This is definitely in the first category, and for good reason. You laugh at it and scroll down, past the Amphicars and Smarts, pausing to have a look at a misplaced Subaru Sambar. Then you scroll back up and click on it, just out of morbid curiosity.

"Hey," you think. "A VW turbodiesel? Those got forty, forty-five miles per gallon in a Jetta back then, didn't they?" And shit, this thing looks pretty lightweight, what with the lack of cupholders. And passenger seats. And airbags. And body panels.

"There's no way this thing can be drivable, though. Bit of a shame." No, it isn't. Yes, it is. Maybe it is kind of a shame. This thing's pretty cool.

Wait, he's titled it? And it can be registered? Hell, your county doesn't even have safety inspections, and it's a diesel after all; smog won't be a problem once they hear it idling. "Yep, you're exempt," they'll say. "Fuck off." At least, you hope so - it didn't work for your friend with a misfiring two-point-five Sundance, but that thing's VIN said it was gas-powered. This obviously isn't.

Such is your train of thought, as usual.

You continue looking over the ad as you get your stuff together to go home. Most of these parts are VW, it seems. You've got a friend who's had a few Mk2 A-bodies; he should be able to help you out if something goes wrong mechanically that isn't self-explanatory. And that frame looks pretty strong, even if it's not strong on prettiness.

On the way home from the office, you mull over the potential purchase of this... thing. You've known Hell before - your ex-wife's aging Disco was in the shop three days a week and cost you more to maintain than she did - but this is an altogether new sort. It is, however, fuel-efficient, particularly compared to the Dynasty you picked up for $400 with a bad fuel pump and convinced a friend to drag home for you on his company's F350-drawn Eager Beaver. It can hardly handle any worse than this fucking Dodge, either. (In fact, the car came to you with the first two letters of its nameplate snapped off, most likely by the previous owner with a flathead screwdriver.) And you're not likely to get better-than-Metro fuel economy from anything else in your price range. Bitch left you with nothing.

You pull up at a stoplight next to a clattering Golf, its windows rolled down, like yours, in lieu of air conditioning. "Hey, buddy," you ask the driver. "How's that thing do economy-wise?"

"Oh, 'round fifty if I stay off the gas. Which is hard to do - it ain't a very fast car, y'know. Probably forty-two, forty-five otherwise. Why, looking into buying one?"

"Yeah... well, sorta. Thanks."

Jesus. That sure beats twenty-one. Highway. With a tailwind.

You decide that questions are for assholes, and you just got your tax return anyway, so you bid your way up to $840 for the half-Volkswagen, half-scrap-metal chimera. You feel a certain smug satisfaction at having won. "I'll teach those damn Prius-driving granola hippies once and for all," you think. "I don't need any fancy hybrid!"

The time comes, that weekend, to collect your prize. You rope your friend into letting you borrow his company truck in exchange for filling the tank and leaving him a twelve-pack of Tecate. The trip into Republican country is easy enough at first, though the state highway quickly branches off and you find yourself following Google Maps directions onto a dirt track. Just as you start to get scared, a whiff of burning marijuana enters the cab of your truck and a double-wide attached to a surplus Quonset hut comes into view from behind a grove of trees.

You pay the seller, a middle-aged man who appears likely to purchase a large quantity of ammonium-nitrate-rich fertilizer with the proceeds, the remaining $440, and he helps you load the car onto your borrowed trailer. Everything seems, surprisingly, to check out beautifully.

The next few months of weekend wrenching go remarkably well. Creepy Dude's welding is ugly but strong, and all systems, so to speak, seem to be "go". You reinforce the gas tank and side-mounted radiator, pay someone to do a passable lamination job on the tempered-glass windshield, and start researching biodiesel production. A couple test-runs around your block seem to prove the car's structural integrity, and your spirits are running high.

Finally, the big day arrives. You're pretty confident about actually being able to drive this thing now, and decide to take it into work. "If the DMV only knew," you think to yourself. The trip actually goes remarkably well, which was more than you expected from such a car! The handling is... well, a bit loose, but the brakes are excellent, and you can't keep from grinning as you watch your reflection in the chromed wheels of a Kenworth as you make your way up the 5.

You hit a good-sized pothole with the right side of the car. Not so good. Things don't feel quite so tight anymore, so you merge over to the right lane. It's not far from here anyway.

As you coast down, the car jerks hard to the right. You wrench at the steering wheel, trying to countersteer to no avail. Your project car spins around, missing a 626 by a few feet and skidding backward through the breakdown lane and into the soft shoulder.

You get out of the car, unhurt but a bit shaken, feeling incredibly fortunate that you weren't injured and nothing aside from your project was damaged. Walking around the car, you see that the right front wheel has tried its hardest to throw itself back into the thin sheetmetal you've welded over the tube frame. Something, most likely the tie rod end, seems to have committed hari-kiri - though it picked a good time to do it, fortunately.

