The extremely cheap, extremely sketchy (putatively) NSX-engine-powered Acura Legend obliterated the dime-a-dozen turbo Civic in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll, which is about what we expected. So what if we could find not just an NSX engine but an entire car for cheap (well, maybe entire isn't the right word here, but you get the idea)- what then? Well, then we have quite a dilemma when trying to find something to stack up against the Acura, a car that's equally cool, in spittin' distance of the NSX's price range, and hideously expensive when it comes to part obtainment. Perhaps it's an impossible task, but let's see how things sort out in today's Detroit-versus-Japan matchup!

You want an NSX, and so do I. It's safe to say that you wouldn't be reading this series in the first place if you were the sort who doesn't want an NSX (unless your brand of garage masochism requires engines with carburetors... lots and lots of carburetors, in which case you most likely still think the NSX is a good idea, even if you wouldn't drive an EFI car yourself). But damn! they're expensive critters, and nobody seems to want to sell theirs. However, we looked and looked and finally found an NSX for just $10,000! No, really! Take a gander at this '92 Acura NSX and then try to offer us the usual lame excuses about how you can't afford your own Japanese supercar. This car is available at "a fraction of the price," though the price isn't defined, because it needs a little work. Actually, all it really needs is some TLC- like so many Hell Projects- in order to repair the damage from what looks like a half-completed ripoff-and-chopshop adventure. The engine appears to be there, and no doubt more than 50% of the rest of the vehicle's parts are present as well. How hard can it be to find a pair of NSX doors? You'll find out!

Say you admire the engineering of the NSX, but you're more of a fan of classic Detroit machinery. In that case, what you need is an early Corvette... but- holy Barrett-Jackson!- the price of nice 50s Vettes is utter madness! That's why you want to try to find a project car and turn oceans of sweat and rivers of tears into a top-notch concours-qualiity restoration, one that will convince even the most sphincterish Corvette obsesso that you don't deserve to be ground into hamburger for defiling such a sacred machine. You'll have your work cut out for you with this 1959 Chevrolet Corvette, because it's actually a '59 frame with a "thick fiberglass" replica '57 body and a 283 out of a '66 Chevy (no mention of the transmission, which means it's probably a Powerglide). But, hey, the car is only $9,100! Hmm... maybe that idea of a restoration isn't really feasible here, but ya never know, ya know? Just put the correct stuff on the engine, find the right 4-speed, and dive into Itchy Fiberglass Land, and you'll be out cruising your '57/'59 in no time!

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The '58 Lincoln put up a good showing, but in the end the Porsche 928 takes the prize, with 56% of you choosing Polyester-Clad White Powder Distributor over Chain-Smoking Rat Pack Player in Monday's Choose Your Eternity poll. But with a Datsun nearly beating a Peugeot last week, not to mention an Acura winning the 24 Hours of LeMons, we felt the need to turn Japanese for today's challenge. As always, the challenge with finding good candidates for Japanese Project Hell is that damned Japanese build quality and reliability, not to mention the ease of finding parts... but we've managed to find a couple of potentially-fast-yet-nightmarish Hondas to make your tools burn right through your flesh!

We'd sure love to have an NSX, but it's pretty tough to find an example that's really a low-cost-of-admission project, for the same reason it's tough to find cheap project Ferraris. But how about that sweet DOHC NSX V6 engine in a more affordable car? Like, say, this Legend with a '97 NSX engine (go here if the ad disappears), which 500 bucks plus a trip to the bustling desert metropolis of Bullhead City will make your very own nightmare pride and joy. Five hundred little dollars! That's a 290-horse C32B in there, friends... well, it had 290 horsepower when it left Honda's hands; we're guessing a few of the ponies may have fled by now. The transmission is bad, and the condition of the body suggests that the car may have been hooned to oblivion driven enthusiastically prior to the transmission failure, but: cheap! Oh yes, the statement "in rage of tranny going out the windshield with need replaced" seems to indicate that the owner of this car has had enough... but you won't feel that way when it's your punishment dream car!
Thanks, and a half-credit towards a PCH Tipster T-shirt, to EMPM Esq for the tip!

Maybe you're hoping for something a little more sleeper-ish than a Legend, since everyone knows even the stock Legends are fairly quick machines. How about a Civic sedan stuffed with lots and lots of boost? You can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of turbocharged Civics that look like plain-vanilla commuters, so imagine the fun you'd have smoking the front tires through all the gears in a fourth-gen Civic sedan (and nuking your third transaxle in a week, but you'll deal with that later). Now, the cheapest and easiest way to dive into Blown Civic Hell is to take on someone else's unfinished project, and we've found a real screamin' deal for you: this '90 Civic with turbocharged D15B VTEC engine (go here if the ad disappears) for only $1,500. Normally, we'd say the first thing you'd need to do with such a project is finish the running gear setup, but with this car we need to declare a 27-alarm emergency on the paint job, which appears to be a sort of Yakuza Police black-and-white deal. Once you're done making it look like Grandma's commuter econobox, you can do something about the fuel-delivery system; looks like the current owner installed a turbo kit without upgrading the fuel injectors... and has been driving it that way, which means the engine is getting fed a cutting-torch-lean fuel/air mix every time the turbo takes effect. Don't worry, though, because the seller has only "taken into boost 1 TIME YES IT WILL BOOST" What could go wrong?

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What with all the racin' madness lately, I haven't had a chance to descend into the lake of burning 90-weight that is Project Car Hell for a few days. In our last matchup, we almost had an upset for the ages, with a Japanese car nearly beating a French car in the Dangel Peugeot Wagon versus V8 Fairlady poll. And that Peugeot was a tough one, too! You fans of Japanese Car Hell can feel proud... or ashamed, depending on how you look at it. Today we're getting away from the PCH Superpowers and mixing it up a bit, with a perennial German Choose Your Eternity favorite going up against a proud Detroit native.

We had a 928 here just a couple weeks ago, but the cool/hell equation is just irresistible with Porsche's front-engine V8 machine. It's fast, good-looking, sold for vast sums when new, and has a scary-sleazeball Tony Montana aura you just can't deny... and you can find them dirt cheap nowadays. Well, dirt cheap provided you're willing to fix everything a few things. How about a genuine Porsche 928 for just 600 bucks? Come check out this '82 in Connecticut, which is priced down in 24 Hours of LeMons territory. Come on, you know you can sell off more than a hundred bucks worth of stuff from this car, and you've got 3 months to go before the New England race! Or perhaps you want to make it a daily driver and sell cocaine commute to work with it. Either way, you'll need to do something about the transmission, because the seller describes it as "dodgy." We're assuming that means "inert hunk of leaky metal," but maybe it still sort of works! The color is "obviously black," which should count for something, and the engine starts. It also "smokes and is missing," which hand-wringers might interpret as cause for concern... but not you! You'll have that thing purring in no time- it's probably just the spark plugs, right?

