Jalopnik
The Detroit (well, actually South Bend) machine put up a good fight against the Detroit-powered British Leyland product yesterday, but it's tough to beat a PCH Superpower and thus the voters gave the victory to the V8/IRS MGB-GT in yesterday's poll. But are we giving up on America as a credible PCH contender? Hell no! That's the thinking behind today's Detroit-versus-Paris matchup, and we'll see how things sort out.
Big American pushrod V8s are always cool when installed in a European car- just look at the Jensen Interceptor or Facel Vega to see what we mean. However, the nature of Project Car hell is such that you need to drop your crude-yet-potent cast-iron powerplant into a car whose designers never imagined such a combination in all their wildest opium dreams. You could just pick out the car and do the entire swap from scratch, but it's far more insane fun to start with someone else's half-finished project! Say, this 1967 Peugeot 404 (go here if the ad disappears), which has been equipped with a 280Z front subframe and is- in theory- set up for a small-block Chevy engine. Holy power-to-weight ratio, a 404 with a rip-snortin' 383 crate motor would sure be something, eh? Or you could forget about the Chevy and put a Chrysler 383 in there! Let your imagination run wild... and you'll have plenty of time to do that, what with all the fabricating and parts chasing you'll be doing with this project.
A psychotic V8 Peugeot would be a welcome edition to the garage, but sometimes you and your entourage need to make a good impression when you roll up to Nickel Nick's Hot Slots Casino in North Las Vegas, and we mean the kind of impression that only a one-of-a-kind custom limousine can deliver. Forget those stretch Hummers or even a stretch Ferrari, folks, because now you have the opportunity to buy this custom limo assembled from 1976 and 1982 Corvettes (go here if the ad disappears)! We'll admit it needs some work (and we don't just mean a couple of hours of quick Bondoization), and you might want to take a good hard look at the frame welds before taking it out on a public street... but look at this thing! Imagine it with a roof made of something sturdier than duct tape and trashbags and an interior fully decked out with a full bar, Sno-Cone machine, cocktail-table Missile Command arcade game, and Max Mosley Edition™ swagger-stick storage locker! You'll have class and plenty of it when you and your crew roll in this baby, no doubt about it! Of course, since it's already set up for a V8 engine, you won't have too much trouble putting a Maximum Torque Specialties Cadillac 500 under the hood. Got to be a Cadillac engine in a Corvette limo, right?
Comments
I think I just got tetanus AND chlamydia from looking at both of those.
French Car. Always a PCH winner, and with this one being rusty, and wanting a V-8? Pure hell.
The Corvettes? That's pure hell to look at. I just want to take a pick to my eyes now, just to relieve the pain. Why on Gods green earth did someone do that to a pair of Corvettes?
Vette - maybe i can harvest the engine
Vette. It reminds me of that poor Indian girl with the two faces from last week.
The Vette-Limo is seriously awesome, but I can't resist a Peugot 404 with a V8.
The Vettes, because really, it's a face only a mother (or, well builder) can love.
Since most of those Vettes eventually split in half anyway, the last owner saved you all the work! This was a tough choice but I went Vette...Yes, The Peugeot is french, but if you do finish it, you can drive it down the street and not look like a total dorkdouche! the Vette? Not so much!
Hmm, a rustacular Frog car w/ a 280Z front end and an engine well awaiting a small-block? It'll never run. Vive la France!
I'd love some of what they're smoking in Phoenix.
And one of the vette convertibles, please.
Ha ha ha - this should be easy. A Peugeot in PC... what is that?! Is that a Corv...
4 Door Corvette Crap Can FTW!
Brilliant PCH Murilee.
The Vettes do look like they're on crack but it's gotta be Peugeot quatre-cent-quatre!
Gotta go with the jap-tech yankee powered (maybe) frog. The 'Vette is wrong on so many levels, I wouldn't use it for anything better than a convenient place to tape targets when shooting my P-38.
Vettes, as this may be the C3 vette's only chance to win at something.
The Pug has potential, the addition of an engine would've made it more hellish. "327 i think..came form a frends camero. intak missing LOT'S OF POWER"
Also: How did they do that? Vettes are glass, so it's not like you can just weld them together.
The Frog Machine is never going to run, but the Vette limo creates all sort of logistic problems. The 404 can fit into all but the tiniest garages; where the Hell do you keep a non-running, questionably built limo? Time to build a new carport.
Peugeot. Even if I could get the Vette thing running, I don't think I know enough strippers with c-section scars that need rides to work.
that vette is disgusting. It's not funny just sad.
Anyone remember a couple of years back a little white lab-mouse had a human ear grown on its back? Twin-Vette kinda reminds me of that. It's an abberation, an unholy vision of pity and will be reconsumed by the fires of hell as soon as Satan notices it's missing. The Pug 404, because the mythical V8, like, kinda doesn't exsist yet, is at least good, and righteous, and proper in theory. I'ma' have to go French on this. The Chevvies are just too wrong, even for me.
