Articles

  • LeMons Ranchero: Shopping for Steering and Shifting

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    Since its acquisition in March, the new Ranchero’s sat in my driveway, a monument to lack of progress. It waited in line behind the final fixes and sale of the Wagoneer and the conclusion of a T-Ball season I was conscripted into coaching. With all that out of the way, it’s Ranchero Time, baby! Click through…

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  • 24 Hours of Lemons NJMP 2016 Wrap Up Video

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    By now you heave read about our performance at the 2014 Real Hoopties of New Jersey 24 Hours of Lemons race. Now from the Lemons HQ comes the wrap-up video. I was wondering why it took them so long and as soon as I saw the video I knew why – special effects and research into Tom…

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  • Hooniverse 24 Hours of Lemons: Buick takes eighth in class at NJMP

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    Someone once said, I have no idea who, it may have even been me, which makes this kind of dumb, that in order to go faster, one needs to go slower. I guess it is supposed to be some kind of rabbit-versus-hare analogy which may or may not work in racing. Whatever the case with…

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  • Great LeMons Starter Volvo for $1,000

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    Interested in getting started in LeMons? A good first step would be to buy an ancient American land yacht or hopeless Porsche to start with. Wait, no. The best way to get started in LeMons is to hitch a ride as an “arrive-and-drive” to see if it’s really for you. Suppose you failed to learn your lesson then,…

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  • Hooniverse 24 Hours of Lemons: Another Season for the Buick

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    It’s hard to believe that this is the fourth season of our crapcan Buick racer. This year, like for the last two years, we are starting off at Real Hoopties of New Jersey, at New Jersey Motorsports Park. As always, we’re preparing ourselves for a fun weekend of racing and [then] drinking. We never attempt to be…

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  • Hooniverse to Ruin Race Another '62 Ranchero in LeMons

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    After our ’62 Ranchero became an object lesson for my dad’s physics class, a number of people approached us at the track offering to sell us Falcons or Rancheros. Most attractive among them was LeMons sometimes-staffer and generally awesome car guy Dick McClure‘s Ranchero (note the LeMons sticker on his Quail-attending car). The car inspected, a…

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  • Could the Fiat Abarth 124 Rally be the perfect theme for the Lada?

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    The 2016 Geneva Auto Show is in full swing, as I have learned through the pictures posted on social media by auto-journalists, writers, bloggers, picture-takers. That’s cool, because cars are cool and I like cars. But then I saw the Fiat Abarth 124 Rally, which is a FIA R-GT spec concept, I guess. And I lost…

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  • Video: Lada Lemons, the original build

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    I blame Murilee Martin, the Saucy Minx, who started it all with this Project Car Hell post. Typically with such article, everyone would vote for the more hellish project, results would be posted the next day, everyone had a good laugh, and moved on to the next article. Except for a couple of idiots from…

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  • And the "new" Hooniverse 24 Hours of Lemons racer is…

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    That. And that is a Canadian-market Lada Signet, also known as the VAZ/Lada 2107 in other parts of the world. And it’s a Lada you may have seen before, as it is a past Index of Effluency 24 Hours of Lemons winner. The car has long history which I will dab into at another time. Right…

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  • Sears Pointless 2016: Hooniverse, The Smashening

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    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3bo-NrOv0w[/youtube] “So, uh, I guess we’re done”. The first time I said that, it was an unnerving realization. A week before the race, we had the car running just fine and all the major items checked off the to-do list. The carb and header were in, the new ignition system was working great, the front…

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