The Project Car

SOMETIMES WE JUST CAN'T LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE.

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THERE RESIDES IN the human psyche an overwhelming urge to fiddle with a good thing. Which is our excuse for project cars.

Our first was a 1957 Plymouth Fury inhaling Daytona Beach air through twin four-barrels. It managed 124 mph. We once stuffed a Pontiac single-overhead-cam inline-six into a Jaguar XK-E. In 1966, we attached a set of Koni dampers and Maserati airhorns to a Plymouth Fury wagon—maybe 60 minutes of customization. Who but Car and Driver would install two engines ina first-gen Honda CRX? And we extorted a Penske mechanic into inserting a 370-hp V-8 into a Camaro we called “the Blue Maxi Z/29.”