Yeah, can't argue with the coolness of the 928, but how about if you're looking for something with a little more presence? You want a big classic Detroit luxomobile, but you'd rather take the bus than drive yet another Cadillac? We hear you brother (or sister), and we've got the solution: This 1958 Lincoln Continental, which could darken your garage for a mere grand. Now, you could probably sell off $500 worth of parts from this vessel and qualify for LeMons on the money front, but (fortunately for the other racers) this thing tips the scales well beyond the 4,000 pound shipping-weight limit called for in the rules. That's OK, because a car like this should be glamorous, with a gleaming paint job (or ominous black primer, which is also glamorous in our book) and spiffy snakeskin interior. Before you can get to the body, paint, and interior work (of which there'll be plenty), however, you'll need to deal with the running gear. The engine and transmission are out of the car, and that's usually not an indicator that they'll be in perfect working order. You get "all parts plus lots of extra parts and lots of extra chrome," which is a good thing as it's no picnic finding body and trim parts for late-50s Lincolns. At least the engine is the good ol' MEL 430, which is just common enough to make you think you should have no problem finding parts for it. Thanks to Brian B for the tip; Brian has sent in three separate tips and now gets a shirt plus an extra half credit towards...uh... additional PCH Tipster glory!

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Wouldn't you know it, the 60s BMW coupe beat the 80s one in our last Choose Your Eternity poll. Sure, the 633CSi is more complicated, but you might be able to find a parts car or three in your local wrecking yard... and where's the Hell there? Today we're going to return to the perennial France-versus-the-world battle for the All Time Global Project Car Hell JiggaChampion Trophy (which leaks rusty water and has to be jump-started), and- just because we love an underdog- we're going to let Japan take on the mightiest of PCH Superpowers!

We really dig the Dangel 4x4 conversions for the Peugeot 504, and we'd totally drive one... but we Norteamericanos can't get them, thus sparing us the agony joy that is French four-wheelin' action. Or so we thought, prior to Kleinlowe sending us the tip on this Dangel-ized 1981 Peugeot 504 wagon (go here if the ad disappears). As Kleinlowe says "check out the angle of the Dangel," and we have to agree there's something a little off about the extreme nose-high stance of this car. Does it have any engine, much less the turbodiesel the seller claims? And a station wagon! Reet! Best of all, the seller states "As far as I can tell this is the only one in the USA" like that's a selling point! Better brush up on your French Parts Guy slang, because you'll be needing it!

A diesel- even a turbocharged diesel- is just too slow for serious Hell Project hoonage; what's the point of wrenching for years on a project if you can't wrap it around a tree 50 yards from your garage? That's why you need a tiny sports car with a big rip-snortin' Detroit V8. But not a British sports car; ever since the Cobra, we've seen all manner of British machines getting all sideways and backwards with Ford and Chevy V8s. What you need is a Japanese sports car with a V8, and what better choice than this '68 Datsun Fairlady (go here if the ad disappears)? Just $1,500! What are you waiting for? It's got $6K in "professional chassis work" already, yet there's "much work left to do." We don't doubt it, and we also don't doubt that the 302/5-speed combo won't give you a deadly respectable power-to-weight ratio if when you finally get it running. Just be sure you understand that "this is NOT a running car!" and everything will be all right. Thanks to Brian B for the tip!

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In another setback to French dreams of displaying the All-Time Eternal Project Car Damnation MegaTrophy (which turns into a pile of red powder within a few weeks) at the top of the Eiffel Tower, the hybridized British Leyland machine obliterated the Peugeot diesel in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll. The endless battle between PCH Superpowers Britain, France, and Italy will hold a cease-fire today, as we're so inspired by the beauty and coke-dealer-style original price tag of this morning's PCH car that we have no choice but to fill your garage with the sulfurous fumes of two gorgeous- yet maddeningly complex- Bavarian machines today.

Back in 1967, many of those hankering for a German performance car usually went for the Porsche 911 (priced at about $5,900) or maybe the Mercedes-Benz 250SL ($6,500). But what about the BMW 2000C, which could be purchased for a mere $5,000 and offered handling and style galore? Not many chose the BMW, which means they're quite difficult to find these days. Think you need to settle for a ho-hum 2002 for your vintage BMW project, with its easy-to-find parts and vast network of enthusiasts making your character-building Hell Project more of a laziness-inducing Mildly Challenging Project? Nein! We've managed to find this 1967 2000C (go here if the ad disappears) for you, and the price is a very reasonable $1,500! There's a big problem you'll need to solve right off the bat with this one- it's an automatic transmission-equipped car- but it "runs good." And that's all the seller sees fit to share with the world. There might be rust. There might be missing parts. The interior could be home to a boiling hive of Botswanan Urethra-Seeking Fire Millipedes. Who can say? Just imagine yourself behind the wheel of this baby after you've ditched the slushbox for a 5-speed and squeezed every last rampagin' Bavarian pony out of the engine!

Those old BMWs are cool, but they just weren't expensive enough when new. With great expense comes great complexity, and you got both in spades with the BMW E24 6-series cars. Malaise be damned, even the 70s 6-series cars were big and fast, and they looked mean. Some folks are scared off by them today, what with their rep for expensive repairs and hard-to-find parts, but we know you're willing to march right into the flames and claim your new car: this '84 BMW 633CSi (go here if the ad disappears). We hardly dare mention the price, since it must be a typo. Really, a car that sold new for the equivalent of 84 grand in 2008 dollars can't possibly be selling now for just... $800! And look at it- not in bad shape at all (well, at least the parts that you can see in the photos). Unlike the 2000C, this one comes with a manual transmission, but it's sort of on the broken side. The seller also claims it needs a fuel pump ("needs fuel pump" is often Car Seller-ese for "something maybe involving the fuel system isn't working right"). There's a certain lack of clarity surrounding its running-versus-nonrunning status, with the seller mixing past and present tense in the not-so-enlightening statement: "Yes it runs,and ran perfect." So, bad transmission, fuel system woes, "very little" rust, runs or maybe ran... there's so much to like about this car, and what a price! You should be able to get it back to showroom condition in, what, a couple of weeks? Sure!

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The French car beat the German one in our last Choose Your Eternity matchup, which means we need to give France's cross-Channel rival an opportunity to snatch the PCH Trophy (which features several rods hanging out the side and a spreading pool of oil below) today. We're going with something a bit different this time, however; ever since the What Should Mad_Science Drive To Work QOTD, we've been thinking about non-petroleum-fueled car projects. Not boring ol' electric cars that can barely buzz up to highway speed, or seen-one-ya-seen-em-all veggie-oil-powered Mercedes-Benzes, though. Something fun! Something... HELL!

There's no law that says you have to run dinosaur juice in your diesel; vegetable oil or animal fat works just fine! Oh sure, some worrywarts will tell you that you need to use some kind of witches' brew of methanol, lye, and who-knows-what-all and make actual biodiesel, but that's only if you want to run the stuff in an unmodified diesel engine. However, this is Hell, where nothing is unmodified! Not only that, most of the cars in Hell are French... like, say, this '79 Peugeot 504 diesel, which can be purchased in running condition for only $1,500. Put in a bunch of filters and fuel heaters and start making friends with the manager of your local donut shop, because you're breaking free of the oil companies' stranglehold! We suggest adding turbocharging and intercooling, because there's no reason you need to be slow while you're saving the planet, right?

