Long term project vs lifespan?

[SSLance]

For years and years all I had to hot rod was my daily drivers, that meant whatever I did to it on the weekends had to be road ready by Monday to get me back to work. I'm certain it was the same for many of you.

When I finally got to where I had a dedicated fun car, I spent the first 4 or 5 years with it off the road a large part of the time restoring\modifying it for better performance like I always wanted to do with my daily drivers. Once it was "done" I found that it sat int he garage covered up most of the time because I didn't want to clean it back up after getting it dirty driving it.

The lightbulb finally went off and I started driving it...a LOT. Since then when I do plan upgrades to it, I try to have things bought and planned out well in advance to make sure it's only off the road for very short times. It only took me 3 weeks to transplant the T56 in the car for example...start to finish. The whole suspension was swapped out twice last summer, without missing a regularly scheduled local SCCA autocross event.

I've found that being able to drive the cars regularly motivates me to keep them on the road. I like working on them in my home garage as much as anyone, but I like driving them when done even more.

I live vicariously through others on the board with their long term custom built car projects...thankfully get my fix that way. Then I close the laptop lid and go for a drive.