You have your "commuter" car brought home on a wrecker, and catch a cab into work, having called a co-worker you bowl with and gotten him to agree to bring you home that evening. Once you get to work, you look over the eBay listing once more, wondering what could have gone wrong. You notice a forum link you missed the first time offering some small details about the construction of the car. "there is not going to be any flex in the chassis and the joint are going to take the full furce of all the bumps and pot hole beatting out the joint", someone writes. Rather poorly, mind. That couldn't have been it, though. The seller had to have been smart enough to "try a heavier tierod end or some thing that is sealed and greaseable", right? You just... assumed that he had.

"About those heim joints for tie rod ends. Isn't that what most formula cars use?"

Well, fuck. That'll teach you.

You step outside for a cigarette, fuming at yourself for assuming the steering mechanism was solid (which it was, until you took it over the Northern California Pothole Museum on your way to work) and at the seller for assuming it would stay that way.

Well, that's one more thing you need to fix.

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You've always wanted a TVR, ever since you saw John Travolta firing automatic weapons out the window of his sports car in Swordfish. "This is what I need to attract the ladies," you think when you luckily spy the eBay listing. A real British sports car for only $6,000! You didn't read the whole text of the listing (that would've hurt your eyes too much), but it said something about a "Ford drivetrain" so you assume that any problems will be an easy fix.

After cashing the last paycheck from your former employer (a newly-bankrupt investment bank) you have just enough money to make a roll of 60 Benjamins, borrow your cousin's pickup, rent a U-Haul trailer, and make the journey to Cape Ann, Mass. The greasy and unshaven man selling the old TVR speaks mostly Croatian and seems a bit nervous, but the paperwork looks to all be in order and the car even starts well enough to drive it on to the trailer.

Getting the Vixen home (you've given her the nickname "Foxy" for obvious reasons), you spend several months painstakingly restoring your new prize, waking up at 4AM to order parts from England, scraping your knuckles bloody, and hand-spraying an iridescent shade of dark purple in your garage. Maybe it's the paint fumes, but it looks just like Travolta's ride sitting there under the fluorescent lights. You've exhausted your meager savings and maxed out two credit cards, but this thing was worth it.

Finally emerging from the garage, you cruise down to the local night club. Gone are the grease stains and ratty T-shirts; you've cleaned up and put together a new wardrobe reminiscent of Travolta's style, even down to the soul patch on your chin.

You soon find that your Vixen is indeed a powerful tool for attracting foxy ladies, but not only that: a foreign "investor" named Vladimir notices your style and offers you a healthy reward for moving some certain "product" of his. This is just the break you need to pay off your credit card bills and make some real money in the flagging economy.

Finding yourself in an exciting new world, you invent a new persona; now going by the name "Trev," you spend your days partying and your nights working the streets. But there's talk of a new boss in town, a mysterious yakuza known only as "Mr. Toyota."

When his agents catch up to you, firing automatic weapons out of car windows suddenly seems a lot less glamorous, and a lot more terrifying. Their identical black Turbo Supras weave in and out of traffic, screaming sixes mixing with the sound of gunfire.

Suddenly, the lights on your dash flicker. "Oh no, did I forget to change out that bad relay?" you think as sparks and smoke began to emanate from the fusebox. Just as the Vixen begins to sputter and slow, a 9mm slug pierces the fuel tank and the spray of sparks ignites a raging inferno.

Distracted by all of this, you slam into a guardrail, smashing not only your dreams of great resale value, but your hope of getting out alive. The yakuza drive off, first stopping to kneecap you in both legs. As the car goes up in flames, you can't help but think of the situational parallels to the failure of the TVR brand. Although, to be strictly accurate, it would've had to been you shooting yourself in the foot before burning to death. Your only hope comes from a sudden prescient vision (perhaps caused by the bloodloss) that Mr. Toyota will one day become fat, bloated, and bankrupt, just like his previous major rival, the one they called "The General."

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For that reason, I shall plump for the Vixen. And there's a good chance I will give it a Ford Sierra XR4x4 derived 50/50 split all wheel drive conversion and Cosworth engine transplant.

Which will ultimately edge it slightly ahead of the VW deathmobile in the yes-please stakes.

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On the other hand, the little Vixen is clearly an impulse buy, which came over from the UK on the Flying Dutchman. Look at that interior. Where has this thing been? So you are looking at a bad case of buyer's remorse. And buyer's remorse is contagious. Keep away!

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The Vixen just scares me. We're talking parts shortage from Hell.

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The single seater scares me (in a bad way).

If I were going to take on a project on the scale of the single seater I'd rather just start from scratch.

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O wait, driving one is pretty cool too...uhhhh...Maybe the vixen then?

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Might need some Nerf/'Roo bars just to be sure other folks play nice with you. And straight pipes, so they know you're coming. Pity no one can hear NPR anymore.

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They only built about 500-550 if I remember rightly, and not all of those are diesels. Quite a few are running, I think, Oldsmobile motivation.

Can't fault their vision, though: a compact motorhome that gets good mileage. And with the diesel, they did: 20+mpg highway, which is good even for an unloaded Sprinter. There's no acceleration to speak of, but the mileage is indeed good.

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