Ryan, take the front spring height spacers out of your 2002, immediately!

Also, 2002 + MA = rust aplenty. He gets my vote.

Ryan, because Sean seems to have more money than sense.

Ryan, because Sean seems to have more money then sense.

Gawd...Working on a car (any car) in a driveway is just something I haven't had to do in many, many years. My heart goes out to Ryan big time.

That yellow paint had the Saab coming in a close second. Ouch.

I have to admit that I have a soft spot in my heart (or is it head?) for the Saab 99.

I had a 1975 sunkist orange 99. It was, dollar for dollar, the best car I ever owned and I probably should have kept it. I bought it for $125 when I was a broke college student and drove it for nine and a half years putting over 75,000 miles on it. I sold it for $350.

Saabs have character in spades. The 99s were wonderful cars. Sean has my vote.

Sean has seven times as many Saabs as I do. And infinity times as many B20 engines. I feel he is doing well enough without our help.

Ryan 2002 looks like it's permanently accelerating...

For the win.

Swapping IN a non-running 215k engine gets my vote any damned day of the week.

As one who is constantly battling against my own huge piles of stuff in attempts to reduce it so I can get to the projects that really matter, I gotta go with the Saab guy. Mr BMW 2002 gets to focus one one relatively simple project, one for which parts are readily available. In other words, a dedicated soul could knock out his project in a couple years worth of sweaty, greasy, knuckle-bleeding weekends.

Despite the drivewayness of his location, this is Purgatory, not Hell.

A dark army of old SAABs seems like a giant pain in the ass. At least the 2002 has aftermarket and moral support, whereas maybe five guys in North America care about the SAAB 99.

Went with the Saab because there's so much info and parts out there for the 02 enthusiast. Plenty of people have done that swap.

More than anything, the 2002 is only one car.

"single-wide, four-deep driveway"
Do we assume each of his roommates also has a car, thereby allowing him only one space in the driveway? If the donor BMW goes on the street, he gets my vote. On top of the non-running drive train, he also gets to contend with winter car-shuffle Olympics when the snow flies.

Boston roads in winter = teh suck

I grew up with both of those cars. I love those Saabs but I gotta go with the Bimmer. No contest.

Gotta go with quantity here: Sean and his Saab-fest.

Although I do feel the pain of many roommate shared driveway situation. We had 6 or 7 cars for 4 guys. Of course, we had a double-wide driveway and garage...which meant that the cars that actually ran spent most of their time on the street.

Sean.

Because owning a real SAAB in Michigan, home of boatloads of GM company-lease faux-SAABs is such a great political statement.

Had to go with Ryan. Outside. Broke motor to swap in. Enough roommates to indicate a very low budget level.

Sean has just too many cars to canibalize for spare parts.

Assuming Ryan's a college student (much like myself), he's not only tasked with dealing with a vintage BMW, and another slightly less vintage BMW, with a busted engine, in Boston, with a fast-approaching winter, in a crowded driveway, with 3 potentially cranky roommates, and their Jettas and Civics, and having to bum rides off them because he still needs to get to class in 7-foot snowstorms at 8 in the morning after writing a paper all night, after a mind-bending hangover; but also the fact that inevitably he's going to be forced to split his meager college budget (either his father's allowance or working at the token local indie organic coffee house/grungy record shop down the street, because this IS Somerville) between hard-earned parts for his BMW or a dozen or so 30-racks of Bud Light.

Hell is having to juggle a carburetor rebuild and an all-nighter midterm review. Trust me.

Much easier to get a good car out of seven basket-cases than two... And if swapping a dead engine into a car with no title or interior doesn't get you a seat next to the guy pushing a boulder up a hill for eternity, I don't know what will. Mind the brimstone, Ryan.

Sean should convert one of his Saabs into a Saabamino by busting out the rear window, rear seats, and the trunklid. The yellow one in the picture is already half way there.

The 325 motor is no great thang even if it were running. So bigtime extra pointlessness points.

lol... you can't turbocharge an na engine with +200k!!! umm dude... what is the crack like out there?

@Paul Y: You are incorrect, sir, it's just that Saab enthusiasts fly under the radar a bit more.

Mid-engine'd 99 FTW.

@akirachan: Saabamino for you:

[saabpics.com:3000]

Page 9 of the album has a couple more.

Dang, I feel sympathy for Ryan, too...

@dozerslobber: So good, it dribbled out twice...not sure on the money side but (lack of) sense? I'm with ya there...

