Tough Choices

I have not mentioned this in detail on the Miata forums, but I recently bought a 1969 Datsun pickup to "Miatafy". It will be getting pretty much an entire Miata drop out and some bits of the tub. This implies that there won't be a Miata left when I am done with the donor car. As I am starting to build up a list of what is needed, I realized that I have everything sitting in my garage... in my 1991 project car, Mental. This car is so heavily modified that I cannot, in good conscience, sell it as is. The reality is that I drive this car less than 250 miles per year, mainly to the occasional car show / Kinod. In addition to the drop out, there is about $10k in parts I could sell off and fund the truck build.

It is a tough call for me. I have had the car for almost 12 years now. It was not a great starting point for a nice car. It had been hit on both ends. It was a BRG SE. I commuted in it for a couple of years. Blew 2 engines. Spent too much $$$. I also HATE dealing with selling stuff online. But it would mean a huge difference to the truck build to part it out. Emotional attachments to inanimate objects suck.

https://ratsun.net/topic/80994-popcorn/. Linky to truck build thread on Ratsun. Includes a couple of Mental pictures, since most of my build threads have dead links.

What do you think?

You have quite a shop! Looking forward to this project.

I really look forward to the Datsun build. However, I could not really stand the idea of parting out something I have put tons of effort in...

Seeing you post this made me go back and re-read your build thread(s) for Mental (MT.net seemed to have more pictures). I really enjoyed reading and watching in real time while you were building it. I can definitely understand why you would not want to sell it as a whole to someone with the "mental" amount of work and attention to detail you put into it. Ultimately though, you are the only one that can make this decision. Is it safe to say you enjoy the build process and creating essentially a piece of mechanical art more than the joy you get from driving it? If so, then it might be time to make the change. Maybe think about the Datsun as Mental reincarnated, if you were to chose to transfer some parts over. Will Mental get driven even less once the Datsun is finished?