Wartburg at GRM: a poll

Is there any way to get the best of both worlds? Can you make it looked finished while maintaining at least some of the patina? I'm picturing something like an old Land Rover, it looks better with some dirt and dents, but doesn't need to be a complete pig either.

Let be the next "team" person to vote for finish it. ... Function over form, but finished. Things like getting the fenders right and paint and an interior that looks like something and the engine bay that doesn't look like a total hack job ..... But for a diffrent reason.

Each event it/you/we have been a totaly suprise.

On Babe it was not expected to show up and not expected to be a race car on the road.

At lemons we suprised the people with how diffrent it was from when they last saw it, and amazed that it actually turned good lap times (teething pains aside we know she's got a ton more in her).

Now imagine the suprise when a whole new set of people see our cover get pulled off and the things we talk about as "our happy accidents' are acvajajayated by finished body work. If anything this is where we really trade sweat and hours for money. We know we can make her pretty for the pictures ... we know what you did to to make your auto-X Yugo (totally drop dead sexy) ... now is the time you should show the world, the photos we already have will tell the story.

Besides I have no problem tracking it pretty if we do get the invite to the special event...(if we do some of the stuff were planning it might actually be less danger too the parts that are unobtanium) ... imagine the suprise when something pretty rolls onto the grid!! Everyone has told us from the begining that were crazy ... lets show 'em were f-ing insane!

It sounds like really finishing it the way you have planned would take a lot of hours; I'd simply clean it and do any mechanical work you think it "needs" and leave finishing it out for after the Challenge. No rush so you can get the results you want without killing yourself or your enthusiasm.

JThw8 wrote: This is the car I've always wanted to build, completely unexpected, weird but old school hotrodding in a modern vein (use what ya got and make it fast) So it may be long term but I will eventually finish it to a much higher standard.

With this in mind, I would send it to the Challenge as-is or with bare-minimum of finish work, so that when you start the non-budget-restricted finishing, you limit how much work that gets redone.

littleturquoiseb wrote: Everyone has told us from the begining that were crazy ... lets show 'em were f-ing insane!

Finish it with this in big letters on it somewhere!

littleturquoiseb wrote: Each event it/you/we have been a totaly suprise.

+1

"the distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success"

my vote is finish it. we ran out of time and didnt get to any bodywork on ours last year and we regretted it. like it or not it is a part of the contest and not trying at all is a bummer in the end.

as you said, it wont be all that you want it to be, but doesnt have to be all wasted time either. but think of it as a dry run on the color and scheme!

besides, i also think it would be really cool if the magazine were to take some quality shots of the current state of affairs to be included with the upcoming build article..maybe a what to how to prep and what to expect from racing issue.. HINT HINT!

I say finish it. There is to much (great)work in the car for it to end up looking like you ran out of stream at the end. To most of the world it will look like a car ready to be put up on blocks in the front yard. Help out your wife and neighbors by paint the thing.

ZOO wrote: Here's my vote -- finish it. Yes the wounds tell the story. But that story has been told numerous times so far. It's time for a new chapter to keep the audience engaged.

+1

As is, other than a simple bath.

21 for "As is" 20 for finishing

seems you all are as undecided as me

JThw8 wrote: 21 for "As is" 20 for finishing seems you all are as undecided as me

Statistically, a dead tie.

Flip a coin.

NYG95GA wrote:

JThw8 wrote: 21 for "As is" 20 for finishing seems you all are as undecided as me

Statistically, a dead tie. Flip a coin.

It may just come down to my energy level. Between the back to back events, a job that's on hyperdrive at the moment and a crapload of personal issues I may have to go with the "F-it" route.

Sent an email to the "guest driver" to press on the issue, if he says he's in then we leave it.

Sadly due to the way the rules are written for GRM our cage puts us over budget (not bolted) so I need to make a call soon to pull the cage for GRM or leave it in for the "special" Lemons run.

In reply to JThw8:

For the roll bar problem: Put some bolts through the mounting plates and a backing plate on the other side. Shhhhhhh! I won't tell if you won't.

TheWake wrote: Jim, In the other two events the car is NOT judged on appearance. At GRM it is one of the three parts. I vote to finish the body work and paint. If I change my mind in a couple of weeks then you will be the first to know.

I think this is a misunderstanding, and the crux of the split vote on the matter.

