Engine Swap-a-thon, Rust, and Wifebeater Shirts: BS Inspections at the Real Hoopties of New Jersey 24 Hours of LeMons
When we come to LeMons races in the Northeast, we can count on seeing plenty of rusty race cars, and on seeing numerous dudes in maybe-not-so-ironic wifebeater shirts. Never before, however, have we seen so many ridiculous engine swaps in one race. During the BS Inspection, which serves to punish cars deemed to have blown past the $500 spending limit, we saw a (very) poor man’s TR8, a supercharged GM 3800 in a Bradley GT, a couple of Camry V6-powered MR2s, and much more!
What to do when your Audi nukes its 5-cylinder at the last race? Why, drop in a junkyard Audi V8, of course! Life expectancy for this car on a road course is best specified in minutes, but what glorious minutes they’ll be!
Likewise, let’s say your TR7 spits a couple of rods out of the block at the last race? Do you go boring and find another Triumph Slant Four?
Hell no! You get a junkyard Rover V8, dig up a Buick 215 intake and carburetor, and make your own TR8. Yes, yes, it’s going to fail in spectacular fashion, but so what? Worth it!
You may remember Unununium Legend of LeMons honoree Dave Morrow and his Wasserboxer-powered Bradley GT kit car. Well, the VW engines were just too unreliable, so he upgraded…
…to this supercharged GM 3800 V6. You say 10/90 weight distribution, a VW Beetle suspension, and 225 horsepower might result in a car that’s impossible difficult to get around a race track? We’ll see what happens when the green flag waves tomorrow.
Just in case the Bradley vaporizes from Awesomeness Overload, Morrow’s Auto has brought their GTO Judge as well. We see no problem with allowing this Judge into an event reserved for cars built for under 500 bucks (not counting safety gear).
That’s because this “Judge” started life as a Toyota Supra.
Just like a real GTO, the Judgepra has a Pontiac 400 under the hood. There are no weak points in this plan!
We saw this Saab Turbo B engine-powered Nissan 300ZX at the New England LeMons last year. Since that time, LeMons HQ has decreed that all LeMons racers must have hoods. Using such materials as a wheelbarrow and a motorcycle fuel tank, Team Rust In The Wind has met the new requirement with style.
Unununium Medal winners Speedycop and the Gang of Outlaws brought their much-improved Lancia ScorpionR2 and Parnelli Jones Galaxie to New Jersey.
They’re also converted their very fast Lincoln Mark VIII into a Lockheed P-38, complete with whirling propellers and flashing machine guns.
We saw many more fine racing machines today, so let’s check out the traditional timelapse video showing the first few hours of the Real Hoopties of New Jersey BS Inspection. Check in tomorrow for race updates!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Good luck to my friend Mike and his team with their VW Polo. Don't die! :) And nice to see some good 'ol Jersey Lemon represent'n. East Coast, boy. Or whatever white-mafia-dudes in VW euro clothing say.
The word, "hooptie" means rusty old car, and dates back at least to 1939 (NPR, On the Media, April 9, 2011)