Category: Build Threads

RB26 Alfa Romeo 147

Here’s one of my oldest drafts, it’s been gathering dust for many, many years. I pretty much convinced myself I’d never feature it, because the thread stopped receiving updates a long time ago. But I have a desire to purge all of my draft posts, and well, this one is just crazy enough to warrant a feature in it’s unfinished state. If anyone out there knows what happened to this car, if it was ever completed, please let me know! The car starts out as an Alfa 147 Cup Car, it was then stripped down and fitted with GTR underpinnings, before heading to an unknown fate.

Thanks to Jamel for submitting. Click here for more RB26 builds. Click here for more Alfa Romeo builds.

Continue reading “RB26 Alfa Romeo 147”

Hot Rod Archeology – 1955 Ford pickup

More story-time than all-out build, this post revolves around a keen youngster from Norway who lives in US and has a deep love of hot rods and customs. A stolen daily driver leads him to Craigslist for a replacement, where he finds an ad for what looks like a well-worn farm truck, but turns out to be much more. A closer inspection reveals custom body-work by George Barris and pin-striping and murals by Von Dutch. The sale and handover is not a simple pick up, hand shake and “see ya later”. Both buyer and seller start a blooming friendship that opens up a treasure trove of history thanks to the original owner’s penchant for taking and keeping old photos. The new owner continues to keep in contact to ask questions and pick up parts, and even just cruise around and talk cars. Apart from the car itself, the thread is great just for the old photos from the custom car scene of yesteryear and the series of coincidences that unfold.

Continue reading “Hot Rod Archeology – 1955 Ford pickup”

A Tale of Three Lotii

Colin Chapman, James Bond, Formula 1, Pretty Woman. These are some of things that you might associate with the word “Lotus”. But what about air ride, engine swaps, wide wheels and interior re-trims? I’ve mentioned before how much I love seeing once pampered classics being torn down and fettled with as they become more affordable, and these three examples truly embody the guiltless “modify everything regardless of the badge” train of thought. You might not agree with some of the styles of modification, but I’m not here to convince you one way or another, I just like seeing people modify cars, especially cars that are rarely messed with.

All three builds reside together on the Retro Rides forums, and whilst enjoying their threads individually, I thought they’d make a great combined post to showcase how these vintage British sports cars are being re-imagined by the DIY crowd. I’ve added some captions to the images to make it easier to follow, I hope you enjoy.

Want to read more “A tale of …” posts featuring multiple cars? Click here.

Continue reading “A Tale of Three Lotii”

Broadfield S14 Cluster Build

Waaay back in 2010 (geez this blog is old!) I featured a little exposé on an automotive artisan called Toby Broadfield. I’ve been visiting Toby’s blog on-and-off since around that time, always in awe of his attention to detail when cutting up and re-shaping interior pieces. Now that I’m getting closer to overhauling my own interior and gauge cluster, I find myself re-visiting his blog just that little bit more. When I saw this detailed write-up focusing on all the steps he took to modify a customer’s S14 Silvia cluster, I thought it was too good not to share.

Continue reading “Broadfield S14 Cluster Build”

Project Honda City Turbo II – Exhaust, interior, FINITO!

I haven’t posted an update on Project Honda City Turbo II since late last year, so let’s take a moment to catch up with the finishing touches on this boxy 80’s cult hatch. This is a truly huge update which sees the final mechanical work completed, so the car can attend it’s debut outing, Classic Japan. If you’re a fan of odball JDM machinery, then this is the post for you, as you’ll find some other treats further down the page (hint: tiny motorbike and gullwing doors).

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Teardown
Part 3: Engine refresh
Part 4: Bringing the engine home
Part 5: First start

Continue reading “Project Honda City Turbo II – Exhaust, interior, FINITO!”

MK1 VW Caddy R32 4-Motion

Things have been quieter than usual around here and on Facebook/Twitter lately, and while I do apologise for that, I promise I have a good reason! My wife and I welcomed our first child into the world just over a week ago, so things have been understandably busy at home. But believe me when I say that in the back of my mind I was always thinking about the site and how you guys would be hanging for a new build! So, here we go. This car has been on my radar for a while, a great example of a home-built concoction, all fabricated by the owner, mixing a MK1 Volkswagen Caddy body with a MKIV Bora 4-motion V6 AWD driveline, and plenty of welding to stick it all together.

Click here for more MK1 builds.

Continue reading “MK1 VW Caddy R32 4-Motion”

RAMPAGE – 2nd Gen Camaro

Have you heard of the Rampage Camaro? Of course you have, it was arguably the biggest hit of SEMA 2014; a second generation Camaro with a full slathering of motorsport technology and fabrication bestowed onto it by the wizards at Roadster Shop. And what’s better than seeing pictures of a glossy finished car shining under stadium lights? Pictures of that same car in bare metal with little to no panels bolted to it! I actually found this build through another featured build. I was browsing for updates on the red MKII Supra (whose owner works at Roadster Shop), when I saw him post a link to this build within his own thread. See, it always pays to look through the archives, you never know what you’ll find! I honestly had a lot of trouble figuring out which pictures to use for this post, as I found myself wanting to save pretty much every damn image from the thread, so I hope you enjoy the visual banquet that is this build as much as I did. It might not be achievable for most of us, but it’s nice to dream and peek into the upper echelon of car building once in a while. Who knows, you might find an idea or two for your own build?

Click here for more Roadster Shop builds (there are four so far including this one).

Continue reading “RAMPAGE – 2nd Gen Camaro”

Project Thunderbolt LS3 Miata [video build]

If you’ve been following my “What I’m Watching” series, you would have seen me post about Tom’s Turbo Garage on more than one occasion, including this very project I’m about to share with you again. What can I say? I love Tom’s work, his videos are enjoyable, informative, and funny, not to mention he’s great at wrenching on a plethora of projects in his amazing home garage. His latest project, Project Thunderbolt, sees him installing an LS3 V8 into an NB Mazda Miata/Mx5. Even though I’ve posted about this before, I wanted to do a proper on-going entry about this car, where I’ll edit and post new videos as they’re released, much like Project Binky (which I’m gagging for an update on!) Tom is releasing new videos every two weeks, so you don’t have to wait very long to get your fill.

Check out V8Mazda.com for more information about the project.

Continue reading “Project Thunderbolt LS3 Miata “

Peugeot 106 hillclimb home-build

You know the drill, what starts off as a quick bit of rust repair turns into a full bare-shell rotisserie build. Not that we’re complaining, right?! This little Pug receives a lot of love from it’s owner, and his welder. Roll cage, suspension, machining, bike carbs, wiring; this build has it all. Most importantly, it just recently came back to life after a 2-year hiatus, so let’s hope the updates will be arriving thick and fast from now on.

Click here for more Peugeot builds. Thanks to Paul for submitting.

Continue reading “Peugeot 106 hillclimb home-build”

Makela Ferrari 308 GTB Group 4

If you haven’t heard of Makela Auto Tuning before, allow me the honour of introducing you to the Finnish gods of auto restoration. They specialise in ex-Works rally and race cars, and like to document their work in galleries with hundreds (if not thousands!) of images. This isn’t the first time I’ve featured their work, you can read about a bunch of their projects by clicking here. Since it’s been a while between drinks, I thought I’d show you this fantastic restoration of a Ferrari 308 GTB rally car. Oh, there’s only 1764 images of the build. Yes, you read that right, over ONE THOUSAND images.

CLICK HERE for more Scandinavian builds.

Continue reading “Makela Ferrari 308 GTB Group 4”