A veggie-oil diesel looks pretty good on the greenhouse-gas balance sheet, all right (assuming you're using played-out cooking oil as fuel; once you start pouring fresh veggie oil into the tank you get into a maddening internal debate about how much carbon was generated making the oil), but it still spews out all manner of icky particulates in the exhaust- which is hell on folks with asthma- not to mention lots of unpleasant nitrogen compounds due to the high compression and combustion temperatures inside a diesel. But there's an alternative, you green-minded Hell Project demon, you: electric power! How about a full-hybrid vehicle, in which a small internal-combustion engine charges the batteries of an electric drive system, just like a railroad locomotive? You can optimize the ICE engine with fuel-delivery and camshaft trickery so's it runs at optimal efficiency, and plug the car into household current (or, greener still, solar panels on your roof, thus relieving you of the maddening internal debate about the "remote polluting" effect of electrical generation via nonrenewable resources) so the generator hardly need run at all! Of course, you wouldn't want to drive some glorified golf cart or you wouldn't be reading this site, so we've found just the car for you: this '74 Austin Marina, already converted to a full-hybrid powertrain! Yes, it's a British car with an aircraft starter motor and a 7HP gasoline engine running a generator (we'd suggest a propane conversion on the engine, for seriously low smog output). Hmm... British... electric... Malaise Era... what could go wrong? The car is in pretty nice shape, so you might not have to spend more than many months a week or so chasing super-rare Austin parts for it, and best of all is the price: only 600 bucks!

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In a stunning upset, the Borgward Hansa wagon handed Germany a one-sided victory over the Peugeot 304 in our most recent Choose Your Eternity poll. With France long reigning as the world's lone HyperGalactic PCH OmniPower, we would be remiss if we didn't give the French a shot at prying the oil-leaking, stripped-fastener-thread PCH CryptoChampion trophy from the Germans, in order to prove that the Borgward's victory wasn't just some one-shot fluke. That's why we're rolling out some Hell Project heavy artillery today, with a pair of undeniably cool- yet just as undeniably nightmarish- machines vying for long-term residency in your Garage Of Torture.

It wouldn't be fair to break out the H-bomb of French Hell Projects (the Citröen SM), because we're fairly certain that nothing on the planet can beat the SM in a Project Car Hell matchup. But how about the Citröen CX? The early CX has many of the features that made the SM so wonderful and terrible, but with the added bonus of having been manufactured by a company in complete financial shambles (and with the involvement of both the French and Italian governments). So head on down to lovely Plant City, Florida, and hand over $2,500 for this 1975 Citröen CX 2000 (go here if the ad disappears). The seller doesn't mention anything about mechanical condition, because it's totally unnecessary; you know this car doesn't run! All we get from the seller is "4 cylinder cinline,its standard with red interior seats and holds up to five people," which leaves a whole lot to your darkest imagination. But maybe it will fire right up, the hydropneumatic suspension will leap to the proper height, and you'll roar off into the Plant City sunset with a Hell-free car experience... but that ain't the way to bet.

We all know that Porsche engineers don't compromise performance for any reason, including the sanity of the mechanics who will one day work on their cars. So if long-suffering (yet well-paid) wrenchmen Hans und Günter have to sweat out 72 hours of labor (using all manner of single-purpose, Porsche-only tools) in order to replace some tiny component buried beneath a fiendish labyrinth of impossible-to-reach fasteners... well, if that's the way to make the car perform 0.0019% better, that's exactly how Porsche will do it! And the 928 might be the purest expression of that philosophy, with its engine compartment completely packed with one of the most complicated V8s that ever made a veteran mechanic weep with frustration. And it's not just the engine- the whole car is a lunatic monkeypuzzle, and it will drive you mad. Of course, all is forgiven when you actually get to drive your 928, but getting an affordable one to that point takes some work. Nothing you can't handle, though... right? Right! So come on out to Redding, California, and peel off twelve Benjamins for this running, driving '81 928 (go here if the ad disappears). Yes, just $1,200 for a running 928! It's not perfect; the seller admits that it "nees some luv." We can see evidence of some family strife in the car's description ("bought it to fix up with my boys but they think it is ugly i say they have no class, anyway here it is"), so here's your chance to swoop in and grab this jewel before the boys reconsider. Hey, did Porsche paint those wheels at the factory?

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We had another nail-biter yesterday, with the Subaru XT6 edging out the BRAT by a 234 to 228 vote count in the Choose Your Eternity poll. We're going to declare that one a tie, and that's a good thing; after all, what's Hell without difficult choices? Today we're going to park a pair of European machines just inside the gates of Hades, where they will beckon enticingly to you with their only-one-in-town obscurity and double-take-inspiring appearance. It's lots of fun having an oddball car whose mere presence makes onlookers question your sanity respect your taste in fine automobiles, and either of these two could be a life sentence highly fulfilling project. Thanks to HotRodElectric and Franzouse for the tips!

You love wagons, we love wagons, everyone loves wagons! But old Detroit station wagons are a dime a dozen, and parts obtainment is just too darned easy. You need something European, preferably from a defunct manufacturer and packed with weird engineering. We've definitely got you covered here, and we're sure that once you lay eyes on this 1961 Borgward Hansa 1100 Wagon" (go here if the ad disappears) you'll be a believer in a boxer-four-powered 47-year-old hearse-esque German wagon! Don't worry about the body, because it's "almost free of rust," and your Subaru-driving friends will be envious of your wagon's engine: "Subaru bought the blueprints and maybe some tooling too. I am told it uses a VW 36 horse cam and crank." Imagine the fun of getting this engine of dubious ancestry running again (normally we'd advise swapping in a turbocharged Subaru mill, but it would be a sin to dump an engine this hopeless rare). Best of all, the Project Car Hell meme continues to gain fresh territory: "Need a small hearse to carry you off to project car hell?" You bet you do!


They made Borgwards in Mexico into the 70s, so you might be able to get some parts for that Hansa without having to pay vast amounts for shipping, which means you could be taking the easy way out with that car. How about a machine that wasn't even sold in North America, a machine that will raise, then dash, your hopes repeatedly as you scour the world for parts, all the while taunting you with the fact that it was built by one of the world's major manufacturers and should be easier than this? Come on down to eBay and drop a big bid on this 1971 Peugeot 304! There's no reserve price, and the top bid is sitting at $100 with only a couple days to go. Come on, a 37-year-old front-wheel-drive French sedan that's been sitting since 1990... for a hundred smackers? You can't go wrong! We're a bit put off by the seller's punctuation and spelling (where's the traditional eBay CAPS LOCK, not to mention the requisite "i saw restored one a thees go for $$$49000$$$ dollars resently" statement?) but the spare transmissions, heads, etc. compensate for that drawback. And hey, the seller says "it was every bit as reliable and efficient as, and much more "substantial" than, my 77 Honda Accord," so you figure it will be a bulletproof daily driver once you've got it running again!

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We saw the Gremlin beat the Spirit by quite a margin in our last Choose Your Eternity poll. Maybe it was the Wayne's World connection, or maybe it was just the obscurity of the AMC Spirit. Either way, we're going to follow up a pair of quirky American machines with a pair of equally quirky Japanese machines. Sure, Subaru is plenty mainstream in North America these days, but remember when Subarus just seemed vaguely weird, say a couple decades back? When you only saw the little boxer-powered cars in areas with huge amounts of snow and NPR listeners? Those 80s Subies are semi-rare and quite cool, not as bulletproof as your Japanese Big Three machines of the era, and parts are getting tough to find... which makes them great raw material for your exile adventures in the garage!

