Looks amazing. How does someone with no car tuning / mechanics skills get something like this premade?
Buy a hooligan car new (or very lightly used) like a WRX STI, or Lancer EVO.
Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
41–50 of 92 posts
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#42Can we just bring back the Brat? A compact 4wd pickup truck with a pair of jump seats in the bed. Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.
I got my eye on the Slate - https://www.slate.auto/
It answers the question, what if Framework made cars?
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#43Waiting for my Honda Goldwing powered hybrid with 4-wheel hub motors in a Vanagon Syncro chassis.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#44Can we just bring back the Brat? A compact 4wd pickup truck with a pair of jump seats in the bed. Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.
> Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US. Not all trucks are 1/4 or 1/2 ton in the USA. There's things like the Honda Ridgeline, Hyundai Santa Cruze, and the Ford Maverick Subaru had the Baja for a little white but they only sold a couple thousand per year.
The Ridgeline is closer to a 1/4 ton like a Tacoma or Ranger. I own one. It's great for what it is, fits my outdoor lifestyle well (towing a small travel trailer, a few mountain bikes, and a large cooler).
The Maverick, Santa Cruz, and the currently-vaporware Slate are much smaller.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US. Not all trucks are 1/4 or 1/2 ton in the USA. There's things like the Honda Ridgeline, Hyundai Santa Cruze, and the Ford Maverick Subaru had the Baja for a little white but they only sold a couple thousand per year.
Wouldn't you need to flag a sheet of plywood in the back of a Maverick? My old '06 Canyon doesn't require that and it's actually a smaller truck than the Maverick.
Sure, but who cares? Unless you're a contractor/tradesperson, that's a fairly rare edge case.
I've owned a few pickups over the years, owned my house much of that time, and can probably county the times I've needed to move plywood or other oversized lumber on one hand. Add a second hand for times I've moved long pipes or other oversized stuff that required flagging.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#46Can we just bring back the Brat? A compact 4wd pickup truck with a pair of jump seats in the bed. Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.
You can’t have passengers in jump seats like it’s 1970 anymore —unless you’re on your own ranch somewhere.
We used to travel with folks in the back bed in beach chairs. It was quite comfortable, and you could fit four in a small Toyota truck bed. We would face each other, and talk, and it's was a fun and social way to travel. Six adults in a short bed Toyota, with 2 in the cab.
With just two of us in the back, we'd have the chairs against the cab (like the Brat did). Riding backwards in a vehicle is surprisingly relaxing. You can't see the traffic ahead, so you have absolutely zero interest in where the car is going, how fast, how close, missing exits, etc. You're just cognitively out of that loop. Even as a normal passenger, even if we stay silent, we're all firing off those "back seat driver" neurons a bit.
But riding backwards, where it's all out of sight and out of mind, it's a noticeable reduction in that. On one trip, we're heading to the mountains, my friend and I in back of the truck. Suddenly, the truck is braking very hard. We, of course, have no idea what's happening. I said "Well, this is it, good knowing you." "Yup! You too!".
Obviously nothing happened, but it was a curious incident to say the least.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, just learn it like anything else. Understand the basic components of an internal combustion engine (block, crankshaft, rods, pistons, camshafts, cylinder heads, valves, intake and exhaust manifolds), the 4 cycles the engine goes through (intake, compression, power, and exhaust), how fuel delivery and ignition systems work. And then there are tons of resources on tuning and you can get the software for a lap…
It isn't that simple. I've been learning to work on my own car over the last few years. I'm not even doing anything crazy just fixing up an older vehicle and modernising some parts of it (mainly interior). I had to fix the wiper system. The wiper system you would think it wouldn't matter much whether the parts are aftermarket or not. I was very wrong, parts that even look almost identical may not work properly, due t…
As someone building a particularly stupid car in a genre almost but not entirely unlike the OP (a turbo LS1-swapped Rover P5), I am not totally making stuff up when I say that this:
> You have to be prepared to spend potentially years on it and huge amount of money, even on relatively simple projects.
is not at all mutually exclusive to this:
> Honestly, just learn it like anything else.
I didn't really know what I was doing when I started my project. I had an idea and the desire to make it happen. I barely knew how to use a MIG to do the fab work, so I got good (enough) at it. I knew nothing about LS engines, so I learned enough about them at each point I needed to know something about them. I only have a vague idea of how I'm going to do the next phase of it; I know that I can figure it out with enough thinking and by making all the mistakes I need to make. I don't know how to TIG, and it'll be really useful if I do, so I am learning how to TIG.
Start somewhere, and the more you do, the more you can do.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#48Can we just bring back the Brat? A compact 4wd pickup truck with a pair of jump seats in the bed. Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.
> Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US. Not all trucks are 1/4 or 1/2 ton in the USA. There's things like the Honda Ridgeline, Hyundai Santa Cruze, and the Ford Maverick Subaru had the Baja for a little white but they only sold a couple thousand per year.
The current model year Santa Cruz and Maverick are roughly the same size as the Tacoma, and the Tacoma is now the same size as a Ford F-150 was in the 90s when the Ford Ranger came out as a successful small pickup and the Tacoma was sized the same as the Ford Ranger. The vehicle size bloat in the last 30 years has been insane.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#49Looks amazing. How does someone with no car tuning / mechanics skills get something like this premade?
You can't, unless you a Saudi billionaire. These things are completely custom, are hugely expensive (why they have sponsors all over them) and often they will have work lined up for literally years. You also wouldn't want one. They cannot be driven on the road really as they aren't legal. They will also break a lot. Generally the more tuned a car is the more maintenance it needs. If you are interested in cars, you ar…
You can have one built; you just call Vermont Sports Car lol.
Yes, price is a major factor.
No, you are completely incorrect on street legality; and way far from the truth lol
The basis of a WRC rally car is that it is indeed street legal; and is required to be driven on the public roads with a proper license plate in between the stages of the rally.
Re: Gymkhana's 1978 Subaru Brat with 9,500-RPM Redline, Active Aero
#50Here is a pretty recent and in depth video by Larry Chen of the Subaru WRX STI Project Midnight car built by the same company.
For those who are underestimating just how advanced Vermont Sports Car is, this should open up your eyes.