Moving Forward

The projects aim is to build two cars for the 2009 La Carrera Panamericana race and to have one of them ready for the 2009 Chihuahua Express race in March. For that to happen, a lot of things are going to have to move forward...quickly. The red car has been to the body shop to have the fenders and nose panel replaced, and will now sit while the green car advances in the fabrication process.

The fuel cell has been set into place, and some brazing done to the body to fill holes where trim was attached and rust had settled. The inside of the car has been taken down to bare metal, and most of the mechanicals

have been removed except for the wheels to keep it mobile. The present job involves building a roll cage. This has become one of the most important requirements to let a car through technical inspection, after an accident in

2006 critically injured a co driver without an adequate one. Once the roll cage is finished, a dashboard will be fashioned and then the car is ready to paint.

Please read - http://lcp2007.blogspot.com/

One Plus One Equals Two Two Thousand Two's

Two cars will be built because we have two interested party's. One is Rick, he's done the race before, he wants to promote his BMW repair business, he also wants to involve the people who work for him and to include his family. The other is Frank, and he simply wants to go racing, he's done it in many forms before, and now the Carrera is his intention.

So now we need something to start with and Frank was first to find two available candidates. One had been locked away in a shipping container for a decade or more and the other set rusting nearby in the same backyard. Both of these cars came at the right price, free, that made the decision easy to take a closer look at them.

While Rick owns a shop, and sees a lot cars come through, 2002's aren't as commonplace as they once were, so the next one came from an ad on Craigslist. The pictures advertised what looked to be a solid choice, except they never showed the front left fender. Sure enough, that was bent along with the frame, but for $500 it was worth seeing if it could be straightened. In short order two more appeared. One being an orange lovely, dragged out of a garden in Sebastopol, and traded for an oil change. The other, a very clean 1976 square taillight, big bumper model. Too nice to cut up, and when sold, it's worth its weight in racing parts.

The job of evaluating the last four and reducing to a final two was fairly easy. The '67 beige 1600 yard find had too much rust to be rebuild and made reliable. It's headed for the scrap bin. The 1973 gray primered car, while a good prospect, but with the bent frame, will be held in reserve. That leaves us with the green 1969 container find, and the orange '72, as the best prospects. This pair is over 35 years old and have some dents and corrosion that needs to be repaired and thats the next step.

Both of these will now be stripped down to the bare minimum inside and out, scraped and sanded, have some excess metal removed, and bodywork done.

Please read - http://lcp2007.blogspot.com/