The acronym behind the Subaru BRAT's name stood for "Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter," which doesn't sound as good as "Leonamino," but we can't fault the marketers for going with the safe bet. The whole concept of sticking a truck bed on the Leone and then throwing some lawsuit-magnet jumpseats in the bed in order to claim carhood and avoid the Chicken Tax didn't work out so well for Subaru in the long run, though you might want to retrofit such seats onto this 1986 BRAT ('86 was the first year the vehicle arrived on these shores without the extra seats). One think you won't need to retrofit, however, is the T-tops, because that critically important option is present and accounted for in this truck, which can be yours simply by trading "almost anything as long as i like it" to the owner. There's rust. There are many dents. It's been sitting for a long time. You know, the usual. How about swapping in a turbocharged EJ25 and giving your jumpseat passengers the last best road trip of their lives?

We like the BRAT, but maybe your 80s Subaru Hell Project needs less cute and more weird. How about a car with TR7-esque wedge-shaped styling and an interior designed to resemble the cockpit of a 747? Yes, we're talking about the Subaru XT, which was available with a six-cylinder, all-wheel-drive setup that was pretty damn wild for its time. These things aren't easy to find, but we've done the work for you by locating this 1989 Subaru XT6 for just $500. Five hundred bucks! How can you lose? This one needs both head gaskets replaced (possible translation: both heads cracked), but it's had $2,000 worth of "recent parts" installed. There's rust. We suggest getting really good head gaskets when you start working on this project, because this car is just crying out for all the boost your wallet you can stuff into the engine!

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With today's Engine of the Day being the AMC inline six, it seemed only good and proper that we have a Choose Your Eternity dilemma featuring a pair of vehicles powered by that fine powerplant. It's also good to have a couple of American cars, which I really can't use very often in this series because the stuff out of Detroit is too simple and parts obtainment is too easy to make for true hell. Not so with Kenosha products, though- even though the drivetrain parts are easy to find (thanks to the Jeep connection), the body and interior components are another story entirely. And today's trip into Hell isn't just about restoring an old AMC- it's about hot-rodding the six-cylinder engine so you get at least 300 reliable horsepower out of it. The road out of Hell is steep, you see, and you'll need plenty of power to climb out of the boiling sulfur!

When you see an American rear-drive car with a big fiberglass hood scoop, brightly-colored racing stripes, and rear tires so wide they protrude past the big plastic fender flares, you usually assume the presence of a V8 under the hood. How boring! But put a souped-up inline six in that same car and you've got something a bit different. Say, for example, this 1979 AMC Spirit, which can be purchased for the lure-to-Hell cheap price of just $2,800. It's already got some go-fast goodies on the engine (which is of unspecified displacement, though at least it's been bored 0.030" over). You might keep the intake and headers and drop in the good ol' 258 crank/rod combo into a common-as-dirt 4.0 Jeep block, giving you a ring-gear-shattering 280 cubes of inline torque! Thanks to the Jeep freaks, a bewildering array of camshaft options may be found, keeping you up late at night trying to puzzle out just the right combo for your Spirit. We don't know what kind of transmission is in this lil' red devil, but it goes without saying that you need a 4-speed for it, so you'll need to start shopping if the car comes with a slushbox.

Cool as the Spirit is, those Camaro owners won't be able to figure out what the hell it was that just smoked them at the dragstrip with just six cylinders. For AMC name recognition, you can't beat the Gremlin- why, even folks who wouldn't even recognize an AMX can slap an instant ID on the odd-looking shorty Hornet hatchback from deep in the heart of the Malaise Era. We've managed to find a genuine 1974 AMC Gremlin X for just 100 bucks more than the Spirit, which means it's your lucky day! Yes, for only 2,900 clams, or bones, you can head out to Kansas City and claim your own purple Gremlin X. Purple! Put on your darkest shades and take a peek at that two-tone interior- you know you must have this car! You get a 360 engine as part of the deal, but you'll be selling that off to buy some speed parts for the crazy inliner you'll be whomping together for this thing. It's been sitting for a while, so the brakes don't work, the carb gaskets are bad, and so on and so on. Oh, and there's rust. But don't picture yourself endlessly replacing rusty sheetmetal with impossible-to-find patch panels. Picture yourself rampaging around town in the baddest six-cylinder Gremlin X ever to burn 110 octane!

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Perhaps you breathed a sigh of relief after Chevy-Powered Porsche Hell was over with, figuring that (with the small-block-motivated 911 winning so decisively) you would be spared the temptation of a hacked-up Porsche sporting a non-Stuttgart engine for quite a while. However Project Car Hell doesn't work that way; just because you were able to walk past the fiery gates once doesn't mean you won't be lured right back in by the same kind of bait! That's why we're returning to Porsche Engine Swap Hell today, this time going for six cylinders instead of eight.

914 owners often talk about the 914-6 when that starts-with-a-V car manufacturer is brought up. Yes, if it has a Porsche emblem on the hood and a six-cylinder engine in back, it's got to be a real Porsche, right? Not so fast, though- what if you were to put a Volkswagen six-cylinder in your 914? What would you have then? We're not sure, but you'll be sure to come up with an answer to that question soon after buying this 1974 Porsche 914 with Volkswagen VR6 engine (go here if the ad disappears). Yes, someone has gone ahead and swapped the VR6 engine out of a '93 Corrado into a Porsche 914, then slapped on a fiberglass body kit for good measure. Don't worry about the quality of the swap, because the seller assures us that a "30 year professional" (professional beekeeper? bathysphere repairman? ocarina player?) did the work; however, you should be aware that this project "needs alot, but its a great start." There's no cooling system, but you'll sort that out right after you figure out where to put the fuel tank. Hey, how about adding the supercharger off a G60 Corrado while you're at it?

When you hear the name "Porsche," what comes to mind? Aside from Ferdinand's ripoff of Tatra's patents, that is? That's right, you think of the 911 (and its identical-looking sibling, the 912)! So why beat yourself senseless trying to get a crazy engine-swapped 914 working when you could just as easily push a crazy engine-swapped 912 project up that infinitely high mountain? And we're going to make it even easier on you by giving you a shot at a 912 with an engine using the same boxer-six configuration as the Porsche powerplant that fit just fine in the 911. That's right, we've got a 1966 Porsche 912 with a turbocharged Chevy Corvair engine (go here if the ad disappears) for you, and the price is only four grand! You'll have to spend some time fixing the rust "underneath," then get to work on making the engine run again. And no worries about getting a Powerglide, because this car comes with what must be the Porsche 5-speed and perhaps an adapter plate from JC Whitney.

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After all the excitement over the Gay Deep Throated Angry Demon 914rrari this morning, the chorus of demons here in the Hell Garage has begun chanting "Small-Block Porsche! Small-Block Porsche!" It's always best to obey the Hell Garage Demons, lest you find yourself driving a silver 4-year-old Camry or some other reliable boring transporation appliance. You go with one of today's choices and you'll be able to laugh smugly at those sellouts who took the easy road... the days will drag by for them, each a gray replica of the one that preceded it, while you roar around town in your V8-ized Porsche!

Swapping a Chevy V8 into a 914 is pretty commonplace, but you have to be serious to tear out a 911's highly sophisticated boxer six in order to drop in a crude-yet-potent pushrod V8 in its stead. Sure, the Porsche engine makes more power per cubic inch, but nothing on the planet can beat the ol' small-block Chevrolet when it comes to power per cubic dollar. So coming at you from the hometown of John Waters, here's a 911 with a Chevy V8 for the absurdly cheap price of $2,800. Whiners will point out that several crucial details have been left out of the car's description (e.g., year of the Porsche, type of Chevy engine, rust status, etc.), but you can rest assured that there's "NO CUTTING!" This might be a 912 with a no-name body kit, floorpan completely rusted through, and a Malaise Special 267 engine crudely welded into the framerails... or it might be just a few easy steps from emerging from the sulfurous flames of your garage! Either way, we recommend a bigger engine than what's in it now.

