Your Projects: Winter Beater Neon

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“It’s just your average 1996 Neon SOHC five-speed coupe,” writes Eric Ritz. “It started out as a winter daily driver and tumbled slightly out of control.”

The first step, he says, was to get some extra ground clearance: “Neons will go pretty much anywhere in the snow as long as they don’t get beached.” Second-generation Neon springs on first-gen Neon struts generated the needed lift. “Then, due to rust repair, each body panel was a different color, so we decided to coat the whole car with thick beige bedliner,” he adds.

He got lucky when shopping for wheels and tires, as he found both the Bassett circle-track wheels and 195/75R14 Goodyear SUV tires on craigslist. “That is when things got serious, and we had to cut the wheel wells up a bit,” he continues. The rubber flares, by the way, are universal Flexy Flares from Pacer, a company that specializes in automotive add-ons and doodads.

“The bull bar is a Blazer item, with some Bosch lights we had sitting on a shelf in the shop,” he continues. “My dad and I fabbed the snorkel out of PVC pipe and some scrap aluminum. Roof rack was an eBay item custom-mounted with some leftover 240Z Prothane bushings. The headlights are custom-fabbed also, using motorcycle housings with a custom harness and some driving lights for highbeams. I learned a while ago: If you are a car guy and you have a fun winter vehicle, you get much less depressed in the five months of Ohio dreariness.”

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