For me it was a barn find '63 Dodge Dart. A high school friend did the barn finding and got it running. Then he blew the motor in his '65 Barracuda and pulled the 225 slant six from the '63 to power his 65. I bought the shell from him for $200. I then proceeded to shoehorn in a '79 360 out of a Cordoba, along with a '73 A904 transmission out of who knows what. I kept the six-banger rear end and radiator. It overheated rather easily. The fuel gauge never worked. The transmission modulator linkage that I (very amateurly) fabbed up didn't quite work right. I lunched a rear end and replaced it with the same because that's all I could find in a junkyard. Did I mention it vapor locked like it was going out of style? Quick as all get out when it worked (mostly) right, but a bear most of the time. Also: No seat belts, no padded dash, manual drum brakes that faded quickly in traffic, and the skinny non-collapsible steering column. I finally got rid of it when I joined the Navy and got a boring but reliable Lincoln Town Car with SEFI that I then drove for six years.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 401,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 26,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.
99 Mazda Miata 183,xxx miles.