The autocross season has come to an end. After carefully considering the results I have concluded what will come as no surprise to anyone. Despite being a lot of fun and finishing 7th of 58 cars in class, the W-body just isn't competitive enough to continue racing.
That being said I have about 5-6 months to buy and prep a new autocross car. On a budget.I'm the sort of guy who doesn't finance anything and never uses credit cards. Everything I have I paid cash for and I own it. This tends to limit options somewhat.
I'm basically looking at a challenge budget for the car, then probably that again over time to get it race ready. I looked at the types of cars that I thought might be competitive and affordable and kept coming back to the answer. The Miata. But that answer is only the answer if you don't have any imagination.
Then I spotted a big glaring loophole in the rules. CAM-T (Classic American Muscle-Traditional) This would allow me to run a muscle car in a class against only other muscles cars. In my region it is a soft class, with only a handful of cars and even if I lose, I got to do it in a big angry muscle car instead of some run-of-the-mill miata. It's settled.
The rules are pretty simple: 1954-1989 front engined, rear wheel drive, full interior, couple other minor technical details. Other than that... go for it.
So I laid out all my possibilities then began crossing things off the list. I want it to be cheap so Mopar and AMC are out. I also want it to be not a piece of crap, so ford is out too. I'm not made of money and would like to avoid rust if possible, so I axed everything pre-'72. That narrowed the pool down quite a bit, leaving me with the H-body (vega monza) the 2nd and 3rd gen F body (camarobird) and the G-body (malibu, regal, el camino ect)
I have at one point owned each of these. The 2nd gen camaro is the coolest but features a heftier price tag and leaf sprung rear, so that's out. the 3rd gen is newest (a loophole in rules allows for up to '93's to run) and likely has the largest aftermarket, but I find them to be miata like in their un-interesting-ness.
The monza is the lightest and is my my favorite, but is also the rarest and offers the smallest aftermarket.
That leaves the G-body. parts are shared across umpteen platforms and they made precisely all of them. CL browsing has found several candidates in my price range and they should have an aftermarket almost as healthy as the F-body. That aftermarket should cater to circle track as well as drag.
Because I'm stupid and would rather have an interesting car that's sort of fast than a boring one that's really fast, also because I've owned one before my pick is this:
That was my old Caballero, and I loved it very much. I think an autocrossing coupe-utility could be just the ticket for a few season's worth of budget fun.
What are your opinions? what am I overlooking? Can I have $5? What car would you choose?
