Presenting: "The Mumpkin Unsocialized" ($2015 Challenge 3rd Place)

These pics are long overdue. I wished to post these before the Challenge, but time ran out. The car wasn't finished until it got to the event, and Every weekend since has rained so I couldn't get good pics. My apologies.

I wanted to get some good pics posted because the theme of this car was primarily designed for the enjoyment of this forum and it's members! You created it, I just built it.

Complete with fiberglass fastback and 787B inspired GRM forum theme, here she is as she appeared at the $2015 Challenge:

For those of you unfamiliar, the 787B was the winner of the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was the only win ever for a Japanese marque (and for Mazda), and the only win by a car not using a reciprocating engine design (it was a rotary).

Anyway, back to our car...

There was a lot of involvement in this car. Over 30 people worked on it at one point or another, and lots of GRMers had input. Even the credit for the theme was a shared event.

When I bought The Mumpkin, it was orange. It had kind of earned a recognition as the orange car, and I didn't want to change the color. I wanted an orange theme that was cool, and was not Hooters (my wife said "No" to the orange hot pants. She said I just didn't have the buttocks for them). Spinout007 pitched the 787B idea first. I quickly dismissed it (too much work, not streetable, and I didn't like the green).

Several months later, Dyntorace re-introduced the idea and got it in my head again. I tried to ignore it, but it was kind of like a bunion or a canker sore that just won't go away.

GameboyRMH and nedc both responded when I asked for volunteers to help with some photoshopping design work, and I pitched it to them, but they helped me ignore it one more time with some alternative excellent ideas.

Finally I decided I could not ignore the nightmares any longer, and approached JThw8 about doing some graphics. It was JThw8 who first suggested the altered "Charge" logo, and then offered the rather warped idea of the GRM substitute swear words.

But it was GameboyRMH who took the bait, and suddenly started flooding my inbox with revised graphics of every single sponsor of the original 787B. When we took it back to JThw8, he realized he had created a monster and that his generous offer to help with graphics was going to cost him dearly, but that this frankencreature was going to have to be birthed no matter how much vodka it took. About 200 emails later, I had a care package with all of the beautiful combined work of JThw8 and GameboyRMH carefully reduced to vinyl.

So, I take no credit. It was the joint inspiration of the twisted (and probably inebriated) minds of some good friends. I was just the project manager who kept the pressure up and did the leg work.

The race team was "Charge" racing. We changed that to "Challenge". The primary sponsor was Renown, which we changed to "Re-Own" (a tip of the hat to the many owners this car has passed through since it began it's appearances at the Challenge).

"Dunlop" became "Dork", "D40/M2" became "E36M3", "Brembo" became "SWMBO", and "Bilstein" became "Shotgun":

"Cibie" became "Canoe", "Idemitsu" became "Berkeley", and "Rays Engineering" was turned into a "Bob Costas":

We did a little work on the driver's names, replacing them with the builder names who spent the most time on it this year:

The nationality flags got replaced with the GRM avatar, overlaid with our individual Dork statuses.

The "Playsure Club" logo seemed like a good place to to use some descriptive words, and I figured there were several of you who would appreciate me putting it under my own name.

That is stinkin' cool.

...and we made sure to include everyone's favorite girlfriend!

Thanks for the inspiration, all you Shiny Happy Persons!

In case I didn't say it loud enough, I really want to thank GameboyRMH and JThw8 for the time and talent they contributed to this theme.

It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I really appreciate you guys!

I think you have officially set the bar in challenge car build themes. Great work and great laughs. What a stellar way to give back to this forum!

Lol-That car still makes me giggle every time I see it. Very cool, thank you for keeping me involved.

Love it! It's a rolling GRM Meme!

I saw photos of that car but did not realize the level of detail. Very cool.

The car was orange... So pumpkin is a short leap. What's "Mumpkin" all about?

Is it naturally aspirated? I thought turbo was in the conversation along the way.

I have to ask, just did the roof come from and made with? Never got the chance to ask about that. Very nice ride for sure and nice pics. Nice to see all the little details you guys did to it.

Freaking AWESOME!!!

Paul, that car belongs in the GRM museum. Ok...so GRM doesn't actually have a museum - well now is the time!

In reply to petegossett: Hey, we need to start somewhere...

That is really really impressive on the outside. My wife likes the swmbo decals for some reason.

OHSCrifle wrote: What's "Mumpkin" all about? Is it naturally aspirated? I thought turbo was in the conversation along the way.

"Mumpkin" is a combination of "Miata" and "Pumpkin". I didn't name it, I inherited the name. But just like my experience owning the "Yugo from Hell", I learned pretty quickly that it is pretty hard to change a car's name around here once one has been dubbed.

Yes, it's turboed. It's the original 1.6L motor, boosted to 20 PSI (on the drags) and megasquirted.

ckosacranoid wrote: I have to ask, just did the roof come from and made with? Never got the chance to ask about that. Very nice ride for sure and nice pics. Nice to see all the little details you guys did to it.

I made the roof. I used a late model mustang as my starting point, and hand laid it up in fiberglass.

Here is the entire build thread:

Mumpkin from the beginning

But that's a pretty long thread. We tried to capture the car's entire history from the beginning, including it's previous Challenge appearances under different ownership. The roof build starts on page 3.

If you follow links, etc in that thread, you will realize it was first "The Husband Wife Build", then became the Mumpkin, and has made it to the Challenge 4 times.

In reply to petegossett:

Pete, I'd love to put it in the GRM museum.

Right now, I am trying to figure out what to do with a rolling GRM meme.

Everyone remember this car? Same car.

Love the decal details! A true homage to GRM.