The folks at LeMons HQ have become quite weary of the BMW E30. However, it remains possible to get your allegedly 500-buck E30 into even the most overcrowded race. How? Do what Team Special Deliverance did and Ford Ranchero-ize it!
Last fall, I got this email from "Buford Hogswaller," captain of a team that had planned to run a '73 Ranchero.
Our 1973 Ranchero is DOA. We thought the problem was a bad head gasket or head, but we have now learned it is the block. In looking around, we have been offered a very cheap E30 (maybe even free). I am somewhat reluctant to go that way, though, just based on all the communal dislike and distrust of E30s. If we decide to go with the E30, is there anything we can/should do to increase our chances to get in and then to avoid huge BS points? (We are still shooting to lose our LeMons virginity at the Reno-Fernley race in May).
After some discussion, Buford came up with the idea of using Sawzall/Bondo Magic to fit the Ranchero's body panels to the E30. Now, normally when some dude says he's going to build such a project, you think "yeah, right." However, we've learned that LeMons teams nearly always do these ill-advised projects, and such is the case with Buford Hogswaller and the Special Deliverance Bavarian Ranchero. We won't be seeing this fine machine, with its Country Squire-inspired paint scheme, until the Goin' For Broken race in May (which has been moved to Thunderhill due to the closure of Reno-Fernley Raceway). Counting the minutes!