I just retired, and now have the time to indulge some of my wild hair ideas that I've had to sit on as a working adult. One of those ideas is to have a car that is uniquely mine. I'm considering the T-Bucket because its simplicity appeals to the KISS principle that I tried to follow throughout my career. Although I know very little of the mechanical detials (yet), I have some vague ideas of where I would like to go with this idea.
I'm looking for something that I can use daily in a rather arid environment. Air conditioning would be nice, but is not essential. I want it to be reliable and economical to operate, with good fuel mileage. Since I do some living history events and want to take some trips, I want it to be able to pull a small trailer, probably a teardrop which I can build myself. Given the area in which I travel, I need at least a 300 mile range between fuelings, and 500 would be better.
My first thought is to use something akin to the Ford 2.3 or 2.5 L inline 4 as an engine. I'd like a manual, but I understand that there is some difficulty fitting a clutch pedal into the limited floor space. I would want to put a rollbar on it for safety, and to support a bikini type top such as you see on open 4X4s like the Jeep and Toyota FJ-40s just to keep the sun off in the middle of the summer.
I hope to spend some time here picking people's brains and refining my ideas. Any comments, suggestions, or opinions are appreciated.
I'm looking for something that I can use daily in a rather arid environment. Air conditioning would be nice, but is not essential. I want it to be reliable and economical to operate, with good fuel mileage. Since I do some living history events and want to take some trips, I want it to be able to pull a small trailer, probably a teardrop which I can build myself. Given the area in which I travel, I need at least a 300 mile range between fuelings, and 500 would be better.
My first thought is to use something akin to the Ford 2.3 or 2.5 L inline 4 as an engine. I'd like a manual, but I understand that there is some difficulty fitting a clutch pedal into the limited floor space. I would want to put a rollbar on it for safety, and to support a bikini type top such as you see on open 4X4s like the Jeep and Toyota FJ-40s just to keep the sun off in the middle of the summer.
I hope to spend some time here picking people's brains and refining my ideas. Any comments, suggestions, or opinions are appreciated.