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Apr 12, 2009 04:00 PM
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Wed Feb 10
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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! Today we've got a couple of cars with just one thing in common: insanity!
You know you're not like The Others, yes? Do your relatives discuss you using sentences beginning with "Let's face it…" and stop talking when you enter the room? Of course they do, and you don't want to disappoint in your selection of project car! That's why an easy project- say, a rusted-out Studebaker Commander- isn't for you; skip on past the boring stuff, because you've got to go French or go electric!
Citroën didn't sell many CXs in North America, so the successor to the DS is quite a rare sight on these shores. When you go with a CX, you get many of the nerve-shatteringly complex technologically advanced features of the mighty SM, including the speed-variable power steering and- this should go without saying- the super-smooth suspension hydropneumatique. You also got build quality backed by those masters of administration and harmonious labor negotiations, the French and Italian governments; what more could a car owner ask for? Well, a potential CX owner knows all that stuff, but he or she also knows that these cars don't come cheap… but Bearddevil has found us a deal for the ages: this "77-78" Citroën CX Pallas 2400, priced at- holy shit!- just 500 bucks! Normally, we'd suggest making a 24 Hours Of LeMons car here, but that would be too easy. No, you need to restore this beauty, and you'll need to start by heading over to France to pick up some glass (three windows missing) and all some of the interior components (seller describes the once-luxurious interior as "way crispy"). Does it run? It should run, since it has only been sitting for centuries "years and years." People win the lottery, right? It will never oughta fire right up!
That dinosaur juice is running out, folks! If you go with a fossil-fuel-burner for your Hell Project, you're liable to find that internal-combustion vehicles cost about $900/mile to operate by the time you get it running (of course, at that point you'll be 94 years old and getting around in a jetpack walker, so it won't really matter). Best to be on the safe side and go electric! You'll want to use Plasma Boy's White Zombie Datsun as your role model here, so what you need is a small, light, rear-drive machine with room for plenty of batteries… such as this electric 1971 Dodge Colt (thanks to Belvedere Adrian for the tip). This little Mitsubishi was converted to electric drive by "the old man that built it," no doubt during the Arab oil embargo, or maybe the Iranian Revolution. Yes, it has been sitting for a while, but that's what gives it that super-cheap $500 price tag. Well, that plus the fact that it's a total basket case held together with crumbling Bondo little bit rough… but don't focus on that when you should be imagining those super-rad electric burnouts you'll be doing once it's running. It "ran at one time," according to the seller, who believes that a simple transistor swap might make everything hunky-dory, and that 86-volt motor should have no problem withstanding the 880 volts you'll be juicing it with!
Send an email to Murilee Martin, the author of this post, at murilee@jalopnik.com.
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