Let's buy and build a car, now.

"wizkashifa" (wizkashifa)
10/01/2014 at 22:50 • Filed to: Well This is a Stupid Idea, Vaporware

I don't mean like passively form a codependent bond where the car is akin to our child and we nurture it to maturity only to pour silicon into its engine and drive it off a cliff.

Rather, us as a collaborative of Jalopnik contributors/lurkers/stalkers all pitch in, and buy something totally rad. Now of course donations would be cool and accepted, but I think we all have far more to offer, there are graphic designers, mechanics and other skilled workers on here, as well as business men and women that can offer non-monetary benefits to the rig. Some ideas? !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Goals, risks and challenges:

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Goals

Put together an awesome vehicle by the next Jalopnik Film Festival (2015), along with a build video and hoon-clip.

Have the rig travel around the 48 contiguous states and Mexico/Canada picking up parts, getting worked on and otherwise being touched by the community.

Either put the rig into official Oppo tour duty or auction it off for charity.

Risks and Challenges

It's hard to coordinate 1,290,240,834 gear heads with radically different schedules in entirely different states, but that's why we have 12 months.

We all have different ideas as to what the perfect rig might be; some might say Miata (which is always the answer), others "brown, manual, diesel wagon" and finally some might say Camry (my personal suggestion). But I think a couple polls could fix this.

MONEY. I think a Kickstarter, or Indiegogo could be a great way to raise funds to both buy the car and pay to get it running. Otherwise unforeseen costs would have to be factored in, as well as any modifications planned.

The Why We Should, Nay MUST, Do This

To preserve car culture, and more importantly Jalopnik culture. There have been offenders, Kinja and the people that made us turn to verified comments, that have personally affected us, as well as those that affect car culture as a whole, pedestrians and hammer-wielding Uber drivers. I'm a millennial too, and personally I've had enough of people suggesting that my generation is perfectly content with normcore and want to drive Priuses and Camries. Yes, these cars are wonderous, but they do not make us any less of a car nut. If any, they free up more of the zany depreciation machines for those of y'all with the means to have massive fuel bills. Finally, this car will serve to bring our community together, the past year has seen several off-shoots, Lanesplitter, Truck Yeah! and Car Buying to name a few, but at our core we remain car nuts, with the differential merely being that some of us are paid to be car nuts and the others pay to be car nuts. The car through our combined blood, sweat and tears will ensure that we have not left the maxim to forever "Drive Free, or Die."

DISCUSSION (7)

Axial > wizkashifa
10/01/2014 at 22:59

The title should say "Let's Build a Car", yes?

wizkashifa > Axial
10/01/2014 at 23:22

"Buy, fix, break, fix again, then break and leave in a ditch while commenters wait for part two," yes?

treesmakewater > wizkashifa
10/01/2014 at 23:25

i vote for anything sleeper. Or a z32 those are always nice to have

Axial > wizkashifa
10/01/2014 at 23:34

The way the post read, it almost sounded like you wanted the denizens of Oppo to put heads together and build a car from the ground up using parts from everywhere.

wizkashifa > Axial
10/02/2014 at 00:54

Ah. thank you! I apologize for the snark, fledgling writer here. Suggestions for improving clarity?

Axial > wizkashifa
10/02/2014 at 01:18

...but I think we all have far more to offer, there are graphic designers, mechanics and other skilled workers on here, as well as business men and women that can offer non-monetary benefits to the rig.

It was this part that really had me confused. I wasn't sure why the multi-faceted skills of the Oppo collective were really pertinent if building a car from our collective imagination wasn't the directive.

Honestly, I probably just flubbed in my reading because even at 11:00 when I posted, I was pretty damn tired.

bob and john > wizkashifa
10/04/2014 at 19:33

...I am down for this.