After listening to the Jack Astro & the Asscrackistanis hit single, we approach the results of yesterday's Mix-n-Match Engine Swap Hell poll with a new understanding. The Ferarri-powered Porsche 912 didn't win because the swap process itself might be slightly less hellish than, say, the Series 60 Morris. No, it won because the spirit behind the swap is most in line with our purist-offending sensibilities! Yes, that's it!
So now that there's a howling, torch-and-pitchfork-wielding mob of worshipers of German and Italian machinery clamoring to nail our hides to the wall, let's keep up the pressure, shall we? Please to give Signor Lieberman credit for dreaming up this matchup of a couple of his all-time favorites; this could have been a QOTD but I cruelly snatched the cars from his grasp and hurled them into the abyss that is Project Car Hell.
Feel like bombing around some dirt roads in a screaming, get-sideways, turbocharged, classic all-wheel-drive rallying Audi, in fact the very Audi that started it all? Quick, drop a thermonuclear bid on this here 1983 Audi Quattro, available for... well, we have no idea what the reserve price on this rare beast really is. It's allegedly in pretty good shape, but the seller alludes to having "modified the turbo" so you figure there will be some surprises in store. Oh, and there's some rust, perhaps a bit more severe than the seller's description of "a few spots" might suggest. In any case, the real hell will come in when you modify the engine, suspension, etc. to insane near-race specs... because that's what the car wants you to do. Listen to the car.
A five-banger engine is nice, especially when huffing compressed air, but how can you resist the song of a four-valve-per-cylinder V8? And when you see the car it's powering... well, you'd better start scraping up the 22 Gs you'll need to hit the Buy It Now target on this lovely 1979 Maserati Quattroporte, because how can you possibly live without it? The seller claims it's in great shape and that everything works, but pay no mind to such statements- this car was a Hell Project the moment it rolled off the assembly line! Just keeping it running and 90% of its features functional is going to be more work than restoring a GTO that got crushed between two cement mixers and then dropped into the Mariana Trench. And you'll be obsessed with keeping it running, because the two days per year it can be driven will be worth it!
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