World's Best Builds

The internet is a wild and wonderful place, a place were all of your questions can be answered and a couple that you wish it wouldn't answer get thrown at you as well. Despite this veritable infinity of information, many enthusiasts (myself included) spend the majority of their time online trawling through various forums based around niche automotive enthusiasm. One of the gems that makes this continual search worthwhile is the humble build thread, a place where the trials and tribulations endured throughout the creation of an automotive masterpiece can be chronicled by the builder and drooled over by like-minded folks all over the world.

One of these like minded folks is Anthony from Build Threads. When he isn't busy working on his Datsun 1600 dubbed 'Project 510', Anth spends hours jumping from forum to forum, reading the detailed diary's of people's projects and collating them on his site for ease of viewing. This website is part of my daily rotation, offering a single location to watch for some of the craziest builds out there. It was hard to shorten the list but here are three particular builds that have caught my eye of late, each backed by a comprehensive thread that documents exactly what goes into building cars of this caliber.

RACE READY QUATTRO

As with many build threads, the owner of this Quattro only found time to share his creation with the community as it neared completion.

Beginning with a standard long-wheelbase model, the owner stripped the Audi back to a bare shell before dramatically shortening and widening it.

There has been some serious fabrication work put towards transforming this Quattro into the motorsport maniac Audi originally intended, including a wild looking roll cage.

It's not quite finished yet so be sure to keep up to date with the build here or, for those of you like myself with limited time, check out a great selection of photos Anthony picked out for his post here.

E30 GT-R

When Anthony first posted this E30 back in 2009, I quickly clicked over to the Lotus forums and began reading what sounded like your usual 'cheap engine conversion for the hell of it' type of deal.

The owner picked up what looked like a relatively clean 1986 328e and outlined plans to drop an RB26 in it.

OK so I knew that this was shaping up to be a pretty cool build but when in just a couple of pages it went from the above picture to this one below, I knew it would be worth keeping an eye on.

What followed was an epic thread full of trick workmanship documented with numerous cool photos like this:

The car has now been finished and often pops up putting all 500 horses into wicked burnouts on YouTube, with my personal favourite being the video below. If you feel like checking out the build in bite-sized pieces check out the owner's blog or, alternatively, have a read through the original build thread.

KOENIGSEGG GRANADA

Yes you read right, this Ford Granada has had the heart of a Koenigsegg CCX dropped between the towers and the build thread that accompanies it is nothing short of breathtaking.

This animal has been built to handle well over 2000hp although the turbos will limit it to something around the 1750hp mark. It's a seriously tough powerplant to drop in to the old Ford. The modified CCX motor makes 170hp at idle and bursts into quad figures before 1 bar (14.7psi) of boost.

As would be expected with a build such as this, a whole heap  of custom fabrication work has gone into making everything fit and the craftsmanship is top notch.

A bulletproof rear end, subtle cage and intricate exhaust work are just some of the numerous drool worthy features detailed throughout the thread.

The car is understandably getting major attention in its homeland of Sweden and I for one am waiting with bated breath to see what it can do when completed. It is in its final stages so if you want to keep an eye on this thing, check out the build thread or, as always, keep an eye on Anthony's site.

So there you have it, three build threads that have stood out to me in recent years. I'm always on the lookout for more though so feel free to point me in the direction of your favorite build threads in the comments below.

All images used have been taken from the original build threads and are property of the photographer unless otherwise stated.