OK lets all do a little word association here. I will give a word, you say the fist thing that pops into your head. Here goes: 1. Bert, 2. Oreo, 3. Ultimate Project Car

The correct answers are: 1. Ernie, 2. Milk, 3. there are several answers here, Sasquattch, UFOs or Elvis.

The first thing I ask when someone tells me they are building a car is, what is your plan with the car? The answer is generally, its a project car I'm building it. OK, what is your goal for your rusted, dented, I got it from my friend's buddy who is selling it for his grandmother and swears the VIN tag fell off one day when she was driving home from Bingo night? The answer is often, I am going to build THE ULTIMATE Turbo 9000 POS-XS.

I usually shake my head, shrug tell them I will see them in a few months and walk away.

There is one thing I have learned in my years of being a car guy. There is no such thing as the ultimate anything. I have seen people try and build The Ultimate Datsun 510, The Ultimate 911, The Ultimate Mustang and generally they all end up with a non-running car piled full of parts they eventually end up selling for twenty percent of the cost of all the parts.

I think if we had some sort of universal translator that actually read brain waves and not actual words we would find that "The Ultimate Whatever" really translates to; "I have no plan and just want to sink a bunch of money into a project I haven't thought through"

There are two Ultimate endings to the Ultimate Project. The outcome is largely determined by the amount of money the person has to throw into black hole of car modding. Those with limited funds generally give up on the project. They get halfway into it, have no real direction look around at what they have and just give up. They usually have a collection of race parts, show parts and miscellaneous crap they bought off of ebay. The race parts are usually way too aggressive for the street and the show parts are too heavy and useless for the track or driving fast in general. The ebay stuff can just be classified *** it lloked better in the picture and does this even go to my car or even a car at all?

The second way it ends, this is for people who have too much money, is some shop sees a rolling pay check come in on a flat bed. This is generally the guy with the 911, Corvette but it happens with Hondas and VWs also. The guy started the project thinking it would help him get back in touch with his inner car guy. I will work on this thing on the weekends, have my buddies over, get to use the three thousand dollars in tools I bought years ago, the whole thing will be a six month long beer commercial in my own garage! Two years and countless injuries later the guy realises he has no mechanical ability, has made no progress and his friends leave everytime they actually have to do work on the car. He then does what any guy with self respect and a home equity line of credit does, he takes it to a pro.

The pro gets the car done, but the The Ultimate 911 is so modified it hardly even resembles a 911 anymore. It is either a full race car that doesn't really work on the street anymore, or a full show car with a twenty-five thousand dollar stereo system that isn't safe being left unattended in the parking lot at the mall.

The moral to all this? Have a plan when you start your project. Lay out things in advance, know exactly what you want to do with the car and figure out what parts you need. I might sound really cool to use 13:1 compression pistons to get horsepower everywhere, but you aren't going to run on pump gas. There is no Ultimate anything, just the best car that fits your needs.