You didn't mention how much money you considered "inexpensive". Buy a metal
roofed sedan to eliminate the roll bar problem. SCCA rules are strict about
roll bars in convertibles. Buy American. A Mustang or Camaro of any year is
really cheap to maintain and repair. Spend your money on tires and
suspension. A novice will do well on cheap wide rims with good tires, and
stock bushings, shocks, springs in new or good condition will bring a car
within 9/10 of an expensive prepared car for much less money. A modern V8 is
just about bulletproof and will give far more power than a novice needs.
Stock V6 Camaros were the hot item a few years ago. My son Andy was looking
at an early 4 cylinder turbo Mustang at one time, before he decided to put the
KA24 in his EMod Roadster. The Mustang was cheap, light, easy to maintain,
and was competetive nationally in its class. You can probably get an early
Mustang or Camaro in decent shape for less than $1000, put $500 - $1000 into
the suspension, put $500 into cosmetics, and have a fun, good-looking,
competetive car.
If you want something a little more exotic, have I got a deal for you!! I'm
going to co-drive Andy's EMod Roadster this year, and my BMW E30 325is is
going to sit unused. It won the season trophies for DSP in 2002 in both the
Equipe Rapide and the Lone Star SCCA autocross series, and it won DSP in
Equipe Rapide in 2003. I could only run one series in 2003 and I co-drove the
BMW in EMod in 2004 to finish Andy's trophy season when he broke the Roadster.
I will let you have the car and a boatload of other parts for $3000, ready to
autocross. It is licensed and inspected, so it can be driven to the autocross
and home. It needs an intake gasket to keep it from "hunting" at idle, but
above idle it is a screamer. I'll even throw in the magnetic numbers. I live
in Central Texas, and for a modest fee I will deliver.
I also have two other complete E30's in various states of disrepair if you
want a "fixer" that I will sell much cheaper. Stick a 350 Chevy into one of
them and you'd win the stock class easily, as long as you didn't open the
hood. If you want more advice about autocross I'd be happy to share. Let me
know.
Leisure Suit Terry
|