While you'd certainly get points for your huge, stainless steel testicles (or ovaries) by risking your life with a tail-heavy brute such as a small-block 911, you lose Sleeper Points for having a car that most folks associate with high performance. That's not a worry when you drive a Porsche 924, because even the turbocharged models suffered from some serious Malaise issues in stock form. But drop in a great big Chevy 350 and the 924 becomes an acceleratin' machine like few others. Just take a look at this fine Chevy-motivated '78 924 to see what we mean! Well, sure, the handling takes a bit of a performance hit when you replace the meticulously engineered Porsche rear suspension with a Ford 8" solid axle and simple link setup, and some might object to the automatic transmission... but take this thing to the local dragstrip and you'll be a hero. This car seems to run and drive, but the statement "its not perfect and still needs some fine tuning" might well be Craigslist-ese for "driveshaft vibrates so bad that your vision will remain blurry for a full day after driving this car" or even "only the left front brake works." No problem, though- you'll get it all dialed in, and then you'll be on top of the world!

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Since yesterday's Packard Straight Eight Swap Edition (which was won by the '37 Pontiac) was so much fun, we're going to stick with Alternative Powerplant Hell for another day. All engine swaps are fun, of course, but the best ones involve stuffing an engine much, much larger than anything the car's designers ever considered. When you accomplish such a swap, you get respect; when you start with the knuckle-shredding, sanity-destroyingly tight engine compartment of a small mid-engined car (say, a Fiero or MR2)... well, that's when folks start treating you with the deference reserved for the truly mad!

We're going to pull our punches here and choose a V8 that's not only fairly small for a DOHC unit but already set up for a front-wheel-drive application. That means the engine and associated transaxles are already lined up in correct orientation in the recipient cars' chassis. So whip out $1,600 and drop a Buy It Now bomb on this 300-horse late-90s Northstar engine, then head to the junkyard for some transaxle shopping fun.

You won't be the first lunatic ambitious project builder to take on the Northstar Fiero project. Far from it- why, it's been done many times! Here's a guy who makes the whole process look pretty straightforward. You can keep repeating to yourself the mantra "GM engine... GM car... easy swap..." as you head on down to pick up this very reasonably priced '84 Fiero (go here if the ad disappears). Only 400 bucks asking price! You can go ahead and make plans to have your new 300-horsepower Fiero terrorizing your town on the very same weekend, that's how easy it's sure to be... well, actually, you might need to spend some time fixing brakes and stuff, since the car has been sitting for "5 or 6" years (probable translation: 10 or 12 years). So let's say two weekends, tops!

Isn't it cheating to swap in an engine made by the same corporation that made the car? The Northstar might even bolt up to a GM transmission that fits perfectly in the Fiero, and where's the fun there? Not only that, the Fiero came with a V6 from the factory, which means there's room for a somewhat wide engine. That's why you need to spring for an extra hundred bucks and buy this '86 Toyota MR2 (go here if the ad disappears). Dad says it's gotta go, and when Orange County dads say it's gotta go, they mean it! All we know about the car is that it "NEEDS WORK," because the owner, Steve, needs to repeat his phone number four times and runs out of motivation for describing the car itself; hey, it works on radio ads, so why shouldn't it be even more effective in print? You might think that shoehorning a Northstar into an MR2 would be damn near impossible, what with the fact that the little Toyota came with only an inline-four engine and all, but it's been done! With 300 horsepower (or more, since you might as well add supercharging to this already-hopeless challenging project), your MR2 should have the kind of power-to-weight ratio seen only on racetracks (and in car-crash stories that make the national news).

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Well, whaddya know- an American Hell Project beat a French one in our most recent Choose Your Eternity poll, with the Malaise Corvette Limo winning by a small- yet significant- margin over the V8-ready Peugeot 404. Unprecedented! We need to honor this tremendous underdog victory by going with an all-American matchup, with a 71-year-old car taking on a 79-year-old truck. Not only that, to honor the amazing Packard Straight Eight we saw in today's Engine of the Day post, each of these projects must be viewed as the potential recipient of a supercharged Packard inline eight engine. So forget those small-block Chevy engines that come with 'em, because the Chevy is just too easy.

Today we're going with a somewhat different format, because today's tipster (and Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt winner), UDMan found both cars sitting on trailers in upstate New York and photographed them himself:

I took these pictures at a Fabrication Shop called Tom's Hot Rod & Fab Shop, in East Syracuse, NY. (315) 701-4441. They were sitting on a trailer in front of the shop, and they were at a show a couple of weeks ago. I took a look at them, and there is still a lot of work to do on them, but are actually rebuildable (well, I couldn't do it, but a lot of guys on here could).

But before we look at the vehicles, let's consider the engine you'll be using for the project. Wait, did we say engine? Actually, what you get here is a block, head, oil pan, and some other early-50s Packard 327ci flathead inline eight parts, with the crankshaft and rods conspicuously absent. You'll make plenty of connections in the Packard world while you're tracking down the missing engine bits, which will be a big help when it comes time to try to get a supercharger working on it. Hey, this is Hell!

30s GM car with small-block Chevy, sitting on a trailer? Hey, that means it's all set up for a powerful blown flathead (though that GM 10-bolt might be iffy), and maybe there's room under the hood for an engine a good foot longer than the original six! You'll find a way to make it all work, somehow! Here's what UDMan has to say about this one:

Then there's the 1937 Pontiac Sedan, with a 91 Caprice Police Package LT4, with AOD, New IFS Suspension, New Steering Column, New Power Rack, Wire harness from the Caprice, Original Lights, New Glass Included, Power Seats (Front and Rear!), Billet Dash (though I didn't take a look inside), Miscellaneous parts with the car, Shift Kit, and Rosewood Steering Wheel! Minimal Rust, needs lots of finishing. Has Title, and only $12,990 OBO.

Whoa, that price is a little steep, but you'll recoup at least a few hundred by selling that LT4 and associated surplus drivetrain goodies.

We like the Pontiac quite a bit, but the idea of a good old patriotic Ford truck with a howling blown Packard Straight Eight is pretty tough to resist. Here's what UDMan saw:

It's a 1929 Ford PU, with a new chassis, a Mustang II Front End with Rack & Pinion Steering, Front Disc Brakes, Ford Rear End, 350CI Chevrolet, Turbohydramatic, all rust has been expelled, patch panels come with the truck. Carb will be included. It needs finishing.... $10,500 OBO.

Hey, the rust has been "expelled," it's got a Mustang II front end already in place (note what appear to be Capri wheels), and a shiny-new rear suspension. What it probably doesn't have is room for an inline eight-cylinder engine, since this truck came from the factory with a four-cylinder only, so you'll need to get creative about the swap. Hole in the firewall and the rear of the engine right next to your knee? You'll find a way!

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?

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The majority of voters felt that an eternity spent wrenching on a pair of Willys Station Wagons would be preferable to eternity spent with a '58 Pontiac/'62 Mercedes-Benz combo, according to last Friday's Choose Your Eternity poll. That's fine, but what if you'd prefer endless toil on a hopeless challenging fast car? Something with light weight, V8 power, and primitive 60s suspension and brake design, perhaps? The red-hot iron gates are opening- come on in!

The Pininfarina-designed fastback body on the MGB-GT looks great, most of us would agree, but that old BMC B engine left something to be desired in the power department. From personal experience, I can say that an MGB can barely get into triple-digit speeds with a stock B, and the six-cylinder and Rover V8 versions aren't enough better to justify the funky handling. That's why what you need is an MGB-GT whose funky handling is justified... by the presence of a good ol' small-block Chevy. In fact, you need such a setup with the Added Handling Funk of a backyard IRS conversion, such as this 327-powered 1967 MGB-GT (go here if the ad disappears), with a price tag of just $2,500! The 327 is actually a 283 bored out and stroked to 327 specs (because 327 blocks are so hard to find?)... or maybe it is; the seller can't be sure. That won't matter much, of course, because you'll want to drop in a gnarly-ass 406 in it right away... well, that is if the Corvair transaxle can hold up. Yes, a Corvair transaxle, with the driveshaft coming in from the front! Don't fret about build quality, though, because this project was built by a NASA engineer in Huntsville. A small-block powered IRS MGB built by a rocket scientist and then stored for years in Missouri- what could go wrong?

You have to like that MGB-GT, but many of us won't allow our Hell Garages to be contaminated by the presence of foreign steel, plus the Hell-O-Meter™ reading of a lunatic factory hot-rod built in the last desperate throes of a soon-to-be-defunct American automaker may well be higher than that of a vehicle built under the evil spell of the Prince of Darkness. Yes, we're talking Studebaker Avanti here! You think it's impossible to get a project Avanti for anywhere near the same price as that MGB? Bah! You pessimists can just take your best shot at suspending some disbelief here, because I've managed to find this 1963 Studebaker Avanti (go here if the ad disappears) for just a bit more than half the price of the MG! Now, keep in mind that when you get an Avanti for $1,400, you don't get everything. However, the seller says it "has almost all the parts and a fresh engine," and you even get a Lark (not pictured) as a parts car! The photograph doesn't tell us much about the condition, but it's a safe bet that a word falling somewhere on the Adjectival Scale between "Execrable" and "Dreadful" would be pretty accurate. And so many questions unanswered! What kind of "fresh" engine are we talking about here? The 170 six-banger out of the Lark? Or maybe you've won the lottery with this car and you get a perfect NOS supercharged 289 crate motor! The seller claims "it is complete," so perhaps a couple of days of work is all you'll need to hit the road in your souped-up Stude!

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With the '69 Citröen ID19 carrying the French to victory over their British rivals in the PCH Superpower Rematch, I can see we'll need to have some more elimination rounds to see whether France or Britain shall be crushed beneath the weight of proudly display the oil-spraying, parts-shedding PCH Superpower Trophy. Today's challenge, however, is a return to a fine PCH tradition with no nationalistic overtones: Two-For-One Hell Projects!

Many of us took a look at the DOTS '56 Willys Station Wagon and imagined ourselves tearing through the woods or desert in such a fine specimen of vintage off-road machinery. Thing is, parts are getting tricky to find for these proto-SUVs, trickier even than fitting a Super-Fructo Distendo-Abdomen™ five-gallon soft-drink bucket into an undersized European cup holder. What you need is a parts car! That's why you'll be overjoyed to find this pair of Willys Station Wagons, a '51 and a '58, for the survivalist-friendly price tag of one thousand dollars (or a bit more than an ounce of gold, for those of you who fear the Trilateral Commission/Federal Reserve cabal and their so-called "currency"). One of them has a complete-looking Tornado 6-banger (and is "Tornado" one of the best engine names ever or what?), and both have at least half their components; you might even find enough unrusted parts to assemble one good body! Oh yeah, and with a Willys Station Wagon, you don't use a goddamn cup holder for your drink of kiddie sugar-water- you use a canteen full of manly swamp water!

But let's say the SUV/cup holer stigma is so powerful that it manages to taint even such an excellent motor vehicle as the Willys Station Wagon (impossible, but just for the sake of argument). You want cars for your Two-For-One Hell Project, do you? Step right up for this Mercedes/Pontiac deal, folks! For a very optimistic- yet subject to relentless downward negotiating pressure- price tag of $4,000, you could have a 1958 Pontiac "Fire Chief" (we're assuming it's actually a Star Chief or Super Chief) and a 1962 Mercedes-Benz 220. The Benz "has not run in a few years," but we're talking about a car that's just getting broken in at 500,000 miles! How hard could it be to get this Heckflosse rolling again? It's in Reno, so maybe rust isn't a problem... in fact, think of all the things that might not be problems here! Then, once you've finished getting your Mercedes-Benz into perfect condition, you can look forward to many happy decades weeks working on your '58 Pontiac. It "needs engine and rearend," which doesn't make it clear whether you get any rebuildable components. That won't matter, however, because you'll be building up a monster Tri-Power 421 with the biggest, shiniest blower your food money can buy sticking through the hood, and the factory differential might as well be carved from Velveeta when it comes to dealing with all that power. OK, so this project might cost a few bucks, but your Mercedes will give you the requisite feeling of wealth to keep the stress down.

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The V12 Jagchero vaporized the Electric Renault R10 in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity voting, but the lopsidedness of the matchup had some supporters of liberty, equality, and eternal torment crying foul. It's bad enough that the British entry was packing a V12 versus the French car's electric motor, but to make a sedan compete against a Rancheroized machine? That's why it's only fair that we have a PCH Superpower rematch today, featuring a more level playing field and one Bargain Hell Project from each side of the Channel.

Those postwar Jag saloons sure are pretty, aren't they? For most of us, ownership of such a rare and valuable cat has seemed so far out of reach that we've never even contemplated it. It turns out we've all been too pessimistic! You can get a 55-year-old Jaguar saloon for the price of a 15-year-old beater Civic! Can't believe it? Take a gander at this 1953 Jaguar Mark VII, my friends, and witness the easy attainability of your classic-Jag dreams! The seller is asking for $1,500, which means there's plenty of negotiating room when it comes to the wheeling and dealing. The car will need some TLC, no denying it. There's rust. Oh yes, plenty of rust. The upholstery is "petrified cracked and can be used possibly as a pattern." Not very shockingly, we find that the XK engine doesn't run. You could attempt a full restoration, and we have nothing but admiration for anyone insane devoted enough to take on such a task. Or you could swap in a V12 out of a junked XJ-S, head down to Tijuana for a diamond-tucked purple satin interior job, and leave the paint looking just as it is now. Add some Cherry Bombs and some rusty wire-spoke wheels and you'll be lookin' good on a budget!

When you're talking serious Hell Projects, two not-so-little words come to mind: Hydropneumatic Suspension! That Jag is pretty sweet, we'll give you that, but it rides on plain ol' harsh springs! Your backseat passengers will be liable to spill their champagne every time you hit a pothole, and that just won't do in a fine European luxury sedan. Those geniuses at Citröen put a very effective hydropneumatic suspension setup in their DS, and you could benefit from their brilliance by handing over 22 Benjamins to the seller of this 1969 Citröen ID19. I think the description of this car works best if laid out like a poem:

Project car.
Lost interest.
The best thing about this car is that it runs great.
Needs TLC with the hydraulic leaks,
upholstery
and paint.

Of course, you won't lose interest in this project, not even after the sixth month of cursing those Citröen geniuses and their leaky hydraulics! You'll persevere, and the reward will be worth all the agony!

