Playing with junk can be cool....

When I was a teenager a lot of guys built cool stuff out of clunkers. One guy built "GTO" El Camino. He took a '66 El Camino  and he put a '67 GTO front clip on it. He put a Pontiac engine in it too.  I can't remember if it was a 389 or a 400, but it would sure smoke the tires!  My cousin bought it already built, but he a Datsun SPL311-a two seat convertible sports car that looks like an MGB-that someone had swapped a 215 inch aluminum Buick V8 into. Since it only weighed about 2,200 lbs it was really quick. We had a lot of fun in that car.  I had a V8 Vega for a while and another friend had a V8 Chevy LUV pickup that was really quick. A guy I went to school with had 304 V8 Gremlin-but since AMC engines are like Pontiacs-their all externally identical-he went to a junkyard and got a 401 out of a Matador Police car and stuffed it in the Gremlin. It was really fast. He smoked a lot of shocked big-block Chevelle owners and 383 and 440 mopars.  One kid should have went on to do custom work like George Barris.  He had the coolest Ford Maverick you ever saw. He made a custom blacked out grille, and some headlight covers so it looked like it had hidden headlights. He removed all the chrome and the door handles. He put some hidden Corvette type door handles on it, body colored. He radiused and flared the fenders and put 50 series tires on it. He added front and rear spoilers that he'd adapted from a Camaro but they looked right at home. It was jet black and sinister looking. The inside was cool too. He'd installed swivel bucket seats out of a Chevy Malibu and he had a Chrysler "Pistol Grip" Hurst shifter on the four-speed. The engine was a 302 but with headers and an Edelbrock "Torker 289" manifold and a 625 cfm Carter AFB-it really ripped on the street-especially in a car that didn't weigh 3,000 lbs.  He didn't have a lot of money in it, but it sure was cool.  Another kid had an '81 Firebird that he'd stuffed a 500 inch Cadillac V8 into that was damn quick. I think that's kind of a lost art nowadays. Everything you see in magazines some guy has 100 grand or more invested.  I'd like to see some cars featured where the limit was say $20,000-including the purchase price of the car.  Bring out some imagination in people instead of just a checkbook.  Mastermind