LocostUSA.com

Thumbing through my youtube account - I stumbled across videos of my old legacy looking for one of my wifes super beetle to send to a potential buyer.

It made me realize how many half baked eggs I've let hatch and fly the coop. I'm not sure what it is - But my desire to keep a car has always diminished greatly once It gets to the point where its edible - but not quite the best tasting dish I've cooked.

the videos that inspired these thoughts are as follows:





That project was a large undertaking, and aside from my Baja, the longest I'd owned any car (20 months). I never quite sorted everything out. The parking brake switch had failed and would cause the DRLS to flicker. The backing plates for the rear brakes were gone. There was an exhaust leak at the mid pipe. The super charger belt always squealed over 4500 RPM on decel (in the dyno video it pulls to 7500, and squeals over 6700 rpm). But the car was driveable and a riot and so I ignored them, and then lost interest.

Following that, there was a W124 mercedes that I stuffed a corvette drivetrain in. I got it running and driving and did some smokey burn outs and attended a couple local cruise nights and what have you and then promptly sold it for way less than I intended to a dude who tried to sell it back a week later after his wife caught him doing 145mph in it.



It always charged at 15.1V. It would stall every 100 miles on the nose, but would restart and drive fine for another 100 miles. The suspension was never properly sorted for the change in weight, and the window motors and sunroof had a 30/70 chance of sticking down - particularly when it was going to rain.

So, I've been reflecting as to why I dramatically lost interest in these cars. I felt a connection to them, they were my creations. Both were (as far as I know..) either the only one (legacy) or 1 of 9 documented cars that had ever had the swaps performed to them.

So what was it that did it?

I think it simply was desire to do more. With the little one around - I don;t have as much time to drive them, and I think my enjoyment has shifted to building. Completing a set of tasks and goals and starting a new to do list.

So why is the locost different? Why bother undertaking a huge project as such if I fear that i'll lose interest and sell it once Its done. The answer is - I'm not sure. But I have some sort of sick desperation that gnaws at me whenever I don't get a chance to work on it. I think about my suspension design that has not yet come to fruition. About how I'm going to stuff a reasonable sized fuel cell in an are I decided to occupy with two down bars from a roll cage. and these thoughts stick with me like thoughts for another vehicle I've never had.

I think its in part the community. I havent been here very long, but the open source think tank and community betterment of each others vehicles is something I've never seen. Its certainly smaller than any other community I've been a part of , but I think that's what makes it ideal. Many of you are on a first name basis with the others. I can think of maybe three builders here who have done their cars 100% on their own.. and it seems it was only that way because they built them prior to finding out about the internet forums for them!

I guess this thought is really going nowhere, but I felt the need to share.

Thank you, in a way, for hopefully ending my poor practice of unloading projects before the bows been able to adorn the hood.



EDIT: I've tried every which way to get those damn youtube links working. If someone more familiar then I could assist that would be dandy.

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Tucker

I don't know about your first link, it looks incomplete, but if you'll remove the s in the https it should work.

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mobilito ergo sum
I drive therefore I am

I can explain it to you,
but I can't understand it for you.