What crazy car project would you like to do?

[backpacker3]

This isn't necessarily about a dream car but about some crazy idea you've had about any car you've seen on the road.

For me I would love to get an old mail truck (Grumman LLV) swap in a old wrangler drivetrain to get 4wd plus the high/low range manual trans and turn it into a kind of mini camper in the back. Although just for kicks I was looking at some stuff and mail trucks are supposed built on a chevy s10 chassis so I'm kind of wondering if s10 4wd components would work better. I just think it would be awesome to drive around it one of those mail trucks lifted maybe even a custom paint job, you could probably even do a pretty sweet boat tail on the back.

So that's what I want to do. How about you?

[user removed]

I'm building it now although slowly. Eventually with my drive which is described in
US patent # 7677208.

regards
Mech

[Cobb]

Since my gen 2 insight has lost most of its value if used in a trade I thought about making it a full on show car. Rice it out with a wild wrap. Make a big speaker box that fills the rear hatch and back seats. Install some large 15- 20 inch sub woofers.

[freebeard]

This isn't necessarily about a dream car but about some crazy idea you've had about any car you've seen on the road.

I saw this one on the information superhighway.

What it put me in mind of was the Subaru Forester. It has a 99" wheelbase, a flat-6 in front and 4WD. WRX parts fit. So you remove all the doors and tailgate and Saw-Z-All around the body 10-12" above the bottom of the chassis. Cut out the wheelwells for 38" tires.



Then graft a VW Type II/Vanagon (96" wheelbase) onto it without cutting out the floor. There may be a hump in the front floorboard and the steering would need sorting out. The original floor would be storage lockers, like a Greyhound bus.

[UltArc]

Ferrari FF.

100% ecomodded. Manual tranny swap, grille blocks, boat tail, rear wheel skirts, MUCH skinnier tires, side exhausts for the engine bay, the engine exhaust through the boat tail. Man, the things I would do to one of those...

Though I think just taking a 2007 GT (44) and swapping the 5.8 from a 2013 GT500, and hypermiling it would be more fun.

[Frank Lee]

Still think making one of my Tempos into a tadpole trike would be neat, although I realize there won't be huge efficiency gains like I originally dreamt.

[California98Civic]

Most of my friends and family think I am already doing it. Maybe they're right.

[redpoint5]

Great topic! Funny reading the comments about taking something inherently inefficient and trying to make it efficient, or taking something inherently efficient and turn it into a tank with wheels

I've got the aluminum frame and Lexan body from the electric car I built in high school, and I can't bring myself to recycle it, and yet it needs so much work to get it going again. I built it after hours, and when I was skipping class my senior year. A year later, a class was formed that taught the design, construction, and competition that we had learned in an unstructured way. Each year new cars were built, and the components from the first car were stripped and reused. That's how I came to own a 3/4" round aluminum frame.

The design is a reverse trike with a very reclined seating position, and about half an inch of ground clearance. It feels like the wildest sports car you've been in even though it only had a 2hp motor never went much above 40 mph. The steering wasn't precise enough to handle those speeds very gracefully, so the twitchiness made for white-knuckle driving.

To get the thing driving again, I would need:

Motor
Controller
Battery
3 bicycle wheels with extra thick rims and thicker gauge spokes
Brake system (original never worked well, shouldn't have passed inspection, and was responsible for some spectacular accidents)
Chain
Sprockets

I'll dig up pictures later of what I've got, but my main hangup on working on this is the time and money necessary to get it going, and the lack of practical purpose of the vehicle. It's illegal and unsafe to drive on the road, and probably illegal and unsafe to have on other pathways shared by pedestrians or bicycles. On the other hand, just talking about the car reminds me of the thrill of driving something light as a feather with a motor that likes to lay down torque.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I've got the aluminum frame and Lexan body from the electric car I built in high school, and I can't bring myself to recycle it, and yet it needs so much work to get it going again. I built it after hours, and when I was skipping class my senior year. A year later, a class was formed that taught the design, construction, and competition that we had learned in an unstructured way. Each year new cars were built, and the components from the first car were stripped and reused. That's how I came to own a 3/4" round aluminum frame.

The design is a reverse trike with a very reclined seating position, and about half an inch of ground clearance. It feels like the wildest sports car you've been in even though it only had a 2hp motor never went much above 40 mph. The steering wasn't precise enough to handle those speeds very gracefully, so the twitchiness made for white-knuckle driving.

To get the thing driving again, I would need:

Motor
Controller
Battery
3 bicycle wheels with extra thick rims and thicker gauge spokes
Brake system (original never worked well, shouldn't have passed inspection, and was responsible for some spectacular accidents)
Chain
Sprockets

I've already considered to make a similar project, but using a Honda Biz 125 flexfuel engine, eventually using a hub-motor just to overcome the lack of a reverse gear. I'd also make it with a little more ground clearance, regular motorcycle tyres, disc brakes, a little more ground clearance and some sort of suspension to make it street-legal.

[Daox]

Its not too crazy or wild, but I want to fix up and eventually mod up my 93 Toyota Tercel. Its my first car. Step one is get it running again (needs brake work and fuel pump/tank put back in). It also needs body work (ideally). Step two is hybridization. Adding a ~100hp electric drive to it. The setup I'm thinking of would allow electric mode, gas mode (1.5l, 82 hp), or combined / fun (180hp) mode. It would be great fun, and have enough electric range for my daily commute and a little more. This would be in addition to some eco/aero mods like regearing the trans, LRR tires, grill block, etc.