NIGHTMARE RX-2
There’s one scenario that will forever be the fodder of nightmares for any car enthusiast — the sheer brick-shitting idea that you lay down hard-earned cash for a car only to find that it’s an absolute rotten egg. The seller has neglected to tell you all about it, and has disappeared off the face of the earth. Unfortunately for the owner of this RX-2, which currently calls Choppers Auto Body Shop home, that was an all-too-real experience that has seen a very long build so far, an extensive amount of fabrication pumped into the old girl, and even a postponed wedding.
“We bought the car for our wedding,” he explains, “but we had to put it off for a year so we could finish the RX-2 in time. That was the whole reason we bought it.”
What was meant to be a ‘mint’ RX-2 running a fuel-injected 13B peripheral port (PP), turned out to be anything but. The discovery of its real condition was made after taking it in for a simple respray. To achieve the finish the owner wanted, the painter suggested that he blast it back to bare steel to see what they would be working with. And what they were working with was a lifetime supply of bog — a 15–20mm slathering over the entire car — hiding a series of rooted panels, dodgy repairs, and crash damage up front and down the back. It was a grim sight, but the owner was determined to not let the car see the scrap pile, so Choppers was enlisted to sort things out.
Sorting things out has seen new rear quarter panels grafted on, a new front left chassis rail and guard, both sills replaced, fresh boot floor, a new-old-stock boot lid, and the bonnet split in half and rust repaired. But that’s only the half of it. Part way through proceedings, a 13B turbo was sourced from a JC Cosmo and now runs a 62mm BorgWarner snail with a Tremec TKO 600 box behind it — meaning that Choppers was busy on the grinder and welder massaging that tunnel and engine bay to suit.
Chopper explains that the owner is after a tough street car with a touch of show to it, one that could be raced on the track, do the odd skid, and be taken on cruises to the beach. The rear end has been extensively modified to sit it on its arse, and will wear a very special set of wheels once complete.