Ultimate budget climb car?

brandonl · Post by **brandonl** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 9:18 am

If you are looking to do some hillclimbing, weekends at the track and are trying to keep your shirt. Lets say, less than $5k.

Discuss.

Brandon

PS. The turbo mustang I talked about in an earlier post will have to stay a street toy at this point.

JekylandHyde · Post by **JekylandHyde** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:35 am

1st generation of the MR2 (85-89).

... I just happen to have one for sale.
I'll sell you a white 88 for $1200.

brandonl · Post by **brandonl** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:39 am

J&H, Is this car prepped or is it a street car?

Brandon

JekylandHyde · Post by **JekylandHyde** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:46 am

The good stuff:
1. It is my daily driver and never been raced. Although I do drive it hard. 2. For whatever reason I am seeing 33-36 mpg even driving hard (not complaining).
3. The engine is good and the tranny is solid.

The bad stuff:
1. The windshield at the roof leaks
2. The passenger floor is rusted pretty bad (due to 1.)
3. No Radio
4. Needs rear brakes

It is by no means a great car (hence the price), but it would be a good base for building a cheap, dedicate race car. It would probably be cheaper to make it into a good race car than a nice street car.

brandonl · Post by **brandonl** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:57 am

Im not looking for quite that much of a project. No offense intended. The floor rust scares the bejesus outta me as does the price of a windshield for that thing.

Brandon

JekylandHyde · Post by **JekylandHyde** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 12:08 pm

lol ... no offense taken.

Bigfork · Post by **Bigfork** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:10 pm

Easiest way to get a cheap race car is to buy one already built. Scan the classifieds at sccaforums, improvedtouring.com or where ever else (NER.org used to have a great one that they took down recently). There are lots of IT cars in your price range. Personally I lucked out. Previously I co-drove a friends car and just split the costs (thanks Roy!). I recently lucked out even more when my parent's '90 Miata snapped a crank and I picked it up and threw in a new(er) engine, off the shelf suspension bits and a nice SCCA legal roll bar. It'll be ready for Duryea with under $2.5k invested (not including personal safety gear I already owned before). Might not be competative (me or the car) just yet but it'll be fun

Tony

Bigfork · Post by **Bigfork** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:23 pm

Look into Spec RX7's too. Plenty of them can be had fully prepped for under $5k.

Bigfork · Post by **Bigfork** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:41 pm

Almost forgot. Lots of sub-$5k race cars locally listed here: http://www.emraracing.org/Emrasale.htm

Tony

brandonl · Post by **brandonl** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 6:46 pm

Thanks for the links. I found what seems to be a killer deal on the EMRA page. A fully prepped and ready SER for $1500... almost seems too good to be true.

Brandon

Steve Tumolo · Post by **Steve Tumolo** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 8:34 am

Depending on how street legal your race car must be. (ie:no way to tow a car) Then you might not have to totally abandon the idea of running a Mustang. I just saw an '85 GT for sale on Ebay that has a cage in it already for around 5k located in NJ. When you really think about it the operating costs are not that much for a Fox Mustang than any other race car. There is alot of places to get parts and a very dedicated fanbase on the internet to find parts if needed. Heck all the body panels from '79 to '93 will fit on a Fox.

Here is the Ebay link http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... 4553713220

brandonl · Post by **brandonl** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:19 am

Agreed Steve. My only beef with the stang is that even a decent street fox car is $2500 for something that is typically very very abused and needs plenty of work, plus prep. That figure or a few bucks more buys several other cars that need nothing, or close to nothing. Another factor in the ultimate budget car is how fast my butt can be in the seat. Id buy a slower and less competitive car (cheaper) to spend more time and money on events.

Brandon

PS-Still waiting on a return e-mail from the SER owner.