We took a break from the PCH Superpowers and watched the Rotary Honda 600 pound on the Rotary Starlet in yesterday's all-Japanese Choose Your Eternity poll. However, Britain's defeat of Italy last week can mean only one thing: Britain must now take on PCH SuperGigaPower France in an attempt to claim the rusty, oil-leaking PCH Intergalactic Superchampion crown!

Why the heck didn't Jaguar put truck beds on their cars straight from the factory? Take the XJ-S, for instance: V12 torque, comfy leather interior, beautiful lines- in short, everything you want in a cartruck! Obviously, it falls to the Jaguar owner to deal with this shortcoming. Those of you who have been planning to build your own XJ-Schero can save many months of hard work by starting with this Rancheroized 1990 Jaguar XJ-S as the basis of your project. For some inexplicable reason, this car failed to sell for the chump-change price of two grand, and that means the seller is likely ready to deal! The seller, clearly unaware of the naming convention for cartrucks, has named this '90 XJ-S a "Jagmino," but the inclusion of a free '85 parts car makes up for the incorrect name. Yes, you get two Jags for the price of one here! There's no fuel tank, no back window, and no bed floor, and of course you get some funky E-Type carburetors to make things more interesting. Those minor headaches will be nothing compared to the pride you'll feel cruising your V12 Jagchero around town, however- a few repairs, some fabrication... how hard can it be? Thanks to BZR (who already has a PCH Tipster T-shirt) for the tip!

We like a V12 cartruck, that's for sure! But what if the future really will be about the electric car? You won't want to be caught driving weenie plastic bubblecars, and of course nobody is going to be able to afford the Tesla. No, if the electric-car future really happens, the Jalopnik-Approved™ approach will be something more along the lines of what Plasma Boy has done with his electric Datsun 1200. That's right, a drag racer that burns electrons! Of course, a rear-engined/rear-drive machine gives you better traction off the line, but that doesn't mean your high-voltage machine needs to be a VW or even a Porsche. Leave those machines to the conformists, because you'll be blasting out of the lights in this electric 1968 Renault 10 (go here if the ad disappears), which is available for just $1,500. What we have here is a 40-year-old French car with a 28-year-old electric conversion that's been sitting for decades, so you have to figure on at least a few hours of tinkering before it's ready to be used as an environmentally friendly daily driver. The daily-driver stage will be a temporary way station on your way to taking on Plasma Boy at the strip, however, and that means you'll need to get busy beefing up the chassis to handle the mighty torque of a monster electric motor and the weight of batteries. Hey, maybe rust isn't even a major factor here! Thanks, plus a half-credit towards a PCH Tipster T-shirt, to LTDScott.

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Technically, the Peugeot Mi16 beat the Mercedes-Benz 6.9 in last Friday's Choose Your Eternity poll, but we're talking 327 to 317 votes here. When all is said and done, however, France still needs to take on Britain in a PCH Superpower Challenge... but we're postponing that apocalyptic battle for another day, because tipster EdNiedermeyer sent in a mighty Wankelized contender from not-often-seen-in-PCH Japan (earning a half-credit towards a Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt in the process), and we've found a Rotarian opponent that stacks up pretty well against it. So throw those pistons in the trash and stagger into the sumo ring to face your 800-pound opponent, because it's Rotary Swap Hell Day!

We dove into the searing flames of Hayabusa Honda 600 Hell a few months back, but the problem with the Hayabusa is that it has pistons. What a Honda 600 really needs is an engine with no reciprocating mass and an even more deadly potential power-to-weight ratio than the Hayabusa (and besides, the Honda 600 came with a motorcycle engine from the factory). That's why we're pleased that EdNiedermeyer found us this 1971 Honda 600 with Mazda 12A rotary engine. The starting bid is $3,500, there are three days to go, and there are no bids yet! The seller, a stickler for the eBay Motors CAPS LOCK tradition, tells us "I GUESS I DON'T HAVE TO EXAGERATE WHEN I'M SAYING THAT THE CAR IS VERY FAST," and we tend to agree. In fact, we'd go a bit further and say that this setup wants to kill you, in one of those wrecks so grisly that the paramedics involved will be required to go on long-term psychological disability leave. It appears that the car has a shortened Mazda RX-2 chassis, plus evidence of quite the junkyard shopping spree, including a spoiler off a Blazer and an Alfa Romeo brake booster. It's been sitting for a long time, it's probably packed with all manner of scary hacks and workarounds, and the engine needs more power... but you'll solve all those problems. A little turbocharging here, a few months of puzzling out wiring and linkages there, and you'll be ready to wail down the highway at three times the top speed of a stock 600!

Converting a front-wheel-drive car to rear-wheel-drive, just so you can Wankel away? Why do that when there's a perfectly good rear-wheel-drive Japanese machine that's not a whole lot heavier than the Honda 600? Yes, the Toyota Starlet, the car with the best fuel economy in America. Once you ditch the pushrod four-banger for a powerplant with no pushrods (or valves, for that matter), you can make quite the impression at the dragstrip if you so choose. And if you've got $3,000 in your pocket ("only cash in person please," in one of those stating-the-obvious moments you often get in car ads), you can have your very own 12A-powered 1982 Toyota Starlet. The seller doesn't indicate whether it runs or not, but that won't matter much to you. You see, that's because you'll need to make this thing street-legal. Roll cage, nitrous, 4.62:1 rear and all! Sure, there will be plenty of work required, but imagine the glory of commuting to work in this howling-mad brute!

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As everyone predicted, the Triumph GT6 obliterated the Porsche 914 in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll. British Leyland versus VW? We've been gearing up to have an epic Britain-versus-France PCH Superpower Showdown ever since a Lotus knocked the crown off top dog Italy's dome, but it's only fair to give PCH SuperBeaucoupPower France a warmup round against Germany, just as the Brits got. Thus, we have today's matchup, courtesy of PCH Tipster (and T-shirt winner) Anaxomander.

We saw a Hell Project Mercedes-Benz 6.9 just a couple weeks back, but when you run across a JFG car for just $1,500... well, you know it's PCH material. This 1978 Mercedes-Benz 6.9 (go here if the ad disappears) is such a car. Just a grand-and-a-half? How can you go wrong here? This car's Craigslist ad features one of our all-time favorite descriptive lines: "Has mysterious problem." Just ponder that one for a moment; is there any problem that such a fiendishly complex machine might have that isn't mysterious? In this case, the transmission is kaput... but don't worry, because the seller has found one that you can get for just $450 (which, via some logical leap we can't quite follow, is described as being "comparable to finding a gold bar." The paint looks bad, the interior looks good, and it's cheaper than most 15-year-old Sentras!

That "Mysterious Problem" statement about the 6.9 was PCH Gold, but our next entrant may have managed to top it. How would you feel about a car that "Had been owned by Jacque Abot foremost French car mechanic in northern
California but unfortunatly the timing belt has broken and bent two valves"? That's right, folks, even the best French car mechanic in the region gave up on this 1989 Peugeot 405 Mi16! (Go here if the ad disappears) He probably ran away screaming! However, the seller knows of another sucker mechanic who is willing to push the rock up the hill a few times and try to get that powerful-but-hopeless 16-valve engine running again for just $1,000. But the news isn't all bad, because this rare machine (sold just two years before Peugeot gave up on North America) "Has new suspension, springs, ignition switch, wheel bearing and battery."

