PCH, Thunderhill LeMons Edition: Protege or Neon?  The last time
we felt the flames of Project Car Hell licking at our flesh, the
2002 Maserati Coupe was beating the 1985 Ferrari Mondial by
about a 60/40 margin in the polls. What lessons may be learned
from this remain uncertain, but what is certain is that I've got
24 Hours of LeMons fever and I've got it bad; I'm scouring
Craigslist day after day, looking for the right car to run in
the Altamont race in May (even worse, sellers know I'm looking).
That can mean only one thing: a Choose Your Eternity poll
covering the cars driven by the top two teams at the Thunderhill
LeMons race!  We never would have considered the Mazda Protege a
likely candidate to win the 24 Hours of LeMons, but Team Red
Meat and Poontang showed us that a near-stock '99 can do the
trick. The problem is finding a running late-90s example for
under $500; Red Meat and Poontang did it by finding one with
horrendous body damage, but it's not an easy task. However, it
can be done; here's a '97