What Car Would You Like To See As A Restomod?

BMW E24 (late ’70s-’80s 6 Series), probably post-’82 for the better suspension platform. One of the best looking BMWs ever built. Current or recent M drivetrain, probably a tuned S55. Big brakes. Bigger BBS wheels for the right look. I do lust after a Singer Porsche, but this one might be attainable.

BMW E30

a BMW 2002

My 2002 (m2) restomod. Working on an BMW 1800 mod now.

-Mercedes Benz 190SL
-Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider
-Land Rover Defender (110 and 90)

The 2002 by the way has already been done by a guy named Marc Norris. There’s a video showcasing his work on youtube.

I’ve been dreaming a 1967 Alfa Romeo 33 Stradalé… But instead of the 2.0L V8 in the original, mine would have the Ferrari California’s 4.3L V8. Most importantly would be a modern, more refined interior, much like Singer’s 911. No compromise.[url=””]Your text to link…[/url]

I had this question rolling around in my head about a fairly odd choice – the ’66ish Rambler Marlin. Always wondered if a little modern take on suspension, wheels/tires, and other subtleties could raise its style points a few notches. Then last year, at the Vail Wheels & Wings show I stumbled upon one done in just that style. Although always a dark horse, I thought it looked pretty good 🙂

To be honest, none. But that’s just me.

I’ve had this pipe dream for mods to my 1987 Nissan Sentra 4WD station wagon. It was my father’s. He gave it to me about four years ago. It has a little rust and needs some work, which I’m undertaking, in order to make it nearly like new.

In my pipe dream, this car gets [url=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropneumatic_suspension”]hydropneumatic suspension[/url]. It might be the one made by [url=”http://www.citroenet.org.uk/miscellaneous/hydraulics/hydraulics-1.html”]Citröen[/url].

It gets sound insulation because the car came with nearly none.

The back of each of the front seat head rests gets a built-in touch-screen monitor that communicates with my HTC One phone on the dash board. The phone streams music to the (existing) Bluetooth stereo. The phone is used for navigation, too.

The car’s after market stereo gets two upgrades. First, the two-way coaxial rear speakers get new enclosures that fit over the existing ones, making a larger sound box. Second, a small, removable subwoofer complements the four main speakers.

The car gets its own Bluetooth GPS receiver. The antenna is mounted on the roof, near the tail gate, and it’s hidden by a little radio antenna fin. The receiver itself is secured in the trunk, behind one of the removable interior panels. There is a Bluetooth multiplexor that supports four clients. It reads the stream of location information from the GPS receiver and transmits it over each of the four BT transmitters. In this way, I and three passengers can monitor our location at the same time without exhausting our phones’ built-in batteries.

The car gets lighter wheels of the same size as stock.

There might be a mural on the ceiling. It would be one of my photographs.

I like pretty much any restomod. I just hate modern wheels on them, make the effort to use vintage look wheels even if they are in modern size. I think that’s one reason the Porsches work so well, most of then stick with Fuchs style wheels

1956-57 Corvette, Lotus Elite, Pontiac GTO.

I’d love to see a couple actually.

A Triumph TR6 would be good, especially if they made something of the Rover SD1 6. There’s a couple of teething problems with oil starvation, but solve that and you’ve got a Triumph-built SOHC I6 with a tough bottom end that can be bored out to 3.0l. Add into that some Group44-style flared wheelarches and I reckon it’d be excellent. Even if you used a BMW I6 it’d be pretty cool, although in my mind that sullies it a little.

Another good one would be an Alfa Montreal. The 2.6l V8 was good for around 200bhp, but it can certainly be stretched much further. The flat-plane crank 2.0l version in the 33 Stradale made 230bhp at 8800rpm, so there’s evidently scope for development. Add into that all of the goodies that have been developed for the Giulia GTVs and GTAs (which share a chassis) and there’s the capacity for a pretty amazing car.

An MGB GT V8 would also make a great candidate. They look excellent with flared wheelarches, the V8 can be stretched a long way and Jaguar IRS rear suspension swaps are a proven modification. The only real issue with this is that it’s been done before.

Lastly, and probably most challengingly, would be a Triumph Stag. Gorgeous cars, but hampered a little by their engine. It’s a reasonable enough engine, but it can’t really be pushed all that far. Tony Hart has got around 280bhp in his racing Stags, but that’s on a heavy race setup. However, if you put in the capital and knowhow to graft on the 16v heads from two Dolly Sprints (theoretically possible, if very tricky), along with some fairly solid cooling solutions I reckon you could go pretty far with the original engine.

Of course, you could swap in a Rover V8 and get the same power for half the price, but that’s not the point of Restomods. They’re about doing things right above doing things cheaply.

This is the same thing that I said for the “do something ridiculous” thread, but I would like to see someone take a first generation Datsun Z and modify it enough to win trans am. Someone did something sort of similar with a 260Z in Hungary and called it [i]Aardvark[/i]. You can see some of the work here: http://www.speedhunters.com/2012/12/building-the-ultimate-grip-n-drift-datsun/