Atari 5200 Guy

Here's the 3 ... no ... 4 Porsches I found in the junkyard. 3 of the are the Carrera GT, one I believe is a 911 Turbo. The one on the left is the only one I've done anything to. On that note...all I've done is replace the body parts...nothing else has been touched yet. I'm simply too tired to try to finish it. Darn energy level is kicking me again. I'm going to try to work on all 3 tomorrow, keep one for myself, sell the rest. These are apparently worth a lot of money. Just with the new body parts and not running the one on the left is worth a little over $90,000. Here's the 911 Turbo. Poor thing. Kind of reminds me of Herbie in Goes Bananas when he was tossed overboard into the water. He needs eyeballs...hold on... There...that's better. Now we can see you. Kinda cute actually. I may keep this one as well.

Nevermind. I just found another one. This one has a little more to it than the last one. I'm keeping this one but I'm not doing anything to it until I can expand my garage and remove that rust! There's more of an engine here, too, compared to the other one. I spent less on this one, though, than the last one. Building these cars is strangely relaxing and healing. Tearing them up at the abandoned airport is a lot of fun once they are running again...except the Willie's Jeep...that thing is slow. Oh...a bit on how the junkyard works...cars are random. If you don't get 'em when you see 'em, then leave, you miss 'em. There's no telling when you'll see them again.

Yea. Most of the cars found in the in-game junkyard barely have anything. I've found one car with an almost complete motor but nothing but a barebone body. No doors, no windows, no panels...which didn't matter anyway as I can't repair those any way yet. ...and the finished product. Man I'll be glad when I can remove rust off these car bodies and can paint them. I'd like to see their real beauty. But, Justin got it. Ford GT40...pretty much the only Ford I really like. I'm more of a Chevy fan but over the year the MOPAR stuff has grown on me. That engine...they nailed the sound of it. I'm torn. I need the profits. I didn't realize how much I gave for this car in the junkyard. That first image I showed of this car was exactly as I found it and when I returned to my garage I noticed a huge chunk of my money missing. I didn't even pay attention to the ticket showing what the car was when I bought it. I'd like to keep it to repair it but I need the money. I also do not know if/when another one will turn up in the junkyard. There are still car models I have yet to see in the junkyard including RAM trucks. I found three Porsches last night and bought one to fix up. Cars in the junkyard are completely random with some becoming rare finds. The GT40 being one of them.

I wonder what kind of car this could be? I know but does any one want to take a guess?

How...is that...even possible??? 😲 Me yelling at the guy, "ZIP TIES ARE YOUR FRIEND!!" Those work better than duck tape 😉 You know, the more I look at that last picture I took the more I realize something. Where I'm originally from I would have done the same thing. Find an old rusty car, get it going, fix only what is required to make it run under its own power, slap some huge mud-slinging tires on it, then find an open field with a few hills and just let her rip. Hehe...I'd probably still do it now. I just wouldn't know where to go where I'm at now where I wouldn't get in to too much trouble.

I rebuilt the other El Camino like car I had stored for a while. Had big 'ol off-road tires on it and a V8 engine. So...I took it off-roading before I sold it. King of the Hill, baby! This one I sold. These seem to pop up often in the junkyard so I know I will find another one. I'm trying not to get too attached to some cars and I need to turn a profit some how in this game. If I tried to keep every car I found I'd go broke in the game. I'm also really trying to hold out and level up as fast as I can so I can unlock the rest of my garage and will finally be able to remove body rust and paint the cars.

I decided to keep the 'Cuda. Nothing more fun than tearing it up with an old car in an abandoned airport. YEEHAW!! I wonder how hard it would be to find a real one of these in a real junkyard?

I found a Plymouth Barracuda 426 HEMI in the junkyard. I'm debating on whether to keep it or sell it. I might try to find another one in the junkyard before I make a decision. Nice car...very nice car. It lights the tires, too!

I'm working on getting back to 100%. But I'm starting to get that feeling that my body is trying to tell me it's time to slow down a bit. My mind, however, is like a V12 revving high. This is a LOT cheaper on the wallet. Restoring an old car is not always easy either as I am discovering. It's getting harder to find parts for my '93 Plymouth.

I'm glad you like it! It does take a while to level up after a while but the in-game rewards are well worth it. And for reference: My settings are for VGA display, not HDMI. I get about the same level of detail with these settings. As long as I can play my games, and get between OG XBOX and XBOX 360 settings...I'm good.

