Many extreme car enthusiasts at one point or another in life convince themselves that they can build a car from the ground up. Some of those people are the Colin Chapmans, Soichiro Hondas and Gordon Murrays of the world. Others…. aren’t. But you’ll never know unless you try, right?

Dennis Palatov is one man who has put his money where his mouth is. Thankfully, he’s also chosen to document the whole process on his website. I’ve been following it for quite a while. One of his projects is the DP4 which is essentially a motorcycle powered car that’s designed to be a half-way point between karts and traditional race cars. Peruse his website and you’ll see many cool machines.

One day I’d like to try my hand at making a car and when I do I’m going to use a Honda Goldwing motor. Many have adapted various motorcycle engines to their homebuilt creations so that’s nothing new. However, many of the conversions suffer from a few basic faults that keep them from being as desirable as they could be. Most motorcycle engines rev extremely high and produce very little torque. This, combined with clutches that were never designed to move the weight of a car usually don’t make for a very smooth launch. Then there’s the problem of motorcycle engines typically being designed to use chain drive.

The Goldwing doesn’t suffer from any of these faults and is remarkably torquey, has a low center of gravity, is extremely reliable, widely available and even has an alternator that is actually designed to run more than a single headlight. It’s not a violent, unbalanced inline-4 that revs to 15,000rpm, but that’s the point. I want a scaled-down, lightweight sports car, not a stripped down torture chamber.

What would you build?