I tend to love all my vehicles in one way or another, (Pretty much a precondition of me buying a vehicle is that they must be lovable in some way, whatever they are, I'm going to be fixing them up a long while, regardless, I say, so ones easy to care about are pretty key.
Maybe extra-special or interesting ones, some'll have seen.
One, my '75 Duster, saw me through high school and into college until kind of tragically lost to illness and homelessness: began life as a slant-six and auto, ...upgraded courtesy of a donor car with a dodgy diff (Thing had been drag-raced) that I'd hoped to get rebuilt, to a smallblock and 4-speed.
This particular Duster was magic, a bit like going to high school with Herbie, and could basically do about anything. Especially after V-8 power.
It took some finagling to get the engine to idle with the mystery-camshaft someone had clearly put in, but I scored some Accel ignition system and had that actually burning cleaner than a new Honda of the time by the emission standards of the time: that was the last year she even had to pass em.
Yes she did burnouts. Though I was only the type to do that in emergencies.
Also a little guy I miss sometimes, ...a 77 280Z rescued from a police auction for, believe it or not, 250 bucks. (For all we could know the engine was trash, but I hardly had to do a thing there.
) We were parted too soon, after a season of fixing up, but actually #2 on my list of 'Cars I want to have someday' fulfilled.
The appeal is pretty obvious, and as practicality goes, would have been fairly OK as the objective was just to get me able to try and take a paying job somewhere. I (haha) scored some of those 70's style louvers no one wanted anymore so I could have shade in the back if I really needed. The black and Chrome American Racing mags took a couple hours to grow on my at the time, but I decided I liked them. Spunky.
Current Ratmobile is a 93 Volvo 945, ... old photo here, but she's coming along well. Running very well, presently sporting some van-style ladder racks I lightened somewhat and would probably like to lighten more, and some cheap fogs I haven't actually hooked up yet, ..still going through suspension improvements, which are a bit held up by my physical limitations on some of the maintenance-oriented front end bits, and braking upgrades are similarly- in the cards. Got rotors and brake lines kinda sitting here waiting. This summer's been too hot to even want to try things most days. Let's see, since last report, did a full AC delete, that actually improved balance a lot, little more weight reduction, (got rid of third seat early on, for more storage and weight savings, when I was still verry verry poor I certainly wasn't about to carry a carload of kids or anything anyway.) A.... pretty substandard tint job on my part but that sort of thing's best left to people who do it every day, converted certain bits of the engine control stuff to less-expensive/touchy parts where possible, and most of the mundane maintenance stuff you'd expect like cooling and externals, ...running full synthetic diff oil and ATF, now. Got a custom instrument pod project that I'd been planning for last winter (but we didn't really have a 'last winter.') which is hopefully to be a prototype for something I can sell a few of to other Volvo fans.
By using surplus upholstery from that third seat, I hope to make it look like a factory option that never was.
Anyway, this ol' gal's actually a real good fit for me and what I do, she's like a little truck that turns, (and is going to be more turney,) Come down to it, newer cars can be just as heavy and have a lot less capacity with all the high-tech and safety stuff in them. She's light by comparison with other vehicles of this utility. Oddly, I parked next to a newer Mustang and was kind of doubletaking that they seemed to be the same external size.
I ought to look that up.
Also I have improved sound-damping a fair bit of the way: I hope to pick up a little power eventually by kind of streamlining the exhaust system a touch, but for now I've replaced the Volvo 'bendy pipe' with its two 90degree bends with something that sounds nicer and looks prettier: