I went to Harbor Freight and bought a car.

Of course, the first thing I did was properly affix the appropriate signage to the rear window.

Oooh, first gen! What are your plans?

What is it?

Restoration and drive it on nice days.

Magic Doritos? 12a or 13b?

gearheadmb wrote: What is it?

One of only three rotary powered cars to have ever won a RallyCross National Championship.

I built one of the other ones.

Gotta catch 'em all!

By "restoration", I want to clean it up, replace all of the missing/sun-damaged rubber and trim while it is still available, install a stock 12A, and - the potentially difficult part - replace all of the damaged/faded decals. TeamTAC is still around so maaaybe I can get the number panels, but some of the other decals like Re-Speed might be more challenging.

For a moment I thought it was the minivan on a tow in the background.

For a moment I thought that minivan had hit a pole!

Apparently all the trim/seals are already NLA, and Black Dragon is closing. A sad, I has one.

Nice

Knurled wrote:

gearheadmb wrote: What is it?

One of only three rotary powered cars to have ever won a RallyCross National Championship. I built one of the other ones. Gotta catch 'em all! By "restoration", I want to clean it up, replace all of the missing/sun-damaged rubber and trim while it is still available, install a stock 12A, and - the potentially difficult part - replace all of the damaged/faded decals. TeamTAC is still around so maaaybe I can get the number panels, but some of the other decals like Re-Speed might be more challenging.

If you can get high quality photos, i bet a few people here could recreate those.

I've done repops of impossible to find decals - like for an old ford stroppe bronco

mndsm wrote: If you can get high quality photos, i bet a few people here could recreate those.

I've seen the restoration work that Makela Auto Tuning does, and the part where they recreate vintage decals looks like the easiest thing they do

The problem is some of the decals in question are just plain gone, there's mostly just a crud outline where the decal used to be and you can sort of tell what it used to say.

does this mean the vw is gone? if so i'm sorry i couldn't make time to help get rid of it. if not i'm off the week before christmas.

patgizz wrote: does this mean the vw is gone? if so i'm sorry i couldn't make time to help get rid of it. if not i'm off the week before christmas.

Trust me, you didn't miss anything. It was a mess trying to get it onto the flatbed, it kept.... crumbling.

My dolly idea worked great. I balanced it out just slightly nose-heavy and it rolled around like a 1100lb wheelbarrow.

Garage looks much nicer now.

I can't help but think that purchasing a car from the parking lot of harbor freight is a terrible omen.

Check with Peter Farrell supercars for some of the NBA parts.

So are you gonna LS swap it and take it to the challenge?

Based on the title, I thought you bought a Chinese car.

Knurled wrote:

mndsm wrote: If you can get high quality photos, i bet a few people here could recreate those.

I've seen the restoration work that Makela Auto Tuning does, and the part where they recreate vintage decals looks like the easiest thing they do The problem is some of the decals in question are just plain gone, there's mostly just a crud outline where the decal used to be and you can sort of tell what it used to say.

An image of the crud outline may be enough to find the right logo. There has to be an image somewhere on the interwebs.

Nice! Love the first gen

It wouldn't be Harbor Freight if there weren't a minivan getting towed away in the background.

We passed a Harbor Fright driving with SWMBO last night that I wasn't aware of. I said "ooh a Harbor Freight"! She asked me what that was. I said "it's a great place for tools you only plan on using once, it's also where all the autocross guys get their tire trailers"

In reply to Knurled:

Congrats on the car! I went to Harbor Freight yesterday too, but all I managed to bring home was a shop-vac...then again, if I'd bought 2-cars in 2-days I'd be sleeping in one of them. At least I finally got to use one of their 25%-off coupons!

There needs to be a "People and Cars of Harbor Freight" website. Or maybe just a forum topic here.

mndsm wrote:

Knurled wrote:

gearheadmb wrote: What is it?

One of only three rotary powered cars to have ever won a RallyCross National Championship. I built one of the other ones. Gotta catch 'em all! By "restoration", I want to clean it up, replace all of the missing/sun-damaged rubber and trim while it is still available, install a stock 12A, and - the potentially difficult part - replace all of the damaged/faded decals. TeamTAC is still around so maaaybe I can get the number panels, but some of the other decals like Re-Speed might be more challenging.

If you can get high quality photos, i bet a few people here could recreate those.

how did you get away with contingency money with a black hood with a black sticker? lol

A good vinyl guy should be able to recreate any of the stickers for you.