'88 F*rd Festiva Autocross/Track/Daily Driver Build

[theastronaut]

I guess it's about time I start a build thread for this thing. It's too late to start at the beginning so I'll do a few posts to catch up to where it's at now.

It's a bare-bones '88 L, clock delete and all. Carb'd, four speed, and was all stock with 126k on it when I bought it. It's in decent shape overall.

I had blown up the engines in two of my daily drivers so I needed another daily driver. I didn't want to spend much since I had to rebuild two engines. I had been checking Craigslist almost daily with no luck. Nothing on the various Facebook groups I'm on. I was at a local flea market with a few friends and one of them spotted the Festiva behind one of the sellers' tables. They jokingly said, "hey, there's John a car!", thinking that I wouldn't be caught dead in an econobox "Ford". (I'm a Chevy/VW guy, so I still argue that it's technically a rebadged Mazda). It had "$800" marked on the windshield- cheap enough, so I checked it out and ended up test driving it. It ran and drove great so I made an offer, we haggled a bit and eventually made a deal. I got the owners phone number and arranged to pick it up the next day.

So I had found a cheap car, but the Festiva was ugly. Really ugly. The bumpers and wheels had been poorly shot with flat black rattle cans, the side trim was faded and stained, and the whole car needed a thorough cleaning.

These pics were after a good wash and a quick respray of the wheels in a less dreary color. Now I wasn't quite as embarrassed to be driving around in a "Ford" econobox... Of course I can't leave anything alone so this was just the start.