Appearance is NOT what the car is judged on. The story is. Creativity, energy, effort. Those that think it is about appearance usually show up with a bright shiny uninteresting car.

Great moments in Challenge history: Batvan, JHaas's '40 special, Westside's encounter with a truck, Wheels777's Tetanus Express, The Sucker Vette, The motorcycle powered car, etc, etc. All of these sported less than exciting finishes. All got huge accolades from their peers and the magazine.

There have also been LOTS of shiny cars that failed to impress.

Do NOT hide the scars, but the car should be "finished" (in it's full presentation state) BEFORE the first event. The scars it earns there will be a BIG part of it's story.

Well said.

SVreX wrote: I think this is a misunderstanding, and the crux of the split vote on the matter. Appearance is NOT what the car is judged on. The story is. Creativity, energy, effort. Those that think it is about appearance usually show up with a bright shiny uninteresting car. Great moments in Challenge history: Batvan, JHaas's '40 special, Westside's encounter with a truck, Wheels777's Tetanus Express, The Sucker Vette, The motorcycle powered car, etc, etc. All of these sported less than exciting finishes. All got huge accolades from their peers and the magazine. There have also been LOTS of shiny cars that failed to impress. Do NOT hide the scars, but the car should be "finished" (in it's full presentation state) BEFORE the first event. The scars it earns there will be a BIG part of it's story.

Totally why I say we finish it. We have things that are undone ... ugly does not equal un-finished. We need to finish things, painting and polishing may or may not be part of the plan, but I know there is a bunch of fab-ing and fiberglass we need to do.

I may be done, and still look totally ratty ... but it needs finishing.

alfa nailed it. the challenge is 80% go / stop / turn and 20% show. within the last 4 (or is it 5) years, two cars in black suede have won the concours. i did not agree with either of them, but i'm not a GRM concours judge. imo, if you can paint it, you can paint it something that looks finished. jon haas' 4994 is a perfect example of something that looks like ass to mere mortals, but blows gearheads away. i felt the same way when seeing the wartburg on the road pix.

i vote to clean up only the areas that you'll be working on to improve the dynamic scores.

littleturquoiseb wrote:

SVreX wrote: I think this is a misunderstanding, and the crux of the split vote on the matter. Appearance is NOT what the car is judged on. The story is. Creativity, energy, effort. Those that think it is about appearance usually show up with a bright shiny uninteresting car. Great moments in Challenge history: Batvan, JHaas's '40 special, Westside's encounter with a truck, Wheels777's Tetanus Express, The Sucker Vette, The motorcycle powered car, etc, etc. All of these sported less than exciting finishes. All got huge accolades from their peers and the magazine. There have also been LOTS of shiny cars that failed to impress. Do NOT hide the scars, but the car should be "finished" (in it's full presentation state) BEFORE the first event. The scars it earns there will be a BIG part of it's story.

Totally why I say we finish it. We have things that are undone ... ugly does not equal un-finished. We need to finish things, painting and polishing may or may not be part of the plan, but I know there is a bunch of fab-ing and fiberglass we need to do. I may be done, and still look totally ratty ... but it needs finishing.

I 100% agree with this. My very humble opinion after watching you guys run lemons:

Appearance wise, I vote you finish/clean up the fender metal work and put some sort of finish (light sand and a spray bomb even) on the front and rear bonnets so they are a closer match to the rest of the cars color. definitely leave the MTR panel inside the way it is though

Other areas I would focus on, in this order:

• suspension tuning. I'm sure you were going to do this anyways but you all commented on how the handling was a handfull but consistent. sounds like you just need to tune it and you were already mentioning springs/sways/dampers.

• wire management. it's not sexy, but it's also not terribly difficult to lengthen and route, and I think it's a little thing that might go a long way towards not distracting from all the other cool stuff, like the MTR firewall.

-if there is still time and you're feelin frisky and there is room in the budget, maybe a small power adder or something for the drags? If I had to pick between seeing the car with a higher level of paint finish, or with a nitrous bottle in the backseat, I would definitely pick nitrous!

so, having said all that, I only offer it because you asked for our opinions. the only thing I would say is a "have to finish" is sorting the suspension some more.

thanks for sharing and listening.

~Josh

^^^ it was good to meet you, Josh.

