An ending always means a new beginning. Nothing could be more true when it comes to the demise of our project cars. Our Project Civic came to a screeching stop courtesy of local law enforcement. Driving back from our favorite parts place, Lin's Auto Dismantling, I spotted a 5-0. I immediately cruised into neutral and rolled pass the po-po going under the speed limit. Apparently making no moving violation whatsoever makes no difference. Once the red and blue flashing lights started I pulled over.
The fateful words you never want to hear rolled out of his mouth, "Pop your hood." Right there I knew it was game over. Our shiny new turbo kit was no match for his shiny sheriff's badge. The downside of driving project cars around is rarely are they our vehicles. So when we get pulled over you have to give this lengthy explanation on how, no, it's not my car but no, I didn't steal it. This gets you nowhere, it just gets skeptical looks from the officer. (My wife had a good time trying to explain such when she took out our Project Celica and was pulled over for "balding tires." No really, it wasn't the fact that it was red and had a gigantic wing, exhaust and body kit. He spotted those tires from 50 yards away.)
To our surprise, the officer was very friendly as he handed me eight million write-ups for illegal modifications. He also warned me that he would impound the car if he saw it again; unless it's bone stock. Seeing as how his patrol is our stomping grounds, this wasn't good. Having just labored away on installing the turbo kit, I was not the least bit excited about having to go back and remove it. And the suspension. And the exhaust. And everything else I got a fix-it ticket for. After giving it much thought we decided it was a sign from above that Project Civic's days were over.
It may have been one of our more brief project vehicles, but we accomplished our goals. We took a beat-up car from junk to crunk. We gave our EK a fresh coat of paint, Rota wheels, Skunk2 coil-over suspension, Skunk2 exhaust, Wilwood brakes, sound system, and best of all; a Turbonetics turbo kit. The downside is we didn't have much time to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
But like I said, every ending has a new beginning. As quickly as our Civic left a new project presented itself. Maybe I was on the rebound from my break up with Project Civic, but that's really just an excuse since those who know me know my addiction to car auctions. Like a junky searching for his next fix, I was cruising the auction listings as usual when three lovely beauties caught my eye-a Toyota MR-2 turbo, a Supra twin-turbo and a Nissan 240SX.
I have a thing for MR-2s but I knew since I already have one I couldn't justify buying another. That left the Supra and the 240SX. Having ogled Garth Weaver's Supra from this month's issue, I had Supra on the brain. But on the other hand, I have been looking to pick up a 1995-up 240SX for a long time.
Supra's also cost a chunk of change and there was no way I was going to buy it blind. Luckily it was fairly local so I trekked out to see it. Just like online personal ads, the photo always looks better than the person does in the light of day. The body kit was Bondo'd on and was cracking. The interior was completely disassembled and I couldn't tell if key pieces were missing. So unless this baby goes for ridiculously cheap I was going to pass.