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It looks like Italy has been knocked off the PCH Superpower throne by the UK, according to the results of yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll. That means that PCH SuperGigaPower France awaits the chance to take on its historical PCH rival from across the Channel. But first, let's see how Britain fares against a rival that, though falling somewhat short of true PCH Superpower status due to the stubborn reliability of so many of its vehicles, still puts forward some strong Hell Project competition. And, just to make things interesting, let's get our contestants from Canada, where an iron atom never found an oxygen atom it didn't want to establish a caring, lifelong relationship with. We can thank HoserDave for these tips, and of course a Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt will soon be thrown into a dogsled and mushed all the way up to his igloo.

We had a Triumph GT6 just last week, but somehow that wasn't enough British Leyland Hell! Plus it sat for 23 years, which may have been just a little too challenging. So how about a GT6 that's only been sitting for 20 years? For a mere $2,000 (Canadian), this 1972 Triumph GT6 (which its seller describes as a "Good project car right out of Austin Powers the spy who shagged me") could fill your garage with dashed hopes and crushed dreams of roaring about town in your very own six-cylinder British sports car. The seller claims the body is in good shape, but there's some scary-looking damage around the windshield frame. The "Engine rebuilt before storing in 1988 long story," and we're betting that long story has plenty of twists and turns and confusing epilogues. Would it be sacrilege to suggest dropping a 2JZ-GTE in this thing?

Call it a Volkswagen, call it a Porsche, but a 914 by any name has great mid-engined hoonage potential. You can keep things all Porsche in the engine compartment, maybe even make it a homegrown 914-6, or you can stuff a wild Subaru boxer in there for some oversteeringly dangerous fun. The great thing about the 914 is that you won't have a posse of Porsche purists ready to string you up if you feel like, say, making a 914amino out of one. So head on up to London (no, the other London), where $2,500 Canadian dollars will buy you this 1973 Porsche 914. The seller states "project car lost interest," but you know you won't lose interest, right? Especially not with "all parts are here for it some new still in the package" and "new floors welded in already." Maybe it's just a matter of bolting on all the parts and roaring away! Or maybe not... actually, almost certainly not.

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While the 8-door '57 Chrysler limo almost beat out the stretched Ferrari 400i limo in our last Choose Your Eternity poll (and what an upset of reigning PCH Superpower, Italy, that would have been!), V12 power and Italian build quality seem to have triumphed over fins and rust. Today we need to see how Italy fares against its fellow PCH Superpower, Great Britain (with the winner moving on to take on France, of course). And, just to make things more fun, we're going with some serious Malaise machinery today, because Euro-Malaise is inherently cool-yet-hellish.

Can you get a Ferrari project for just $5,500? As anyone who has gone car shopping on any Craigslist site from Florida to Texas for the last year can tell you: Yes, you sure can! I've been running across the infamous Eddy, Texas Ferrari (go here if the ad disappears) for as long as I've been doing Project Car Hell, because the seller just won't give up! Many readers have sent in tips on this one, and now- finally!- I'm using it. So, why can't the seller unload this genuine Ferrari 308 for even as much as a Fiero-based "Ferrari" sells for? Sad to say, this car has been "toasted." Actually, I'd say "damn near completely consumed by flames" would be a more accurate statement, but enough of the hair-splitting- this is a Ferrari for $5,500! It has an engine and transmission and at least three genuine Ferrari wheels. This project is not impossible! Yes, it needs a few parts, but think of it this way: from the very moment it clanks onto your driveway, you're a Ferrari owner (and that moment will be the last happy one you spend with your new project for many, many years).

Burned Ferrari sitting in a Texas field? Is there anything in the same price range that can compete? How about that mighty British Malaise Warrior, the Lotus Esprit? Say, one for the exact same price as the Ferrari? Not possible, you say? Check out this 1980 Lotus Esprit, (go here if the ad disappears) located in the profoundly iron-oxide-friendly state of Delaware. The wing! The stripes! The V8 engine "not in car" (and maybe not even included in the deal)! The seller describes it as "awlsome," which we're assuming is not a typo; you'll feel as though an awl is being hammered into your skull every time you try to make this car drive. The body is in "great" shape and the interior is "good," so you'll be able to concentrate on all the mechanical components in need of work (i.e., all of them). Oh, and the electricals; go ahead and console yourself that Lotus was not a British Leyland company, but the Prince of Darkness had a hand in there somewhere.

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Can an American car- even a 60-year-old American car made by a long-defunct manufacturer- compete with an entry PCH Superpower Italy? Not according to our most recent Choose Your Eternity poll, in which the '38 Studebaker Dictator lost out to the '68 OTAS 820. That might have something to do with the fact that most of the OTAS now resides in the belly of the Rust Monster, but it also points out just how tough it is to beat a PCH Superpower. However, Project Car Hell is all about beating your unstoppable head against an immobile brick wall, forever, so we're coming right back with another Italy-versus-America matchup. And not just your quotidian-type X-1/9-versus-Pacer deal, oh no- today we're plunging headfirst into the molten sulfur of Custom Stretch Limo Hell!

Ah, the custom stretch limo! Conjures up treasured memories of projectile-vomiting Bacardi 151 all over your prom date's Very Expensive Dress, don't it? Keep in mind, however, that renting a custom stretch is one thing... but owning one takes the whole Limo Experience to a new, even classier level. But stretched Town Cars or even Hummers are a dime-a-dozen; you need something as cool as the Toronado Limowagon if you want to haul your entourage in the style to which they're no doubt totally unaccustomed. Something with fins. Something like this 1957 Chrysler Windsor 8-door airport limo (go here if the ad disappears), which is priced at a get-your-eyes-checked $4,500! The seller figures there's no need to waste time listing everything wrong with this car; instead, he or she has posted a single hazy photograph and included the following two sentences of description: "Looks like Christine, the killer car. Needs complete restoration." There you have it! So many questions unanswered (and, by the way, wasn't Christine a '58? And a Plymouth?), but we're pretty sure you can count on any question involving synonyms for "iron oxide" being answered in the affirmative. But put on your triple-thickness rose-colored glasses and picture yourself behind the wheel of this car after a full bank account and sanity depleting restoration, trying to see around that enormous blower you'll have perched on top of a gasser-style 392 Hemi!

An 8-71-blown Hemi '57 Chrysler limo would be the bee's nuts indeed, but what if you rumble up to Wet T-Shirt Night at Rohypnol Ron's and, just as your betuxed homies pop open all those doors and get ready for a truly grand entrance, a dissenting voice from the awestruck crowd cries out "But that's an airport limo!" and then the spell is broken? What then? Well, you could play the trump card of a series of hemi-powered Limo Donuts in the parking lot... but what if you'd taken on a different stretch limo project? What if you'd purchased a custom stretch Ferrari? And not some Fiero-based "Ferrari" but the real deal? You'd think such a thing would be impossible to find, but just check out this 1981 Ferrari 400i stretch limo (go here if the ad disappears) and then try to tell us that the American Dream isn't alive and well! That's right, a stretch V12-powered Ferrari! It's a lot more expensive than the Chrysler, and the seller says it's "mechanically sound, clean but can use some minor cosmetic work." But come on, a 27-year-old Italian car that's been hacked up and then driven at 12MPH while the interior gets hosed down with every bodily fluid that Newport Beach promgoers and 4th-tier celebrities can emit? Hell!