The Salt Bullet – Bonneville Racer

Here’s another build brought to my attention by the serial submitter, Cereal. It’s something a bit different from the usual road/race car’s that usually get a mention here, this time it’s a Bonneville salt lake racer gracing the page. How would you go about making a salt lake racer? In your own garage of course! The interesting thing about this one is it’s choice of power-plant, a Suzuki GSX-R 750 motorcycle engine.

The build has been ongoing for a few years now and is not quite finished. Don’t let that deter you though, as there is still bucket loads of information on the site.

If you’re a fan of the technical nitty gritty, then make yourself a favourite drink, free up some time, and get ready to read. There are over 100 listed pages on the main website, so make sure you hit the link at the end of the story to check it out.

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Reppin’

Thought I’d give a shout out to David over at Import Bible, as the other day I bought one of his ever-so-sweet shirts. This was my first IB purchase, even though I’ve been lusting over his designs for a while now. Once the Rim to Rim shirt was dropped, I had to have it. Gone are the days when car based t-shirts are restricted to “slippery when boosting” and other cheesy lines like that. Nowadays there are a few key companies churning out fresh and aesthetic designs that wouldn’t look out of place hanging on your wall (which is what I’m thinking of doing with this shirt after I wear it a couple of times). Hit up Import Bible for some sweet automotive apparel.

Another shout out goes to Jay from JDM EGO, as I also recently hit up his store to grab a set of his Renaissance stickers. Jay is one of the main reasons this blog has done so well, because once he dropped a link to Build Threads my stats shot up astronomically and they never turned back. I thought it was only fitting to rep one of his stickers on the datto as a way of saying thanks. Jay posts some of the coolest shit on the internet, plus he has a range of swag you can get your paws on like number plate frames, so hit up JDM EGO (which is a part of the Fatlace family) and don’t forget to check out his store!

Speaking of Fatlace, I also managed to get my hands on a set of their safari print release of stickers. I’m so glad I got onto these before they were sold out, they’re definitely my favourite out of all their previous releases. While over at Fatlace, I always check out Mark’s blog, the man  who founded the company back in ’99 when I was still in the middle of high school. Mark’s success as a designer, business man, and all-round car guy inspires me. (Did I mention he also has a Datsun project?!)

Okay, enough name dropping. A new build thread will be up in the next couple of days.

V8 Volksrod aka Lexibug

Let’s kick off this new blog with a build, shall we? VDubbin submitted this one to me last year, and it’s one of many builds sitting in my drafts waiting for a feature.

VW Beetles have been chopped and changed many times over the years in countless different styles, and there seems to be no sign of this trend slowing down. This one isn’t much of a Beetle any more, with a hand made custom chassis and Lexus V8 sitting up front. The thing I like about this build apart from the fact that it’s home-made, is that there are plenty of clear pictures showing the details of the intricate custom fabrication, including how the body was mounted to the chassis…very interesting and informative. Just wait ’till you see the custom seats!

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Welcome…

Welcome to the new look Build Threads. Please bookmark this new URL, and if you’re nice enough to have me in your blogroll, please take the time to update the link.

I was planning to work on the appearance of the new blog behind the scenes, and debut it looking all nice and polished once it was ready. But I was running out of time, and I didn’t want to keep putting out new posts on the old one while I worked on this one at the same time. So I’ve modified the old header and thrown it up top, and everything else is pretty much a standard theme. This will all change soon though, as I’m planning on making some small changes to make it more unique.

Therefore, you will all witness the evolution of this new site as it happens, which I think in the end is rather fitting, as this is Build Threads after all, and we all love the journey much more than the destination.

I’ll have a new build thread up for you guys in the next couple of days. Hope you enjoy the new look as it gets hammered, riveted, sanded, painted, and polished into shape.

MX520

Here’s a build thread I’ve been reading for quite a long time, and I’ve got a slight suspicion that a lot of you are going to enjoy it. It’s another build based on the “X-chassis underneath Y-body” formula, and this time the culprits are Mazda MX5 subframes/driveline/shock towers being attached to the body of a Datsun 520 pickup.

When it all comes together after a long and creative build process, Bob takes his DIY hybrid creation to the track and shows up some much more expensive machinery. Here’s a small snippet from one of his race outing results to give you an idea:

Position 3 – 1:08.886 – 1966 Datsun MX520
Position 4 – 1:10.366 – 2003 Corvette Z06

You can’t help but sit back and smile when that happens. Check after the jump to see how this track day sleeper was built…

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WALD LS460

Just the other day I was reading through one of the blogs in my blog-roll, Go with SOLO, when something freaky happened. I opened up a new tab and checked my emails to find a fresh bit of mail sitting in my inbox from none other than Solomon himself. He gave me the low down on a build he just completed on his buddies Lexus LS460. Slick and subtle is the name of the game for this VIP ride named Project Synergy, which was completed with the help of various workshops in an incredible time frame of just 6 weeks.

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ABR Golf Racing Caddy

I caught a glimpse of this animal on the MK1 section of VWvortex (another one of my favourite places to lurk). Luckily someone located some more info on the project and posted up a link. I can’t wait to see this thing completed, it’s definitely something different.

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Tales of the Rat Fink

Speedhunters have just done a nice writeup on Ed “Big Daddy” Roth as a part of their “Misfits and Mavericks Month”. Whilst reading through the comments at the end of the story, I noticed someone posted up a non-descriptive Youtube link related to the subject. When I clicked the link I was greeted with a full length movie/documentary over 1hr in length. If you’ve got the time, I highly recommend watching this piece. Not only does it focus on Ed’s crazy creations, but it also touches on the history of hot rodding and how it boomed into a successful commercial industry, something I find very interesting. 1950’s California sure would have been a fun place to be growing up as a young gear-head.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gys-6znFEC8

Cardboard Honda NSX Super GT build

While on my daily blog haunt I was checking out one of my regular reads, The Chronicles, to get my Honda fix. Now most of you have probably seen images from the Tokyo Auto Salon that just passed, and one of the cars getting heaps of attention would have to be the Epson NSX GT car made entirely out of cardboard. If you were to merely scroll down a page full of pics from the show, you won’t even realise that it’s not a real car, it’s so damn realistic.

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Mercedes W124 500E

I was getting a few hits from Datsun Nissan Sports Cars of Finland Forums, so as usual I followed the link and found myself in a thread on their forum. This happens all the time, so I try to make a point of seeing if I can find anything to feature while I’m there. Luckily, there was another link in the same thread to the project you’re about to see here.

This build is spearheaded by Stefan who’s piecing together a super-touring styled Mercedes W124 500E, complete with a carbon fiber wide-body and plenty of CAD-drawn/CNC machined parts.

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