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I recently moved to San Diego, Ca and want to begin racing. my budget isnt all that great to play with so i was thinking of purchasing a once savaged car, of course because its gonna be cheaper, thats good enough to do some autocrossing until i can get everything ready for regulation racing. is that a good or bad idea (thinking long run)..Thanks in advance for your input.
A lot of race cars start out as salvage title or junked cars. IMO A salvage title is better than no title at all. As long as the repairs to the car were performed correctly so it isn't dangerous I see no problem with it.
Its no different than buying any other car, you have to look hard at what happened to it & how it was fixed. You can buy it from a dealer and not bother to re-title it provided you don't ever want to register it. Where I am you have to be licensed as a dealer or dismantler to transfer the title of a car from an insurance auction w/o getting it re-titled.
Some insurance totals are pure junk, others not so bad.
My daily driver '94 Miata has salvage title.
It just has new trunk lid and rear bumper cover.
Cars are totaled nowadays with very little damage.
Look for frame alignment issues,, even water does not have to be a problem, my friend has a low mileage Lexus that was totaled for going into a water filled ditch. He drives it every day.
I've had two VW's that were totals, one was just a theft recovery, I had to hang new sheetmetal on the front & paint it. There was even a handy little wire added to engage the starter by touching it to the hot side of the battery.
It is a bit scary putting your money down on a car you've never driven, knowing you can either get it inspected or scrap it, but no selling it off to someone else.
Rather than going the route of a salvage car and then trying to convert it to a race car, I'd suggest watching for a good used race car. Peter Zekert has a "foster" car program where you can have the car to use for free as long as you race it and maintain it. There are also some very good deals on used IT cars that come along. If your primary interest is in racing, get a complete car usually with spares. If your interest is building a race car, then I don't see a problem starting with a salvage car. That said, since there is only so much you can do with a race car and seam welding was illegal in IT, a repaired salvage car may not be legal or worse straight. Cheers