be eternal hell.
The Maser is currently at over $15k with the reserve not met... that's the kind of hell you can't just walk away from.
I vote 4CV, because even the normally hoontastic Subaru enthusiast community doesn't like twin-turbo Subaru engines, because they are a plumbing and vacuum-line nightmare.
The maserati is the better looking car, but the 4cv gets me on price, and the fact it runs.
This comment from the seller also made me smile "Keep in mind there are enough parts in this car to build a pretty cool sand rail also if that would be more your style"
French-Fried Subaru gets my vote because I can see the whole car disintegrating in the mid air at about 80mph, with the rolling chassis still continuing on its journey...
I think a period-correct modified 4CV would be a cool car for vintage racing-- in a crazy, what-the-hell-are-you-doing-on-the-track-with-that-thing way--and the Subaru engine means that this one will only be legal for drag racing. Of course, with the engine out back, it should be pretty good at that, but you'll have a hard time getting it to go down the track straight, not to mention the problems you'll face should you ever try to go around a corner. I just wish the builder of this car had used the original swing axles instead of going for a VW Type 1 tranny. With that motor and stock axles, you'd be snapping half-shafts at every stoplight and dealing with unpredictable camber changes at every corner. Sweet. Yes, the Maserati is a beautiful car, and the Toyota motor means that purists will think you're worse than a child pornographer. But at least you'll have a Maserati. Try explaining to people why you're passionate about French cars and you'll see what I mean.
I giggled like a little girl when I first saw that Renauru a couple of months ago. But it's like Maymar said- the Toyota-powered Maserati is a special kind of sacrelige, sure to send purists into paroxisms of vapor lock. That, and it has to be noted that the Maserati trident is near-as-damnit to a pitchfork. This is one PCH that may give me pause for reconsideration, nanoseconds before I start smelling sulphur. Maserati FTW.
subie.
No matter how French I may be, I cannot resist the sheer outrage the Mas would produce and therefore vote Italian.
Both are kinky. Very kinky.
@dculberson: Thank you for pointing that out. I guess I got "caught up in the moment".mmmmm flat black
The Renault might actually see the road someday. And the sky, too, with that power to weight ratio.
So naturally, I voted for the Maserati.
Shouldn't a PCH Superpower Swap Showdown involve a French car with an Italian engine and vice versa?
Tough call man, tough call. French weirdness, with far too much power for its own good, or super sketchy deal from portugal, with retarded toyota power, the maser, actually looks kinda cool, odd for me to say. I think the resulting car would be a real something. So I think we'll go with that one. I still can't get over the 17 to 200+ horsepower conversion on the french car though.
Ok, what clinched it was the fact that our man in Ariz, has, really done all the hard work. The Portugal deal, will take some serious heavy lifting just to get started.
Ciao, Hell-san!
My point is this everybody has a car that the purists say restore to stock condition but in some cases you have to do a swap if you want to keep the car.The thing is look at all the cars that are good but are pos and you can have a car that runs and has a decent engine in it. I'm for swaps and mods as long as you don't mess with the body ,that is what people buy cars for.
Hands down the $17,600, reserve not met, Maser on another continent in barn find condition is the winner here. Plus, there's the added hell of knowing that once you get that $2500 JDM motive unit shoe horned in there, patch up the body work just right, re-do the entire interior and find all the proper exterior trim, you'll have a sweet, sweet ride. If you get that done before you go insane.
The 4CV is an awesome lookin little ride, though. Just not as much hell since the basic mechanicals seem to be sorted.
PL 'barn find' pics? Yeah, I'll see that sheet metal.
I'm hell-hooked for ciccolina y sake...
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