My mate was offered a motor today that he would have taken if I could have got in on it with half the price. We'd have kept it at his mums's place over here - massive old vicarage with a plenty huge gravel drive area, easy enough space to hide the little beaster, which would be a trackday killer.
Said motor was up for £600 to him, from a mate of his from Uni, nice guy, certainly not the type to bullshit his mates. It's (was) a Vauxhall Nova GSi, all seam welded (don't really know what that is - it may have just been the bonnet area that was done) with a 2.0 16v red top, completely rebuilt when it went in when the rest of the car was de-rotted and covered in underseal and that wax stuff, so no rust on it (all work was about 2 years ago). Nice, black, Recaro bucket seats in the front, tiltable etc and they so people can still get in the back - although it takes a short time to get the rear seats out for a track day if we like. The little touches like a nice steering wheel, short shifter and nice gear knob.
Apparently it runs the (and I'm not good with VXs so I might be wrong with the numbers here) F20 gearbox from the same car 2.0 16v the engine came from, a Calibra or a Cavalier, I can't remember, but the GSi box was included too which I'd have wanted to put on. Anyway using that apparently they've been clocked doing like 150mph on airfield days and the like - not this exact one and moreso the Turbo ones, but it's one of those things people reckon heh.
The engine has a nice exhaust, plenty quiet and free flowing and the engine had something with the heads done, it was rollered at 165ish bhp after the rebuild. Came with standard wheels as he had sold the Compomotive's with R888s on seperately. Anyway, it's allegedly very, very tidy and of course would fetch more, but he wants a quick sale at mates rates for a holiday, and also he's stepping up to a kit car heh - I also suspect he was suggesting he might get to have a go every now and then hehe :-)
Alas though, I'll never be driving or track daying, so there was no point, but hell I almost got in anyway just cos I so, so badly wanted to be involved with it as it was just a tidy little pocket rocket, and apparently another 30bhp from that engine isn't really that hard.
Damn it :-)