This next one is actually a junkyard find. I was curious how much I could turn a junkyard car. I gave $6,000 for this: The same in-line 6 engine I've been finding in most cars. This is what I ended up with: New custom wheels with white wall tires. New seats and steering wheel. I could not remove the rust but I replaced what I could on the body. Same engine, no mods and the ending value? Almost $50,000! I made a good $44,000 profit. I should have kept it but I know I'll find another one...hopefully with a V8.

I rebuilt the Camaro. The wheels and lights are the only things I changed from the originals. Everything else is stock. Not a bad profit at all for not being 100% restored.

Borderlands 2 on highest settings plays very well on ultra settings with the GTX 460. I've not tried the Sniper Elite games yet. Cobra has been finished. It's engine... ...framework... have been completely restored back to original specs. I took it for a test drive and liked it so I will definitely keep my eyes open for another one once I expand my garage. And I was close to the value of the car when I did all I could. Almost $70,000 in return. It was well worth doing. I visited another barn and found not one but two beauties to work on. Imitation Camaro and a Chevy Bel Air imitation. I know the game doesn't use brand names for copyright reasons (and licensing issues I'm sure) but it's easy to tell what these two are. Camaro has the same in-line 6 in my El Camino. V8 in the Bel Air.

I thought I would go ahead and get those pics before I rest. This will give time for others to respond. The wheel is not missing...it's in my inventory. I removed it to get the tire size. This is what most cars look like when found including call-in orders which I never understand. They bring in cars that look like this but only have one to ten parts that need replaced. Unreal. So far it looks like the door is the only thing missing...and battery...and an oil pan. Showing the list of parts and the overall condition and value of this beauty. No...I'm not keeping it...it's being built for profit. This one should come close to the $70,000 ~ 80,000 selling price when finished. I'll post those pics when finished.

There's another two guys on YouTube who each have their own channels but sometimes collaborate. They find these abandoned vehicles and try to get them going again usually without buying any parts. I've seen old Ford trucks, a Plymouth Fury, but mostly old Ford trucks. Those guys don't seem to like MOPAR stuff. I can't remember their channel names. Junkyard something. I finished the "El Camino" (called Atlantic in game) and did a Pinto look-a-like full blown. I'm now working on a Cobra clone but before I even start that I'm calling it a night. I will be glad when I get my shop upgraded so I can paint and remove body rust off these cars. Until then I do everything I can to turn a car. I have to reach level 30 before I can unlock that stuff and I'm at 16 as of now. I left/replaced everything with stock parts...no upgrades or high performance parts. Mine is still in the garage waiting for the day I can make it 100%. That's going to be my first "trophy" car. I turned a hefty profit off of it, too. I paid over $13,000 for it and got back almost $37,000. The PINTO broke me and I had to sell new parts I had in my warehouse to finish it. But that was because I repaired what I could to save money and when I went to clean out my inventory of parts I couldn't repair I accidentally sold off everything meaning I had to buy all parts brand new. That car sold for over $60,000 when completed. I hope you guys don't mind me sharing this. It's not Atari stuff but it is kinda fun to see what all you can do with these in-game cars. I'll post pics of the Cobra later. It was another barn find but cost me over $30,000 in the condition it was in. I'm curious at how much it's going to be worth when it is finished. @RickR Those images are coming from the GTX 460 by the way. I don't understand why the game said it needed 2 GB of VRAM when it works with only 768 MB of VRAM.

Found another one... Same I6 engine...different color. This one I'm going to keep factory and see how much I can make off it.

Hey...that looks like my virtual garage...kind of. 😉 Man...if I could have a garage like that I'd be very happy but I probably wouldn't need a house any more. I'd live in that garage 😄

The GT 730 has no fan and is under warranty. I've contacted ZOTAC to try claim a warranty. It was working fine while playing CMS 2018 and then there was no video. It's never came back on the few times I've tried. Drivers are updated and are actually updating now. The 730 is only 2 weeks old. For Christmas I upgraded the power supply to an EVGA 450 Bronze power supply. I got more connectors than I will probably actually ever use. I have plans to finish out the system with 16 GB more RAM (making 32 total), I found 500 MB hard drives for $19 brand new so I plan to fill up all those SATA ports, and a case I found that I like from DIYPC that's orange. I love this setup...just ask my wife. She has a hard time getting me off of it. I've not had any issues with it. This has been the best Windows PC I've ever had, period. No other system I've before comes close. I don't let anyone touch this...not even my nephews. Maybe I'm being selfish about it but I know if something was to happen I couldn't afford to replace it. I found a couple of guys that find abandoned vehicles and try to get them running and driving again without changing parts if they don't have to. I'll have to check out the videos you watch. Oh...I forgot...I upgraded the mouse to an ONN Gaming Mouse, too. 😉

