What's a weird car that you would like to restore?

[mcdonaat]

Mine would be either an early 70's Ford Pinto or a 60's Corolla, or even a 70's Civic. They're small cars, which are usually regarded as crap, but will be worth some major money some day! Parts are cheap now, and are easy and fun cars to work on.

I would also LOVE a 70's Datsun pickup, because you can explain to someone how Datsun is a brand, not a dog, and they made tiny pickup trucks that people bought in droves.

Any other weird cars you would want to restore? Remember, 20 years ago, an Edsel would have been considered junk. Now they're rare and worth a pretty penny!

[corco]

I have a weird desire to find a Yugo and restore it up like new.

Alternatively a Saab 900 or an AMC Eagle.

[Jardine]

A 1977 Monte Carlo Custom Cloud.

{really}

[bugo]

I want to restore my two 1962 Ford Galaxie 500 two door hardtops.  One is white with a blue (originally Ming Green) top with a 390/automatic while the other is black with red trim and no engine or transmission (originally six cylinders with a 3 on the tree).  I drove the white one to high school and it has a LOT of sentimental value.  The white one is 98% complete, while the black one is missing the aforementioned engine and tranny and needs a new front (bench) seat.  My plans are to restore them both, leaving the white '62 stock and putting a big block FE V8 (a 406 would be ideal, but I'll probably end up with a 390) in it and leaving the 3 speed manual transmission with the shifter on the column and adding an electric overdrive unit to it so I'll have six speeds.  The black car has very low gears so it should be a beast off the line, while the white car is more of a highway cruiser with its 3.00 gears.

[briantroutman]

Not necessarily restore, but own: a 1969-1972 Honda N600. The first car Honda sold in America.

[bugo]

I have little desire for old Japanese cars besides the Datsun 240/260/280Z and a few others like the rotary powered Mazdas.  Speaking of foreign cars, for some reason I like the Renault Dauphine even though I know they were garbage and would be nearly impossible to keep running today.

[Pete from Boston]

I'm right there with the old little Japanese cars.  I have this dream of fixing up a ~76 Corolla, the first car I ever drove. 

This thread reminds me that it's LeMons season again!

[Henry]

If I had the money to do it, I would buy a Cadillac Cimarron and fix it up with the same parts you'd find on its modern-day equivalents (ATS and CTS). Vintage weirdness meets modern technology, and it's still a Cadillac, no matter what you might say about it!

[Takumi]

My black 1991 Prelude will be a restoration project about 5-10 years from now. Other cars I'd consider:
-Honda CRX
-Datsun 510 wagon
-Mustang SVO, or really any early Fox body
-BMW M5 (E34 generation)

[agentsteel53]

does a '73 Ghia count as strange?  my wife's got one; though we're letting the professionals do all the work on it.  it's the only car in our fleet that we intend to keep looking nice.  the others, we're just keeping running until we run them into the ground.

[Takumi]

Oh, one more I really want to restore: a Merkur XR4Ti (a.k.a. the Ford Sierra across the pond), perhaps with an EcoBoost engine.

Edit: Here's one that's in pretty good condition, but it's an automatic. It'd make a great parts car if nothing else.

[bugo]

does a '73 Ghia count as strange?  my wife's got one; though we're letting the professionals do all the work on it.  it's the only car in our fleet that we intend to keep looking nice.  the others, we're just keeping running until we run them into the ground.

You might want to be a little more specific.  For example the "Ghia" name was used on Mustang IIs and Granadas and other Fords of that period.

[formulanone]

-BMW M5 (E34 generation)

Always wanted to restore a 1st-generation BMW M3 (E30), but who am I kidding...no time and thus someone else would do all the work. But it's not exactly a weird car.

An original Mini, Jeep CJ5, AMC Javelin, 240Z, X1/9, CR-X, MR2, or Porsche 914 would be interesting cars in varying states of odd.

[bugo]

I wouldn't really want to restore a car past 1980 or so, and especially past 1967, the first year of the smog pump.  Old cars are so much easier to work on than these new jobs are.

[SteveG1988]

A trabant, would be a fun little car to fix up and drive, nobody would know what it is

[bugo]

Everybody who is old enough to remember the demise of the DDR knows what a Trabant is.  They're horribly unreliable too.  If you must own an Eastern Bloc car, fix up a Tatra or a ZIL 111.

[Pete from Boston]

Everybody who is old enough to remember the demise of the DDR knows what a Trabant is.  They're horribly unreliable too.  If you must own an Eastern Bloc car, fix up a Tatra or a ZIL 111.

I don't know.  People interested in cars, sure.  But the general public?  Trabis likely do not have high recognition here.  Not even Ladas, which I recall being sold in at least Québec, are a household name among those of us of a certain age.

[agentsteel53]

Everybody who is old enough to remember that U2 album knows what a Trabant is.

fixed.

I have ridden in many a Trabant (alas, never got to drive one), but I grew up in Hungary.  my classmates all knew of it as "that car in the Achtung Baby CD booklet".

[bugo]

Did the Trabant have a 4 on the tree?

[bugo]

I'd like to restore pretty much any American car from 1955-1970.  Some of them would be very expensive to restore and parts nearly impossible to find, but it would be fun if money were no issue.

[cpzilliacus]

Did the Trabant have a 4 on the tree?

I don't know how many forward gears it had, but the shifter was on the dash, next to the steering wheel.

[formulanone]

I'm lacking experience in the department, but the idea of manually shifting on a column sounds about as exciting as using a vacuum cleaner, and seems to approximate the precision of a handle-less drill.

[bugo]

I would also like to restore an Edsel and a '57-'58 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser because of all the futuristic gadgetry.

[bugo]

I'm lacking experience in the department, but the idea of manually shifting on a column sounds about as exciting as using a vacuum cleaner, and seems to approximate the precision of a handle-less drill.

It's actually quite fun.

[briantroutman]

I'm lacking experience in the department, but the idea of manually shifting on a column sounds about as exciting as using a vacuum cleaner, and seems to approximate the precision of a handle-less drill.

Precision isn't that much of an issue because the vast majority of column shift manuals were three-speed. So as a result, there were only four ways you could move the shifter: toward you and up (reverse), toward you and down (first), away from you and up (second), and away from you and down (third)

Apparently, at least Ford did have a four-speed column shift manual which relocated reverse to an awkward separate lever under the dash. Then first took the position reverse usually had on the column, with the remaining gears following in the logical pattern.

I found this of the Ford four-speed in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjkRB1Ibjj0