In May 2016, I took delivery of my Focus ST. Both the Fiesta ST and Focus ST come with a free day of driving school at Utah Motorsport Campus (formerly Miller Motorsports Park) in Tooele, Utah. Since my day at driving school (doing sick skids and hot laps), I’ve wanted to run autocross and rallycross around Detroit. The only problem is that my ST is a brand new car, and I don’t want to race it; it gets enough abuse as a daily driver. Clearly the solution here is to buy the cheapest running car I can find that is manual and rear-wheel drive, right?
Yes. At least it was for me.
The rest of August and September 2016 were spent scouring craigslist for suitable autocross beaters.My only requirements were; the car must cost less than $1500, and be in good enough condition to get to my garage under its own power. One friend at the lunch table recommended a Porsche 944, my supervisor pushed the Toyota MR2, others suggested the tried and true Miata or come American muscle in the form of older Camaros and Mustangs. True masochists tried convincing me to get a Mazda RX-7 that had clearly lived a hard life as a drift missile.
In reality, no Miata in my price range hadn’t been heavily modified and thrashed within an inch of its life on track. Living near Detroit, older Mustangs and Camaros were (and will be forever) plentiful and any replacement parts would be dirt cheap, but most had V6 engines and they struck me as an unimaginative solution to my racecar woes. I found a Subaru Impreza 2.5RS sedan that was supposedly in good enough condition, but when I went to check it out, I found the bottom of the engine dripping in oil, and the owner couldn’t tell me if the head gaskets had been changed already. Since 90’s 2.5 liter Subaru engines were notorious for blowing head gaskets, I passed since I likely wouldn’t be able to do that repair in my garage.
The next car I found that piqued my interest was a 1986 Toyota Supra, listed for $1100. Listed problems included a cracked windshield, one stuck popup headlight, and a leaky fuel tank, but it would allegedly still run and drive. I contacted the seller to see if it was still available since the listing was over a week old. Almost immediately I get a response that yes, it is still up for sale. I try and arrange to meet up so I can inspect the car in-person and… nothing. I tried calling, texting, and emailing, but I never heard back from the owner. I know they didn’t keel over because the listing continued to be updated, and the price dropped to $800. I’m still sad that I couldn’t buy that Supra.
Eventually I found a ‘94 Mercury Cougar, which seemed perfect because it was listed as manual, RWD, had a V8, and would run and drive, all for $900. I called the owner, and left a message asking to verify that it indeed had a manual transmission and a V8. The owner texted me back the next day saying that Massachusetts (I kept my old cell phone number when I moved) seemed too far away for me to be a legitimate, interested buyer, and that he didn’t want to sell me the car. I assured him that while I do have a Massachusetts phone number, I actually live two towns over from him. Luckily he believed me, and we arranged for me to come look at the car.
When I got to his house, I didn’t see the Cougar outside. I thought it might be in the garage or something until the man answers his door, opens his garage, and leads me through it to his fenced-in backyard. There lay the Coug’. Upon closer inspection, the car is actually an automatic not a manual. Additionally, the car is filthy and there doesn’t appear to be a gate in the fence to facilitate driving the car. I asked the owner about the last time the car had driven. Three months ago, but he assured me that it would start right up with a fresh battery. Ok… The fact that he welded in some extra steel to the front passenger shock tower wasn’t a good indicator of the condition of the rest of the underbody, either. With that, I declined to buy the car, thanked him for his time, and left.