Project Fünf Null Part I: Introduction

Allow me to describe for you the perfect car: Lightweight. V8. Manual transmission. Rear-wheel-drive. Practical. Simple. Comfortable. Nimble. Cheap. The problem? A single car containing all of those elements doesn’t exist. That’s why I’m going to build it.

My initial plan was to do something completely scratch-built, like a Lotus 7 replica. Unfortunately that most certainly does not check the “comfortable” or “practical” boxes – if I want to be invisible to traffic, unable to carry anything larger than a box of Q-tips, and totally out in the elements I can ride a motorcycle.

And when a tiny human being decided that nine months inside of my wife was enough and he was going to propel his way out no matter what the modulus of elasticity of human flesh, the “practical” and “comfortable” boxes became much more important factors in finding something I could drive every day. So it looked like to get what I wanted, I would have to find a decent platform to start with, then modify it to meet my needs.

But what to use for a donor car? Let’s break down the requirements.

Lightweight

Adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere. –Colin Chapman

Modern cars are getting heavier and heavier, and most people place the weight gain blame on additional safety features, like airbags. Which I don’t understand because how can LITERALLY BAGS OF AIR be responsible for making a modern midsize car tip the scales at roughly the equivalent of Europa? If a single human being sitting in the car causes it to weigh more than 4000lbs, call up Jenny Craig ‘cause YOU TOO FAT.

V8

Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine. -Elvis Presley

Since the day that Adam built his first flathead V8 in the Garage of Eden and Eve was all like, “I can’t believe you have that thing torn apart again, we’re totally the white trash of this neighborhood, I’m so embarrassed”, man has had a special relationship with the V8 engine. The exhaust rumble, the accelerative thrust, the manner in which the number and arrangement of cylinders maximizes displacement while maintaining a favorable bore to stroke ratio and reasonable mean piston speed for a decent redline allowing optimization of mean effective pressure while remaining compact and easy to package. It’s all very mystical – scientists have thus far failed to understand it.

Manual Transmission

“You have to have the flappy-paddle gearbox, which is annoying some of the time, like for instance when you park it. But the option is a six-speed manual which comes with a clutch pedal, and that means there’s nowhere to put your left foot. And that’s annoying all the time.” – Jeremy Clarkson

Growing up, discovering the Choose Your Own Adventure series was an epiphany. No longer was I subject to an author’s rigid adherence to a singular, coherent plotline. It didn’t matter that most of the time I made terrible decisions and everything went wrong and I ended up getting maimed or dying or accidentally shifting into fifth, I was CHOOSING MY OWN ADVENTURE. Hence, manual transmission.

Rear-wheel-drive

With rear-wheel drive the rear wheels drive the vehicle. – kbb.com

Just as God, Michael Schumacker, and Ricky Bobby intended. No making excuses for high drivetrain loss or difficulty launching AWD. No qualifiers about how it handles really well for a front-wheel-drive car. Just raw, unadulterated oversteer.

Practical

Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need. -Patrick Rothfuss

It’s gotta be a four door. Guys that try and carry their little kids around in a coupe are sad and obviously trying to cling to their last vestige of coolness before succumbing to full dad-ness. Not me. I’m embracing my dad-ness. I’m going to shave a bald spot onto my head, start wearing jorts, buy a bunch of sweatshirts for whatever professional sports team is closest to me, and start making hilarious puns like when someone says, “I’m gonna run to the store” I’ll be all like “You should probably drive you’ll get less tired HAHAHAHA.” Also I will ask my wife’s permission before buying anything more expensive than a Q-tip.

Simple

Egg whites are good for a lot of things – lemon meringue pie, angel food cake, and clogging up radiators. – Macgyver

No but seriously if it breaks down on the road and I can’t fix it with a hammer, a ball of twine, and a raw egg then it’s too complicated. If disconnecting the battery trips a warning light that requires a dealership visit to turn off, or if there is an entire computer dedicated just to the blinker function, or if every interior function is activated through a touchscreen interface that would make the guys who wrote the movie Primer go “Yo, this shit’s too complicated, dawg”, then I want no part of it.

Comfortable

The best fashion advice I’d say would be just to do what makes you comfortable and what makes you feel cute. -Ariana Grande

I’ve ridden my motorcycles in every sort of weather – searing heat and humidity, below zero temperatures, rain, wind, snow, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, minor asteroid impacts, etc. I have nothing left to prove to anyone, and at this point in my life I’d rather be clean, dry, comfortable, and not smelly. Also, due to the Destroyer of Ladybits and his inability to hang on at high speeds (my wife says that he’s only two and I shouldn’t expect that of him, I think she’s just covering for the fact that he got her weak arms), I’ll need to strap him down. And based on a few enlightening experiences which resulted in some minor jail time (Haha! Kidding! I just got probation.), I have come to realize that the most socially acceptable form of doing this is via a car seat. In a car.

Nimble

For me, I think the bigger something is, the more difficult it is to make it nimble and fleet afoot. – Cate Blanchett

You know how when Windows first starts up and you try and open Chrome and then you’re not sure if Chrome actually opened because it doesn’t look like it’s doing anything but then after like 8 minutes you end up having 162 difference instances of Chrome suddenly pop up at once because at no point in time did Windows give you any indication of what was going on so you kept clicking on Chrome? I want the opposite of that. When people talk about having wonderful weight transfer and excellent mid-corner feedback and fantastic braking stability, I want to be all like, “Mmm. Yes. Quite. I know precisely what that’s like. Indeed.” Then I’ll adjust my monocle and take another sip of my port.

Cheap

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. -Thomas Paine

Since I typically go through my monthly Q-tip budget pretty quickly (I’m saving up my earwax to make candles), and since the day care mafia colluded to determine that the cost of having someone make sure my kid doesn’t die and also occasionally cleaning his butt should be LITERALLY MORE THAN COLLEGE TUITION, there’s not much left over for things like buying an entire car. So it will have to be done on the cheap.

Okay, so I admit that’s a pretty extensive list and maybe a little bit unreasonable. The closest any manufacturer comes to my “perfect car” are the G8, the CTS-V, and the E90 M3. While they each check most of my boxes, they all fail the 4000lb-with-just-a-driver test, and also the fix-with-a-ball-of-twine test. To meet those two requirements, I’ll have to start with something a little older, which will help me check the “cheap” box as well, something that none of the three aforementioned cars can do.

So follow along with me as I fulfill my automotive fantasies in a build series I call PROJECT FÜNF NULL – the name alone should give a good hint as to what I’m building if the title picture didn’t already give it away. Guesses are welcome in the comments.

I’ll be detailing everything from the purchase of the car and drivetrain, to custom ECU installation, Android tablet integration, suspension refreshing, and more. Unless my earwax candle business takes off.

If you like spoilers, follow me on Twitter @mikaelvroom and Instagram @mikaelvroom.

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Next Installment:

Fünf Null Part II: Picking the Donor –or- “People on the internet are universally the worst”

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