It's a fun game and works well with the GTX 460. I'm discovering that game requirements are not 100% accurate. One game in my library says it needs a GPU with 4 GB of VRAM yet it runs on a card with under 1 GB of VRAM. CMS 2018 says it requires 2 GB of VRAM but it runs really good on the GTX 460. The only issue I've had is I heard a loud noise come from the computer and when I went to investigate I discovered one of the graphic card's fan blades had came off. It still works well, though. I'll have to see about finding a replacement fan soon. I had a GT 730 with 4 GB of VRAM but haven't had it a month and the thing stopped working. I'm going to see about getting it replaced or my money back. Computer boots up, sounds and all, but no video signal. 😞 I would love to find an El Camino abandoned and try to get it running again. I always thought those cars were just cool to look at. I'm trying to get back to 100%. Almost there. As soon as I get close my energy level just hits rock bottom without warning. Thank you for the kind words. I'm doing my best to get well.

I got sick back before the holidays. Just before Christmas I started to feel a bit better but couldn't do much without tiring out easily. So I found a new hobby: rebuild a car...virtually. I thought I would share pics of what I've done so far. This is the game's version of a Chevy El Camino...a car I would very much love to own. The rear portion of the car is still in its original color (silver) and where it's black is where new body parts have been replaced. The engine is a 6 cylinder pushing almost 300 HP with the addition of high performance parts. Everything you see here had to either be rebuilt or replaced. Where I could put high performance parts I did including the transmission. The tires you see are exact replacements to what the car came with which I thought were a bit wide but they are 215/70 15". I have spent over a month rebuilding this car playing it when ever I had a bit of energy or those times I had where I couldn't sleep well. I'd get up for a few minutes and work on this to help. Unfortunately my shop funds are low now and is not yet equipped to handle body rust and painting. Yes, I have driven the car around the test track and race track in the game and, WOW...normally the idea is to fix up cars and sell them (with the exception of customer orders of course). I spent $15,000 on this car as it sat in a barn. I had ~$13,000 to rebuild it with, ignoring customer calls completely. I have barely $4,000 left. Car is now worth about $40,000 as it now sits. I know this is not the real thing but cars and how they are presented in the game come randomly. This car was an extremely nice find. I know I could use the $40,000 in-game cash and possible hope to see another one like it but I'm not risking it...this one stays with me. This is one car in the game I wish was real. The one above is to show how random the game generates these cars. Same model car but different setup. Off-road tires and a V8 engine. I found this one in a junk yard for under $4,000. I'm holding on to it to rebuild it. This one I plan to sell. Next to it is an imitation Superbird. My car is behind that. Sorry for the lengthy post but I wanted to share these pics. It's hard to find plastic models in my area and even harder to find an El Camino running around. Rebuilding these is relaxing, I don't run out of parts, paint, or glue, and I never know what I'm going to find in those barns and at the junk yard. Sort of my zen garden if you will. I hope you all enjoy the pics.

Those trakballs are your standard cue ball from a billiard ball set. Yours has yellowed from age and trying to use chemicals on it can cause it to yellow even more. It is made of ivory and of the same quality Atari used in their arcade trakball designs. That controller is one of my favorites to use with the 5200 system. It's a solid design. As long as it works I wouldn't mess with it. But...if the yellow ball bothers you buy a new cue ball from a store, pop the top off, remove old ball, put new ball in, put the top back on. Yes, it really is that simple and I've done it in the past.

I remember one of the "updates" "Atari" mentioned a while back where the OS planned was suppose to be Linux based. Linux at its roots can be a bit overwhelming and Greek to some. I seriously doubt that anyone in-house at "Atari" knows how to program on that level. The guys that would have been able to do it are from the past "Atari" era. Definitely not the group they have now. If they can then color me impressed. With all the modern apps we have now that do the code work for us I seriously doubt anyone at modern "Atari" even know what BASIC is let alone how to use it.

Aww man. I hope I don't miss out on this one. I'm going to try to get in a couple of track times in a bit.

Kind of reminds me of the Destruction Derby PS1 games. Those were fun especially when in 2 you ran the courses backwards until you were the only one left on the track...then finish your lap. I loved those and Sony's Rally Cross.