Weird... The 'Vette stays exactly 5 votes ahead of the Pug.
/ Up for sale is a 1976 Corvette Limo 4 doors. The front & Back is from a 1982 vette. /
I'm so confused.
As much hell as French cars are, I had to go with the fugly Twinvette today.
There's still a sliver of dignity to be seen in the cross-bred Pug, should one get it running. There's none in the stretched malaise "thing".
@Mad_Science: Who said anything about welding? Duct tape repairs anything!
I had to go with the Vette. These Craigslist posters are really helpful. The most important information is all in caps - "NEEDS TO BE RESTORED." which implies that there was a time when it wasn't a total abortion and "LOTS OF POTENTIAL" but it doesn't say potential for what.
Dude's missing an 'e' in his email address. Should be impaleass@hotmail.com Buttsecks be damned.
@lowmiles: Front lawn, of course.
Quatre-Cent-Quatre pour la victoire!!!
A Peugeot is always going to be harder to restore than a Corvette. This particular 'Vette limo is a hideous abomination, but it's a hideous abomination for which one can procure any part needed. Parts availability is also good for the 404... as long as you can speak French. And wait a couple weeks for every part to be shipped from France. And when you contact the Motherland, make sure you don't mention the Chevy V8.
One small thought: The 404's stock 1618cc engine had hemispherical combustion chambers in an aluminum cross-flow head, and it was the first car under two liters to be available with fuel injection. As such, it should be obvious to any true Jalop that the only reasonable thing to do to this car is to give it an aluminum-headed, fuel injected 426 Hemi. With a little fabricating, we might even be able to keep the awesome column-shifted four-speed.
That Peugot is just awsomely hellish, and on any given sunday, i would totally vote for it. But that/thoes vets. Damn. I mean really, damn.
Had to be the vette for me. I doubt that thing wouldn't get a block without breaking in half. I don't think you could get any more hellish than skidding down a hilly street, screaming your fool head off, watching the tail end of your "car" loose it's race to the bottom of the hill where a trash truck awaits to shread what little flesh is on your bones upon impact.
Plus you can find 404s in the junkyard, I can't tell you when I last saw a 'vette in any yard. Front yards don't count.
vette? more like NEEDS TO BE INCINERATED.
I had to go with the Pug. The vette(s) just aren't worth doing anything to other than parting them out to people with proper C3's needing repair.
Okay, so I just love how "setup for small block chevy" means "all motor mounts have been ground off of subframe."
I am going to rule that PCH means "Project CAR Hell." And that fiberglass abomination is not a car. I'm not sure what it is, but it ain't a car and so cannot be a contender.
Besides, the Pug is being sold by Nick. As in Old Nick. Ahh, the sharp sweet scene of sulpher!
The buttsexed Corvette is the beast with two backs.
Fiberglass is itchy on your manparts.
@Mad_Science: Set it up on cinder blocks and you can add a "guest house" to your vast auto parts strewn estate!
Is "builda" a word? I didn't think so.
404 FTW, that Vette was only putting out about 120hp back in 76, now you just added another 1k plus in weight? ugh.
Corvette. It is utterly obscene.
@SLRStarless: Of course it's a word. Haven't you ever been to Builda Bear?
Do you remember how the MG the other day was crazy enough to make your friends scream at you before never talking to you again, but in a good way? The corvette limo is like that, but in a bad way. I would get a 404 if I had to kick my way through a dozen puppies. Alright, maybe not, but that 404 is begging for me to fix it up, take it to Senegal, and blow some mechanic's mind.
@graverobber- Same great taste, new low price!:Did you ever see the prices at Build-A-Bear? Just think of what you could buy at Autozone.
I can't believe the Vette is still in the lead.
It's too bad moment of Zen's already taken by the satori-infested art car. The Vette's a perfect MOZ candidate.
However, PCH'll do.
Holy cheese and crackers,I don't even particularly like Corvettes,but no car,particularly one with that pedigree,deserves that kind of treatment.Cheeerist,even in those little tiny pictures that thing is heinous....
That Vette is ready for the American version of Top Gear. This week's special guest, Red Green. I especially like the fact that the two halves are from different years. Wha??
That Vette is so bad, it's almost worth a drive to Phoenix(E.Mesa) to see it in person. I have relatives there who wouldn't even think I was crazy for driving 6 hours to do it.
the vettes lines just don't work... it's fugly
What the hell happened to that Corvette? It looks like they just puttied the two pieces together and called it a day.
I can believe the 'vette is winning this. The 404, completed, would be made of win. The vette, no matter what you do, will be trash.
The only way to "restore" that 'vette would be to melt in down and make something nice out of the recycled metal... oh wait, it's fiberglass, you can't do that either.
The Vette is an abomination! An exorcism is in order. I think we need the big guns...Pope Benedict is in the U.S.A. right now, conveniently.
even the mexicans would laugh at that corvette. what is spanish for turd?
THE VETTE MESS REEKS OF HELL!