Serious inside car Hobbies?

[JSH]

I've never been into car models or diecast cars. When I was a kid it was model airplanes I was into. Balsa and tissue paper flying models.

I was really big into cars as a teen and into my early 20's but never really could afford anything too fast. I did have a 1972 Porsche 914 and 1961 Buick Skylark for awhile. The dream was to do an engine swap on the 914 and upgrade to a 911 race suspension but then priorities changed. My wife and I decided to get out of debt and target 40 for retirement. The project cars were sold off and we started driving a boring 50 mpg TDI wagon and a Prius. I did some suspension work on them but the engines stayed stock. The last 3 cars didn't get any modifications besides some better tires.

My real passion was motorcycles and I had some quick bikes and some bikes with some pretty substantial modifications. That too has passed and my current bikes are stock. (Of course some of that could just be that modern bikes are stupid fast in stock form)

Gas prices haven't affected us much. We drive the Bolt more but that is about it.

[larrybuck]

With everything going on in the world today I don't know if you were able to achieve your 40 retirement goal, it's great you're working towards that, but back to the Buick and the Porsche, I'm just thinking that if the engine in the Buick were the 215 V8, that actually would have made a pretty cool swap into the Porsche 914. I have had pre-owned motorcycles with aftermarket pipes on them, but otherwise my bikes have always been pretty stock. I will be putting racks yes a front one as well on the dr200 to carry soft luggage for camping.

[freebeard]

But would have been a shame to gut the Skylark.

[larrybuck]

Understood. I used to have a 62 Buick special wagon with the 215. When I originally bought it, my thought was front engine swap into something else eventually. I ended up selling it to a friend who drove me crazy bugging me all the time to sell it had to have it. He got in trouble financially and otherwise further down the road and I actually got the car back. This was just a couple years ago. car was actually in pretty decent condition oh, so yes I didn't feel like gutting it out. I ended up selling it to a girl in her twenties that was already starting to collect other older Buicks, she already had two and I delivered the car to her in Wyoming.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by larrybuck

With everything going on in the world today I don't know if you were able to achieve your 40 retirement goal, it's great you're working towards that, but back to the Buick and the Porsche, I'm just thinking that if the engine in the Buick were the 215 V8, that actually would have made a pretty cool swap into the Porsche 914. I have had pre-owned motorcycles with aftermarket pipes on them, but otherwise my bikes have always been pretty stock. I will be putting racks yes a front one as well on the dr200 to carry soft luggage for camping.

We did not make the Retire @ 40 goal. It was a stretch goal but worth the effort. We are now 44 and the Monte Carlo simulations show a 99% probability of a successful retirement. We are taking the next year to prep: Convert the Ambulance to an RV, sell a bunch of stuff and the house, finalize which state to move residency, etc. It will be a busy year.

The plan for the 914 was a Subaru engine. Swapping the 215 Buick V8 into the Porsche was a common swap but the parts are pretty rare for that 215 engine. The Buick was going to get a boring Chevy small block. In the end the Porsche was sold and the Buick was cut up for scrap. I was moving out of state and got no offers on the complete car but people wanted pieces. I pulled what I could sell then cut up the body and took it to the scrapyard as clean steel. My records show I got $14.42 for it at the scrapyard.