Playing with junk.....And maybe making something really cool......

A friend of mine owns a junkyard and he and I have talked many times about building cool stuff the factories never did. Here's a few that I think would be easy to build and cool to have. # 1. 1968-72 "GTO / 442 / GS 455" El Camino / Sprint. Buy a beater El Camino and put the front clip you want on it-be it Pontiac, Olds or Buick. The engine swap would be easy-you'd just have to get a BOP bolt-pattern TH350 or bellhousing if you wanted to run a stick. How cool would a "Sprint" be with a GTO front end, a snarling 400 or 455 Pontiac under the hood and painted like a Judge? Or go the Olds route and use a 403 or 455 Olds V8 and paint it like a Hurst / Olds. Or go Buick and do it like a GSX.  I think these would be way cool.  # 2. Muscle Wagons. Because of their long wheelbase and excellent weight distribution, a wagon actually makes a good drag racer. The obvious choices are 1968-72 LeMans and Olds Cutlass wagons because most of these would have a 400 or 455 V8 under the hood,and have a TH400 tranny, front disc brakes, and heavy-duty suspension stock. Again, I think it would be cool to have a "GTO" or "442 / Hurst / Olds" wagon. They'd cetainly make a cooler driver if you have kids than a Tahoe or Jeep Cherokee!  You could build an "SS454" wagon-but it would cost more as most Malibu wagons were small-block powered and you'd have to swap in the Rat Motor, but it would still be doable for not a ton of money; it just wouldn't be as easy as it would be with the Pontiac or Olds models that would have the big-inch engines standard. And your not limited to GM stuff here. Their a little harder to find-for whatever reason Chrysler didn't sell as many mid-size wagons as GM did-but it would be pretty easy to buy a Satellite / Coronet wagon and build a Road Runner / GTX / Super Bee wagon. The up side is no one is fighting with machetes for old Mopar wagons, most would have 383 , 400 or 440 cubes under the hood, and the parts and trim and graphics are readily available. How cool would a 440 / Six-Pack Super Bee wagon be? Especially if you put the hidden headlight Charger front clip and an "Air Grabber" hood on a '71-74 model?  Pretty damn cool if you ask me. You could also do a "Wood Brothers" NASCAR themed Mercury Montego wagon or a "Starsky and Hutch" Torino wagon. Most of these would have 351C or 429 / 460 motivation so building power wouldn't be an issue... # 3. 1981-87 "Grand National" El Camino. The cheap way would be to buy a beater '78-87 Elky an put the '81-87 Buick Regal front clip on it and paint it jet-black. Horsepower would be no problem-there's more speed equipment for the Small-block Chevy than anything else on the planet. A snarling 383 stroker would be the easiest and most cost-effective way to big power. The second easiest way would be if the Regal donor had the 307 Olds V8 for power and the Elky was a V6 model. You could grab the motor mounts and accesories and the 200R4 tranny-and swap in a 350 or 403 Olds V8 and a 4-speed automatic. Edelbrock claims 397 hp and 400 lbs of torque from their Olds Performer RPM package and that's on a 350-a 403 would have well over 400 ponies which would make this little hybrid an absolute rocket. And it would be easier than trying to change from a Buick V6 back to Chevy power. The third way would be find a wrecked Bonneville SSEI, Gran Prix or Buick Riviera from the late '90's and get the Supercharged 3.8 V6 and all the wiring out of that. Now there's going to be people saying why not transplant a real GN powertrain into the Elky?  Really? Who's going to cut up a Grand National that's worth major bucks to play with an El Camino that's not worth squat?  The only case where that's feasible would be if you had a GN and it got broadsided and totalled,with the frame bent in half, but the front clip,and engine and tranny were unscathed. Not very likely-so the cost -effective way is the ways I laid out. But it would look cool, and haul in more ways than one. # 4. 1977-79 Lincoln MK V Ranchero. The '77-79 Rancheros were based on the LTD II platform, which was the same chassis as the Lincoln MK V. It would be pretty easy to put the slick-looking, hidden headlight front clip off a MK V onto the Ranchero. If you had a 460 model ( or if the MK V donor car did ) you'd have a unique, badass ride for low bucks. If you had a 351 / 400M model-there's a lot of speed equipment available for them-so building power wouldn't be too hard. Any of these would be cool, unique drivers in my opinion. Mastermind.