ARM 44: First Car Reunion
Background
Guildford, Surrey, May 2026
You never forget your memories of your first car - buying it, driving it, owning it, maintaining it, tinkering with it, carrying goods and people in it, and finally selling it when you were ready to trade up to bigger and better stuff - but those memories you gained never went away. Eventually, as modern cars became too expensive and complicated for your liking, you developed a hankering for something that reminded you of the very first car you’d bought and driven. With your finances as sound as they have ever been, you decide to trawl through the online classifieds one Sunday afternoon - and eventually you settle on something that seems familiar to you.
The Car
The car you ended up buying was a 2000 WM Wanderer in Opal White, but it wasn’t just any Wanderer - it was the exact same car you bought new over a quarter-century ago after passing your driving test. Now that you have something much newer (and better-equipped) as your daily driver, you decide to use it as the basis for your next project. While the flagship GT trim, with its larger, more powerful engine, has started to creep upward in price, examples of the base-model 1.6 ES such as this one are more affordable by comparison - and you couldn’t help but buy it straight away. So what will you do with it? Rallying, drag racing, circuit racing, even drifting could be considered with this simple, lightweight platform - but no matter what your client does with it, the resulting build must remain street-legal.
Priorities
Major Priorities 
- Aesthetics - Mild or wild, if it looks right, then it is right.
- Authenticity - Whatever happens to it, the end result must remain recognizable as a 2000s WM Wanderer.
- Performance/Sportiness - 100 horsepower just won’t cut it these days, after all.
- Cohesion - What’s the point of a build whose stats and engineering don’t match its looks?
Moderate Priorities
- Drivability - No matter what the Wanderer ends up as, it’s still a road car, and it must stay that way.
- Safety - With great performance comes a greater need for occupant safety.
- Reliability - The donor car was known for being highly dependable - a trait that shouldn’t be ignored no matter what the build is meant to be about.
Minor Priorities
- Running Costs - Show cars can be expensive to run, but at least they get saved for special occasions - and you have plenty of cash to spare anyway.
- Cost After Options - You’re willing to spend as much as your budget allows to get the best possible result.
- Comfort - This restomod is meant to be used for special occasions, but it should also be driven occasionally without being too physically taxing.
Extra-Cost Options
The following changes will incur price increases as follows:
- Panel material: $1,000
- Suspension type: $1,500 per axle
- Engine orientation: $1,500 (includes drive type changes for free)
- Drive type: $2,000 (included for free with engine orientation changes)
- Engine head swap (defined as using a different head type and/or material): $2,500
- Full engine swap (defined as using a different block material and/or engine configuration): $5,000 (includes engine orientation changes and head swaps for free)
- Gearbox type: $3,000 (won’t apply if a manual transmission with more or fewer gears is used)
- Major bodywork distortion using morphing zone adjustments and/or fixtures: $2000 (alterations that can be made by using different body set variants are not permitted)
Rules
- Retain the original techpool distribution (+5 in all areas).
- Don’t change the chassis type or material (although you may change the panel material at extra cost - see above).
- Maximum price of $50,000 AMU after options (prices for which are shown above).
- Quality must be between 0 and +10 inclusive.
- Advanced trim settings may be used, but in moderation.
- 98 RON or E85 fuel only.
- Must be WES 11 compatible.
- No race parts.
- Current stable release (Al-Rilma) required.
- Please clone the base model and family using the Clone All button in the Car Manager after downloading the donor car (see below).
Submission
- Naming scheme: ARM44 - (your forum username) for model and family (trim and variant names are free)
- Rules discussion begins at 6:00 am (UTC+7) on May 6th, 2026 and ends on 6:00 am (UTC+7) at May 12th, 2026. Submissions will begin at that exact time and remain open until 6:00 am on May 26th, 2026.
- Donor car link:
ARM44_-Please_Clone-_WM_Wanderer_1_6_ES.car|attachment (234.8 KB) - All submissions must be sent to me via Discourse forum DM (not Discord).
Good luck - and have fun!