is there an affordable v12 out there?
 

Whats available with a v12 and a manual gearbox on a budget? Say $10k max?

I can only think of big old Jag's....

Old BMW 7 series. I had a friend with one. He loved it but he could not sell it for beans. I think it was less then 2K when he sold it.

buy a wreak or theft recovery
that way you get all the wires and connectors
computers and other bits
and can sell the other good parts to recover some costs

M-B S-600 or SL-600
or BMW 750 or 850

you will have to adapt a manual box [unless you get very lucky]
as most to all are auto-box's maybe euro cars will have a stick
but that is not real hard or high cost
chevy or ford stick 5-6 speeds are cheap and strong from resent hi-po v8s
custom flywheel and adapter plates are not deal breaking costs

Old Jag, old Benz, old BMW.....all scary to maintain. Good luck!:D

If Atlanta was only a few hours closer....

XKE Jaguar 72

72 XKE V12 2+2 coupe. Series III. $9000

Automatic, missing parts, Yada yada yada... If I were closer, I would be all over this like fleas on a hound dog.:D

Affordable V-12? Kind of a contradiction, no?

Yeah, cheap to buy yes... but big $$$ to keep running.

My girlfriend's daily driver. 1993 SL600 Mercedes. 6 liter V12, 390 HP.

Bought the car for $4500.

It works around town. We don't take it more than about 30 miles in any direction, just in case...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kdSBeWMwZqY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Like your own personal V12 Nissan Leaf:D

Not sure if that video showed the follow up but a couple weeks later they chacked to see how the cars were doing. Richard's BMW was fine, Clarkson's Merc had a broken ignition switch and it was $950 just for the part!!

Affordable to buy or affordable to drive and refuel?

I swear, I've been snickering about the title of this thread for an hour. Affordable....V12......lolz!

So, I have an entire thread on my girlfriend's 600SL buying and driving experience. $4500 car... she got it because she liked the novelty of it and the looks.

174,000 miles. She needed something just to get to work and back and to the shops, about a 10 minute drive a few times a day.

Before she was leasing a new Audi, but the insurance cost was killing her as she is French and hasn't had a US driver's license for more than 2 years. So she gets rid of the Audi when the lease was up and gets this Mercedes for $4500 and gets the bare minimum liability on it..

She basically had to drive the car for a year and the car would pay for itself versus leasing another Audi.

She has had it more than a year now. Not a single problem has arisen with the car that has keep her from driving it every day. It has problems- boatloads of them- but it still moves under it's own power and is relatively safe, so... she sticks with it.

And it does still have all ~400 horses. The engine is bulletproof.

Thank goodness I am thousands of miles from that car.

Schumi, when that MB finally gets to be too much of a pain from the nickel and dime stuff, you ought to stick the motor in something like an Ariel Atom. How cool would a V-12 in a little tubeframe go cart be.

10K?

Put a 750i engine into an E30. I've seen one in Portland.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1400783014.jpg

Yep, in most things in life we always seem to want what we basically cannot have: something really good for nothing, or next to nothing. :D

Good. Fast. Cheap. Choose two.

Pelicans know a lot, I figured I'd pick some brains.

Seems like its a big old Jag, an SL600 or a 750 or 850.

Also-

as is my the case in my girlfriend's 600... I think it isn't too hard to find a Mercedes V12 that needs serious transmission work- if something goes wrong with that automatic, the only fix is a seriously expensive rebuild (most shops simply won't touch them) or a used replacement from a junkyard car ($2-3k plus labor).

But again.. the engines are pretty bulletproof so I think it would be a really neat project to get a running R129 SL 600 with the auto trans on it's way out, and hack in a nice 6-speed from a modern Camaro or Cadillac (Tremec T56)...

That is what that car really needs- they make roughly 400 HP but the slushbox really robs the fun most of the time.