2008 BABE Rally
Of course we are going again. Its an addiction. And with the 1st place win in 2007 our entry is paid up for us and the number 01 reserved for us. Of course I had a deal with the lovely Kelley that I wans't going to go again this year (it falls our our anniversary so Ive missed the last 2) but our deal was that if we *won* our entry then I had to go back. Guess maybe that's what motivated us to win.
So Chris "Sonic" gave me a mandate. No more suffering like the VW trip. For 2008 we want A/C, handling, speed, comfort and oh just for giggles I still like something unusual. I did scope out some hondas since Chris has a good working knowledge of them, but nothing had panned out. Still plenty of time to find something, its only July 07 as I write this, but always good to keep a look out.
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Well, it's now March of 2008. Sorry for the lack of updates. We've gone through 5 other cars to get to where we are today so lets look at a brief rundown
1987 Mitsubishi Starion
Scored a great deal on this locally. Not running but really nice otherwise. Kid's dad wanted it gone from his garage since the kid had parked it there 6 years prior. Showed up with a tow dolly and $250 and everyone was happy (maybe not the kid but at least his dad didnt junk it)
Eventually deemed to be entirely too nice for the BABE rally soooo....
1995 Plymouth Neon
Another "right time, right place" deal like so many of our others. Showed up on craigslist for $200. Had a bad brake line and the guy just parked it. After sitting a few months his HOA wrote him up and he just wanted it gone. Cash and a tow dolly and again its ours.
Cleaned it up and fixed the brake line and realized yet again this car was way to nice for BABE. Soooo, I traded it for a Jeep which was sold to one of my friends as a kid hauler.
Next up on deck
1992 Buick Roadmaster
I had actually looked at this a few months earlier when I was looking for a b-body wagon as a daily driver. Guy wanted 750, ran good enough but it was uuuugly. No passing on this because its too nice for the rally. It was too crappy to be my daily driver and a few days later I found my Caprice. A few months later the seller contacted me to say it had to go and what would I give him for it. With BABE in mind I said 250 and he even drove it over to my house. Turned out the radiator was so rotted he stopped twice on the drive over (15 minutes) to pour water in it. I had just upgraded the radiator in my caprice so I tossed the old one in. Ugly but sound and the A/C even worked. I knew it was not what we wanted so I offered it out to BABE ralliers whereupon we were offered a trade for another teams BABE car...
1992 Honda Civic
On one hand this is what we were looking for. Hondas are easy to make fun. It was ugly and smelled bad and used a quart of oil every couple of hundred miles. But as evinced by the fact I only have this one photo I just had no love for it. It was white, 4 door, vanilla, boring. Still this was to be our main car. But just in case....
1980 VW Rabbit Diesel
Before and after
Another local CL find. I really just wanted the car. Rabbit diesels have a pretty good market and this one was a steal being rust free and only 43,000 miles on it. I ended up fixing it up "Rabrod" style and selling it to a friend who needed it for a commuter more than I did. More pictures of it can be seen here.
So here we are today. All the above cars are gone but we have found a great replacement. It was yet another too good to be true offer and it just worked out with a desperate seller. I had been working on the guy for about a week and just about given up when he emails me and tells me he has 8 cars all parked on the Philly city streets and he just got cited by the police. If the car wasn't gone in 24 hours his fines and towing bills would be pretty bad so a postive $250 in his hand rather than paying money out made sense to him. Unfortunately for you the reader we aren't ready to let this cat out of the bag. Stay tuned it will be fun.
Ok, maybe just a teaser photo.
