[trackbird]

I was at a friends house yesterday (440 miles from home) to look at a 3rd gen shell that I can get for a great price. It's not a real desirable car for anything other than a track car. Let me try to explain (since it was dark and we were using a flashlight, I didn't think to try taking pics).

It's a '84-ish Berlinetta. It has the 85 mph speedo with the kmh scale on the other side (the double needle setup). It has idiot lights for temp, oil presure and voltage. The seats are blue vinyl and ripped. The car was purchased for the 6,000 mile goodwrench 350 that was in it, the engine and the automatic are gone (not that I care about the auto, there aren't many things that are worse than an early 700R-4). The body is straight and seem solid, there is slight damage to the fender lip on the front drivers side 1/4 panel. The rubber nose is chipped up (looks like it hit something and popped the paint off), but it's otherwise solid and not torn up. It has a rear and all the suspension is there. Some of the wiring under the hood is stripped and wrapped in electrical tape (I was told that was the distributor wiring), the Y-pipe is still in the car, manifolds are in the hatch, etc.

The bottom line is that this is a fairly straight body in an unloveable car (there is no saving that interior) and it's a hardtop. I'd be starting from scratch, gutting the interior, wiring the car, installing a manual (I've done 5 and 6 speed swaps already), getting it caged, building a motor, etc. The problem is, it's hard to decide to put a 305 back in it since I'll be building from scratch, same for a 5 speed. It's not much more to put a 6 speed in there while I'm already doing it. That would rule out CMC, but maybe I just need a track car anyway, I'll find a class for it later and just do HPDE stuff for a while.

So, do I drag this heap home and likely put $12,000 in it or go buy something that runs?

[Rob Hood]

As much as I would love to do the same thing (find a shell and build a racecar), I'd have to make sure I knew which class I was going into beforehand. I suppose you could build it to CMC spec and just use it in HPDEs until you got ready to move up (which I'd thought about myself), and that may be the best long-term plan if CMC is where you want to be.

If your heart's set on CMC, I'd look at somebody's CMC car that's for sale. I've already seen some in the last few months that are under $12k for a turnkey vehicle. Plus, buying a car that's 90% (or even 80%) ready to race puts you on track sooner, rather than spending six months to a year building the car.

OTOH, if you just have to get dirty and love taking things apart, go for it! (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)