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I've bought all the rights will be building them here in Texas.

One thing I had considered is remote assemblers for customers far from Texas, but I've got to get this other car out of the way so my wife will quit giving me hell.

I've gotten side tracked by a little different project. I haven't forgotten this and I work on it some fairly often (at least once a month), but I have a simpler project that's captured my attention. It's S2000 based since I have so many of those engines/cars around and just happen to have acquired a slightly wrecked version that's gotten in the way of working on the Mongoose with the S2000's constant begging to get back out on the streets. I have ADD if that explains anything.

But never fear because the new project has a very real applications towards the newly reborn Mongoose. It's helping me work out some of the ergonomics of the cockpit.

Bottom line is that no matter how much I love her, the Mongoose is just too danged small. You cannot fit two people in the cockpit without at least one of them being gay. If you're serious about going fast around corners in a parking lot then you'd better be going it alone cause a passenger gets in the way of the elbow action and you'd better be awfully careful of what you're grabbing and shifting - if you know what I mean.

Speaking of Autocrosses I was at the season ending autocross of the local S2000 club today and grizzled old man showed up in a white Yaris and then proceeded to whip up on about 3/4s of the cars. Once upon a time I had looked at the Yaris engine as a potential donor (it's a physically very small and light engine) but had quickly tossed it because of the lack of an upgrade path and well, because it's got a wimpy reputation. Let's face it in the school playground just about every car, except a 3 cylinder Suzuki, comes up to it and says "My engine can beat up your engine." How are you ever going to sell a car to more than 2 people with it's motivation provided by a Toyota ......................................................... of that caliber.

Well come to find out that engine has a pretty big following. (Yarisworld.com) OK the guys who drool over it and spend hours on the internet all also have Star Wars stickers all over the windows, but there are people out there who find it attractive. By the end of the day quite a few guys at the autocross with real cars found it attractive as well. It smoked some pretty wide tires for a long way out of the corners and it didn't turn over even once!

Here were the salient points to the little white Yaris per the owner. He had wheels that weighed 10# each, a cold air intake, exhaust system, underdrive pulleys and it had dyno'd with 107 whp.

Long story short, if you're stuck for an engine and are looking for something that revs great, is light & gets great gas mileage this might not be a bad choice. I'm told you can buy the engines cheap, but I haven't checked it out. I'm also told that even if the Yaris is discontinued as Toyota has said the engine is used worldwide and has an 1800cc brother.

I'm a sucker for minimalism and prefer a scalpel rather than the bigger hammer theory so to me it looks like a contender.