@TinaChow: But I'm getting some of them to wave! It was extra fun running (w/ two others) the Saab Owners Convention in Troy, MI with great help from SAAB Cars USA but recall saying to one of those folks "uh, I'm really not in your target market". Next daily driver, maybe, but that's in 100Kmi (hopefully)...the chassis-twistin' Viggen was the last new enthusiast SAAB, err, Saab I considered.

@Paul Y: Close, but it's more like 15. I can put you in touch with most of'em...

bad motor, no interior, no title?

i don't know about the laws up there, but in NC no title would mean no license plate...

fixing that thing up, only to find that you can't register it would TRULY be hell...

engine swap in a driveway in MA.....crazy

2002 retsorod...priceless

Well, there's two elements in the equation, the car(s)/parts and the wrencher. Let's consider the wrenchers: Ryan has a sane plan, two cars, swap parts, end up with one nice car. Deluded, maybe, but sane. Sean, however, apparently has an insane jones for Saabs--there will never be enough/too many of them for him. He's in the 7th circle of hell already with seven deadly Saabs. And there will be more. Sean FTW--or rather FTL.

@texajeff: From experience, it's mostly "head".

My first car was a $1100 '74 Grand Prix...blew the engine the next month, lasted another year w/ a donor from a Grand Am.

Second was a $3K '80 99 GLi that lasted thru 7 years of undergrad, grad school, and first year of work. Sold it for $900 and never lost the SAAB bug. None of those project SAABs (and the Porsche) were over $3K...um, initial investment.

I didn't mention to Murilee that, in addition to the no-car garage, I've a single-track *dirt* driveway and the few PCHs not in storage makes me the pride of this lakefront neighborhood...sorry, "target".

I do have a soft spot for 2002, tho, too...Ryan might get a vote from my side other than one of my buddies...

I had to go with my fellow Somerville resident. I've had thoughts of taking on a similar project and my parking situation is almost the same. Now I'll be peeking down driveways for a green 2002.

Ryan,

A rusty 2002 blank page without a place to store the renovation parts? That means engine rebuilds in the living room, rear end pumpkins on the kitchen table - hilarity ensues.

Sean demonstrates having too much of a good thing with not just the killer SAAB collection, but a '66 912! Hoot-mon, that's quite the money pit he has going.

Sadly, Ryan will never really enter car hell. Anyone who has three roommates and no garage presumably doesn't have the 'capacities', as Al Campanis would say, to even begin this project, much less see it to fruition. My guess-the first cold snap sees both of the beemers in the 'FOR SALE OR TRADE' column of the Nickel Ads.

As for Sean, he'll never be in hell, just in a suspended state of limbo, always assuming that heaven is just one more POS on blocks-in-the-front-yard away. Poor bastard. I'm not sure whether to feel more pity or disgust.

Rust-bucket Bimmers? Pffft! Only one POS at a time? Child's play! No... when marginally desirable Saabs multiply like offspring of rabbits (non VW-flavor)/Catholics/Mormons (I'm an equal opportunity offender, k?), this is not only project car hell, but several degrees of hell, with the heat knob turned to "11" and 100% humidity.

Having been one of the brave/foolhardy/adventurous who wrenched on Sean's rally 99 at the 2003 SOC (Did he tell y'all why the yellow one's named Karen Ann?), this one's a no-brainer vote for Sean.

Saab 99 for the win!

Grassroots Motorsports has a Saab 99 project too, and if I recall correctly, they just picked up a second to use as a daily driver while the first gets the full rally treatment.

Ryan all the way. I know how bad Boston-metro roads get in the winter (snow, salt, angry plow drivers), and the guy's swapping IN a dead engine. In his DRIVEWAY.

They're all too pretty!

Where's the old, painted-over accident damage? The mildew? The rust stain streaks in the paint? Oh, wait, I'm describing my car.

The most hellish is the BMW in a rental house driveway. The homeowner can go inside and say, ehh, what the hell, I'll get to it eventually. I've been doing that for eight years; it works well for my sanity. The car? Not so much.

As a fellow Somerville resident who has frequently dreamed of undertaking such a task I have to say 2002 for the win.

It is possible, after all, to win by outnumbering your opponent.

Sean, because he's actively screwing his ass further down onto the rocket launcher.

Ryan would've won it if he also promised to shift the 2002's engine into the 325, for irony.

I'm the roommate blocking up Ryan's driveway with my project (the wrecked Miata in the background of the pic) and, since I've seen Ryan *attempt* to work on cars before- he gets my vote