I'm not an expert on how the cars are judged at the Challenge, so my opinion would be based on whether making it "prettier" would actually push it over the edge to win. I can't answer that, but I feel it has the potential to win just based on the effort, ingenuity and just overall coolness of the project...not to mention that this car does perform very well now and still has more potential!

Jim, you are the only one who can say if you can afford to spend any more time on this thing and I feel you could really use a break. If you DO decide to do any more prior to the Challenge (and after, too ), as always, I would be up for trips down to continue to "help" any way I can.

First let's start with we have no goals to be competitve in the challenge, that's not what Im after.

My primary goal is to show up with something that the magazine is interested in and willing to publish a photo or 2 of.

Josh, your comments are spot on, when I talk about finishing Im talking purely about body and paint stuff. The technical and functional details do need to be finished and are not the crux of my original post.

Wire management is high on our list but it looks as it does right now with a purpose. The car was wired the day before BABE rally, we purposely left everything exposed and unloomed to make troubleshooting easier. Those who havent seen it may not know but the car runs the entire subaru harness in it, not just engine management. Sonic even managed to retrofit the switch stalks from the original column to the wartburg column. Waste not, want not. Now that it has survived the first 2 events without electrical issues we will be going back and looming and hiding most of the wiring.

The suspension needs some tweaks here and there but its not tragic. It is a tail dragger and as none of my drivers had any experience with such I expected the handling to be um...unique for them. But for an rear engined car its rather sedate. I wish I had had the opportunity/ability to get it on the track myself as I have driven rear drivers, but from my experience with it on the streets its much more manageable than many other rear engine cars I've driven. I'll agree it could use some sways in the front, but so far I have found nothing that fits the bill, its a very narrow front end. I know how to do it, but not on a GRM budget at this time. The biggest issue which I dont think will be correctable for GRM is the low speed steering weight, it takes a bit to muscle around so its not going to be great on the autox course. Looking into ways to fix that without a full re-design but Im not sure if its going to be doable.

The fiberglass bits will be finished off and put in primer at a minimum. The rest of the bodywork is kind of an all or nothing thing for me. Spraying the car is the easy part, getting it to that point is where the time is involved. I estimate it will take me about 40 hours per fender to get close. I still dont know how Im going to salvage the roof. I knew the cage builder was going to cut holes to weld the cage, I did not know he was going to use a plasma cutter which warped the metal. Once the cage is out I can get a hammer and dolly in there to work that but again that is going to be very time consuming. It's not in the GRM budget but long term I may see if I can retrofit a VW sliding ragtop in there, it would take care of the warped metal and provide some much needed ventilation.

Time and budget wise it will not be finished to my standard for GRM. Throwing a spray bomb coat on it just increases my effort later to do it right and as someone else said, its pretty wasteful and anti grassroots.

We'll see what we get done, my primary goal is to clean up the functional areas, going to pull the motor in a week so I can start work on the engine bay and go from there.

How about a middle ground? Finish it, but retain that rat-rod feel it has now by sticking with a grey primer and some pinstriping? Sort of like Rusty the Dungbeetle, only with less speed-holes. My favorite part of the Wartburg as it stands now is that rat-rod patina is has now, the shiny wheels juxtaposed against the bodywork that is not at all shiny. I think it will be possible to keep that feeling it has now, but polish it up a bit.

AutoXchick wrote: How about a middle ground? Finish it, but retain that rat-rod feel it has now by sticking with a grey primer and some pinstriping? Sort of like Rusty the Dungbeetle, only with less speed-holes. My favorite part of the Wartburg as it stands now is that rat-rod patina is has now, the shiny wheels juxtaposed against the bodywork that is not at all shiny. I think it will be possible to keep that feeling it has now, but polish it up a bit.

Again it comes down to if I get it far enough along for primer and pinstripes then its just another few hours to spray a nice satin blue and call it done.

I originally started as the biggest proponent for painting before the challenge but the more I look at my plans for the car like adding in the sliding ragtop and other things cough one piece flip front cough I realize that post GRM its getting stripped down either way.

I do know what you are getting and, and I may have a way to get that look you are talking about without interfering with future plans or wasting too much time on it....hafta think on it.

Didn't Rusty get hit with a palm sander?

AutoXchick wrote: Didn't Rusty get hit with a palm sander?

Rusty got hit with an ugly stick ;)