Hey, a V6 Chevette? That's dumb. I'll take it!

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Every converter has a stall speed, numbnuts. Even the one you replaced it with. What might the new stall speed be, oh obviously gifted backyard mechanic?

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That's two words because Packards are huge.

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There was a guy in my High School who had a V6-powered Chevette. He was a dick.

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Price is REAL PRICE also, I dont care if you only got a $1000 borrow some more before you ask me to make you a special deal!

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With the Chevette, no matter what you do to it, it'll always be a shitbox Chevette. And it has the rough-sounding 4.3L V6. Sure it be fast, but it'll be shit in every other way. And that's pure hell... so the Chevette gets my hell vote.

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You are compelled to buy the Chevette.

The machine was never cool in the first place, and such an indie machine would be amazing relative to the fairly simple hell of dealing with four I-8 packards.

You're 24, you don't have a girlfriend, and you're quite convinced that the 70's were a glorious time, and you long to go back to them. What better way to relieve the good and the bad that was the 70's with this awful Chevette?

It should be reasonably quick with 205hp, yet it will never quite be cool the way that those packards might eventually be if hotted up.

You talk the owner down to selling you the Chevette for nine hundred bucks and three cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

The problem with the 4.3L is that it isn't quite what the V8 is. Nevermind, you say. You want the glory of the 70's. You want to feel like you're an AMERICAN. You want Disco Fever.

You tow the car home and begin wrenching on it to get it running. Sure, the big pieces are in place, but a few of the little things end up really busting your knuckles. The thing on your side is that it's carbureted. It's not complicated.

You grin as you begin scouring eBay for an 8-track, and dust off the leisure suit in your closet that you scored from the Thrift Store a few months ago.

After a good three weeks of solid wrench time, you get the car running. You had three weeks to spare because you're a freaking Indie college student, and you're unemployed, so it's not like you have to go somewhere. Like lectures.

Now that you've got the Chevelle running, you want it painted to match your brown leather SAS shoes. Yes, you paint the Chevelle a glorious shade of brown.

Your work complete, you put on the Leisure Suit, put on a gold chain and cruise to the discoteque. Those fucking scene girls will love your indie-rod, you tell yourself.

You roll up, park your brown Chevelle and walk into the club.

There's typical scene music blaring, with synths and flashing lights, and yet, among all the other scene kids, you look out of place. Your leisure suit is nowhere near frumpy enough. After a few hours of trying to pick up one of those hot scene girls, you give up and walk back out to your Chevette. You fire up the 205hp 4.3L, and roll past the entrance. As you roll by, a group of girls exit the club, and one of them points at you, smiles, and turns to her friends. Oh, this is great, you tell yourself. You pull up to the curb, and say "Hey girls." They laugh at you and saunter away.

You're left feeling dejected.

You go back to college, but because you ditched three weeks of lecture to work on that uncool piece of shit, you've missed the midterms and you're failing all three classes.

Already on academic probation, you're forced to drop out.

No job, no money, no school, no nothing. You're stuck with a bunch of 70's throwbacks and a fucking Chevette.

With nowhere to go, you're living in it. You're living in your 'genius idea' shit brown Chevette.

Welcome to an altogether different kind Project Car Hell. You finished it, and you thought it would be awesome. Your finished product sucks and you hate yourself. If only you'd ruined your life with those Packards instead.

Sucks to be you.

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Eight Packards? They're not hell. Get a few running, sell some rare parts, sell the rolling chassis from the last few. Just don't scrap anything or you're sure to bring about bad karma of the highest order.

Now, that Chevette. Stock rear end? Okay, need to change that. Might be able to get something good out of the junkyard with the profit from the H you sold from the "Vortech"'s name, right? Ignition? Fuel? Piece of cake. So you trailer it home and get it going over a few weekends and a few cases of Leinies, and she's good to go.

So, middle of the night, you set off with your still-unregistered 'Vette, remembering that the seller promised "far better" handling than it would've had with a V8, as well as "running like a scalded rabbit" (you always preferred the idea of a "raped ape", yourself). Well, you know a great road to test her out on - the local unofficial dragstrip, running through the flats and over a bridge before rounding a bend back into the woods. Hell, yeah!

You listen to the CB radio you found under the passenger seat. Nothing. This is a one-horse town, and the cops are off-duty. You're set to go.

The tires squeal through first gear and into second, and you're off, leaving a trail of rubber in your wake. Up to eighty... ninety... Pushing the glorified Blazer engine harder, up to a buck five, ten...

A tire blows out. The car careens to one side, and you fight the momentum of your one-ton tin can, pumping the bottle-cap-sized drum brakes and praying to Jesus for the first time since high school. It's to no avail, though - you leave the road, roll over, and land upside down in a muddy creek bed.

You come to sometime just before dawn, dangling from the seat belt. Your nose hurts like a sonofabitch, and feeling around, you notice that the steering wheel is bent. You unstrap yourself , miraculously, and are able to crawl out through the shattered windshield. You stand up, shakily, and lean on the remains of your project.

"Fuck, that was worth it."

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Four Packards, easy. At least you stand a chance at awesomeness with 4 of them. OTOH, I love stealth...but in a Chevette?

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