If there’s a single, major investment to be made in the pursuit of building a proper rally car – aside from buying the car itself – it would have to be getting the cage installed.  I don’t know how stringent the requirements are for a cage in other forms of racing, but the rules are pretty strict when it comes to rally.

Let’s face it:  There aren’t many other forms of grassroots racing where you’re as likely to be driving flat out on loose surfaces in the proximity of trees (or Saguaro cacti in our case here in southern Arizona).  When it comes to rally racing, it’s not a question of IF you will need the roll cage, but when you will need the roll cage.

Yesterday, I paid a visit to Kent, the owner of Precision Chassis Works in Mesa, Arizona.  I met Kent through the forums at GalantVR4.org.  Pictured above is his superbly set up Galant before it was parted out and sold off to fund his business venture.  Kent’s been fabricating automotive stuff for years and it’s evident in his work.

We spoke about pricing, but Kent also advised me on how I can make the project easier by performing a quality prep job prior to dropping the car off to him later this year.  A taste of things to come on this site in the next couple months…

• The engine, transmission, driveshaft, and rear diff are coming out.
• The front and rear glass will be removed.
• The interior will be completely gutted and sound deadening scraped out.
• The roof will come off too.

The nice thing about stripping a car down is that it costs little more than time, but there is the issue of keeping everything organized so I can reassemble the car when the cage is done.  I’ll have to figure out a game plan for that for sure.

Precision Chassis Works specializes in automotive fabrication, from roll cage installation to total car prep.  Kent’s done just about anything.  Come to think of it, he’s actually done a very pretty installation of a Subaru engine in an old Porsche 911, complete with motor mounts, sub-frames, headers and even custom exhaust.  Currently, Precision Chassis Works has been busy preparing cars for the Porsche Spec Boxster series.

Take a spin around the website at PrecisionChassisWorks.com!