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We love it when LeMons teams build a piece of vehicular sculpture so amazing that we don't even care how well it performs on the race track— say, the Spirit of LeMons road-racing Cessna 310 or the Nutjob Racing air-stairs race car— and in fact those cars mostly prove weirdly competent on a road course. There's another route to the hearts of the hardest of hardcore LeMons aficionados, though, and that's when you build a LeMons car that makes jaws drop in the paddock and blows away some of the quickest competition on the track. We've seen that done with such cars as the "Bavarian Brougham" BMW E36 3-series of Black Iron Racing, the race-winning Dodge Neon of Skid Marks Racing, and the Mad Max-ized BMW 325i of Road Warrior Racing, but the team that started the trend was Team Porcubimmer and their much-modified BMW 325e. For the Button Terrible race this weekend, the Porcubimmers have converted their car into an amazingly credible replica of The Homer, and this car is fast!
It all started back in 2008, when Altamont-era LeMons veteran Scott Chamberlain (he of LeMons-ized custom wedding cake fame) decided he'd incorporate a classic BMW-driver joke into the decor for his BMW 325e. You know the one: Q: What's the difference between a porcupine and a BMW? A: On the porcupine, the pricks are on the outside! So, the team decided they'd make their BMW into a porcupine: Porcubimmer!
The Porcubimmer debuted at the 2008 San Francisco race, held at the notorious Altamont Motor Speedway. Nobody had ever seen a LeMons car like this before!
Sadly, the Porcubimmer didn't run so well during its first outing, and the team won the not-so-coveted I Got Screwed award.
The Porcubimmer went on to contend in many West Coast races over the following couple of years, and the foam-rubber "quills" proved quite durable at speed.
By 2010 the Porcubimmers had decided that it was time for a theme upgrade. Inspired by the title role in the Stephen King horror film, "Christine," the Porcubimmers converted the porcupine into a stunningly accurate 1958 Plymouth.
"Prickstine" looked great and racked up some top-ten finishes during the 2010-2012 period. Photo courtesy of Head-On Photos.
During that period, however, the number of incredible themes on quick LeMons cars kept increasing, and Prickstine no longer stood out from the crowd as much as she once had. Here we see her posing with the spectacular BMW E30-based Bavarian Ranchero of Team Special Deliverance.
Meanwhile, in the Deep South, the uranium-handling Homer Simpsons of Stupid But Tough Racing (they have radioactive day jobs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, so they really are Homer Simpsons) decided they'd make their Chevy Malibu look like The Simpsons' pink family sedan and add a gigantic spray-foam Homer head to the roof.
Renamed the Homer Sexuals (and boasting one of the greatest team-shirt designs in LeMons history), this team made quite an impression on the entire LeMons community. With all the Simpsons talk, there were mutterings on the LeMons forums about the possibility of a team building a realistic version of The Homer, but nobody seemed willing to commit to such an overwhelming task.
That is, except for Team Porcubimmer! Working in their top-secret San Diego shop and not breathing a word to the gossip-hungry LeMons world, they thrashed like mad for months to build this car in time for the Buttonwillow race this weekend. And now, just look at it!
The engine is powerful like a gorilla, while the rest of the car is soft and yielding like a nerf ball.
Plenty of Squishee-sized cup holders, of course.
Bart and Lisa ride inside the soundproof dome in back.
With 150+ teams competing in the expected 110-degree heat at Buttonwillow Raceway Park, there's no way of knowing whether The Homer will dominate on the race track… but this car is already a winner!
Be sure to check the inexplicable Car and Driver-LeMons roundup page over the weekend to see how The Homer, and the other 149 cars, do. Your usual LeMons correspondent will be up on a mountain in Colorado this weekend, so we're placing your Button Terrible coverage in the capable hands of Matt Adair, team captain of the fastest road-racing Jeep Cherokee we know about.
Photos of The Homer courtesy of David Moore Photo.
from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com | 
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