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Stripper

The work has taken on a ridiculous pace. Over the course of two days, the garage was a blur of pizza, beer, motor oil and tools. When the dust settled, there wasn't much left. In an effort to save weight, the crew has spent their time pulling "unnecessary" things off of the car. Here is an example of a pretty common conversation in the garage.

Guy A: Hey, come take a look at this.
Guy B: What?
Guy A: What the hell is this?
Guy B: I don't know... It's weight, get rid of it.
Guy A: OK, who has the hammer?

At the end of the day, the car was stripped of nearly everything that wasn't nailed down, and some stuff that was. The carpet, sunroof, windows, dashboard and front bumper are all gone. The stick-on sound deadener was chiseled off of the floor. Rear window? Nope. Air conditioning? You wish. Doors? Gone.

You might be thinking to yourself "Why Mark, for the love of God, why?"

When car manufacturers design cars they add on creature comforts to make them a little more livable. When an ad tells you that a car provides 'uncompromising performance' they are lying, because no one wants to deal with a jarring, bouncy, loud, uncomfortable, rough car every day. So every car has its own balance of performance and livability.

We aren't driving this car every day. So the only creature comforts left in the car are the seats (which will soon be replaced with one Sparco brand race seat) and the clock, which we duct taped to the cracked windshield. The clock mysteriously stopped working, so it's pretty much just the seats now.

After all of our hard work we all decided that we were hungry. Sonic burger has long been the destination for car guys, and there was one just down the road. Can you tell where this is going? Yep, our MR2 Superlegerra hits the road in all of it's slightly illegal splendor.



Driving the MR2 in traffic feels like TP'ing houses when I was a kid: It's silly, pointless and exciting. I couldn't stop laughing. Driving down the road I had a revelation, that's the road just to my left, it's right there. For no reason, I stuck my foot out the gap where the door used to be, holding my leg inches off of the tarmac at 40 MPH. When I stopped and turned off the car, my cheeks hurt from smiling. It's wrong how much I enjoy this little car.

We get together at Sonic every once in a while. Vipers, a Lotus, even a Ferrari showed up once. Nothing has gotten a reaction out of the other customers like our MR2.

"What? You guys are craz-zy!" One girl shouts to us in a 'Don't go there girlfriend' kind of voice. Other patrons just stare at it with confused looks on their faces. They don't understand, I don't think they could even if we told them. So we just laughed.

This is the lightest our car will be. After this, we start adding stuff back on to make the car legal to drive on the track. But the car corners pretty damn well, even on its mismatched tires (The right rear is two sizes narrower than the other three).

The easy and inexpensive work is pretty much over now. The $500 limit doesn't apply to safety equipment, so that means we still have to pay for tires, brakes, a roll cage, and more. Right now, the money is my biggest concern. We don't have much, let alone enough to be blowing on a car that probably won't even live through the carnage at LeMons. Oh well, it's for a good cause.

Tuneup

Work began about a week ago. To say that the 1.6 liter engine had seen better days, is being generous. The car ran like a fat asthmatic in a decathlon. Some of the four cylinders worked, some did not. This is a bit of a concern when the engine in question only makes 112HP when it's brand new.

We decided that a slight tune up was in order.

We had a problem, though. We are only allowed to spend $500 and we already spent that much buying the car. Fortunately, the rules allow money gained from selling parts off of the car to be used to offset the other costs. Also we found about three to four dollars in the car in loose change, and that helps too. We haven't sold any parts yet, but we threw caution to the wind and got started.

For around 10 percent of the car's total worth($50), we bought new spark plugs, plug wires, a new distributor cap and new distributor rotor. Just pulling the spark plugs proved entertaining. 3 Bosh platinums and one Autolite, all charred black from years of service in a poorly running engine.

We replace the parts and are startled by the results: The car runs... well... it still makes power more akin to a kid on a tricycle than a racecar, but we can drive it now. And I think that's justification for a victory beer.

The beast

After a few days of searching Craigslist we came across a gem (sort of). The car is a 1986 Toyota MR2, a lightweight sportscar whose 80's-tastic body is so angular it looks like it was designed by Tron. Looks aside the car is nimble and decently capable, but best of all was the price: $500. The catch? The car is in South Tucson.

South Tucson has a reputation here, as being an area so crappy, its actually a separate city from Tucson proper. In 2006 South Tucson had more crimes per every 100,000 people in rape, robbery, assault, burglary, and theft, than Detroit, Mich. with South Tucson losing out to Mo-Town in murders and car theft(1).

GTmotor went to check it out. Unfortunately, he was driving his beautiful 2005 Lotus Elise. "The roads get rougher, the air gets more stagnant, and the buildings start getting more and more dilapidated. My 'spidey sense' starts to tingle and I feel eyes watching me as I look horribly out of place driving a car that costs more than most of the houses surrounding me," he later recalled. As he got closer to the house, GTmotor came up on a group of guys hanging out outside. The group spots the car and starts yelling at him in Spanish. "I decided to keep driving and got the $!@#! (sic) out of there as fast as I could," he said.

A few days later, GTmotor returned. Determined and in a rental car (his daily driver Lexus IS300 was in the shop) he test drove, paid for and drove home in our new pride and joy. The Toyota was ours.

I was blown away. We had a car for $500! People spend that much on tables, and this was a car with a running (sort of) engine, tires, tags, the whole nine yards.

Behold the glory!









1: http://tucson.areaconnect.com/crime/compare.htm?c1=detroit&s1=MI&c2=South+Tucson&s2=AZ