You can almost fully blame this on Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May: the cheap-car multi-challenge event. The concept is fantastic: You prove that you are smart with little money, you prove the durability of your chosen steed long after it’s sell-by date, and you hope like hell that the squeaks, rattles and odd smells don’t mean that you’ve bought a ticking time bomb to the party. $1,500 can go a long way if you are wise about it, and $1,500 can buy you misery with a license plate on the rear. You don’t know what you’ve got on your hands, exactly, until you put them to the test. Since Cleetus has his personal playground now, why not try his hand at the cheap-car challenge?

The plan is simple: a $1,500 all-in budget. That’s car, repairs, parts, and modifications. That’s tight…that means that in reality, these cars should be more along the lines of $1,000 hoopties, the kind of car you buy when you’re fourteen, the kind of car you buy to go jump in a field somewhere. Not the kind of car you …actually, scratch that, these are exactly the kind of cars you buy to race! What are you going to do, break it? You knew the risks coming into the race! So, the three amigos went out and found their chariots: Cleetus got himself a fourth-gen LT-1 powered Camaro and somehow managed to cram his tall, lanky-ass frame behind that wheel. We’d love to know how that stunt actually happened. James picked up a Nissan Sentra SE-R V-spec, which was a little pocket rocket back in the day but after some years, and some questionable mods, it sounds like it’s either on point or on the verge of sending a piston into the nearest airway. Meanwhile, Cooper went kind of safe, and picked up a 1990s Subaru Outback with a manual trans and a bit of street-car look to it. It’s certainly outclassed in the power department, but will Subaru reliability be his saving grace?