The 24 Hours of LeMons has returned to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the third annual Halloween Hooptiefest, and we’ve got some fascinating machinery among the 130 or so entries that rolled into the garage for our traditional Friday car inspections. Let’s take a look!
First of all, the Mod Squad Vanagon made everyone stagger back in awe. The recipe: Take one third-gen Toyota MR2 that was wrapped around a shopping-mall light pole in a fit of ill-advised hoonage, take a Vanagon body and chop 11″ out of its height, do some cutting and pasting. Yes, it is now an MR2 with a giant box-shaped airbrake and 800 pounds of additional weight… and one of the greatest race cars we have ever seen. Will it be faster than the GoWesty LeMons Vanagon, with its VR6 power? We’ll see on Saturday.
We have more Audis at this race, by far, than we’ve seen at any previous LeMons event. This is partly due to the five identical V6-powered Audi 90s brought by the four-rings-loving G-Tron Racing team, but we’ve got at least another four of the things at this race. Since A V6-engined 90 was the first Audi to take a win on laps in LeMons, there’s a small chance that we could see another Audi win (but that’s not the way to bet). Meanwhile, we also have more Subarus than at any previous race, so it’s conceivable that the car company that sports the Pleiades on its logo might manage to claw out its first LeMons overall win.
The LeMons Supreme Court’s traditional BRIBED stencil for the ’14 Hooptiefest refers to recent events that have put New Hampshire on the national radar screen.
The crazy Russians of Sputnik Racing have converted their Nissan Quest minivan into an excellent Monty Python and the Holy Grail-themed racing machine. We see a lot of Monty Python-themed LeMons teams, but never one with a cast this large, not to mention the first Black Knight costume that actually pumps “blood” from the arm stumps.
Speaking of medieval costumes, the Game of Crumple Zones Acura Integra team (winners of the Organizer’s Choice trophy at the Real Hoopties of New Jersey race) have constructed a “throne” out of a radiator and tire irons harvested from their local junkyard. The team also wears “crowns” made from old head gaskets and “rings” made from hose clamps.
Halloween may be the most LeMon-y holiday, and we saw many good costumes. Here’s a team that has chosen to dress not as characters from Smokey and the Bandit but as fans of the movie. That’s a distinction that’s probably lost on most normal people, but we get it.
The Merkurian Falcon team is back with their Skid Row Star Wars costumes. That Wookiee is looking pretty mangy.
The first team to bring a Volkswagen New Beetle to our series put together a credible Rocky Horror Picture Show theme.
Three Pedal Mafia celebrated Halloween by reprising all of their costumes from previous races.
The Lemontarians added a Chevrolet Citation X-11 to their stable, and the team put together a gigantic wedding party, complete with matching bridesmaids.
Two members of the team got married 20 years ago, and their honeymoon car was the groom’s daily-driver Citation X-11. So the team recreated both the car and the wedding for our race.
This Mustang had competed in East Coast LeMons events for the last couple of years with a four-cylinder Pinto engine and a giant wing on the roof. For this race, the team converted the car into a Mad Max Falcon XB.
Now, we’ve seen a more accurate Mad Max Aussie Falcon replica in our series, but did that car have a right-hand-drive conversion? This team imported a European Ford Granada steering box from the UK to make this happen.
In what may be a first for a Fox-body Mustang, his car now has Datsun L28 power, courtesy of the now-stripped-and-crushed Spaceballs-themed Datsun 280ZX.
The team even brought cans of Dinky-Di meat-and-vegies dog food!
With so many members of the Volkswagen Golf/Jetta family here, it takes something like this to stand out from the crowd.
The Super Grover Rover P6 is back for another shot at Class C glory.
If you’re looking for your first 24 Hours of LeMons car (and you don’t feel like choosing one of our wish-list cars), you could do a lot worse than an early Chevy Cavalier wagon. This car will be competing in Class C against the likes of the Sputnik Quest and the Super Grover Rover this weekend.
To see how the first day of racing at the ’14 Hooptiefest sorts out, check in on Saturday night.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/1tyfmLO
via Agya