A few hundred dollars, a few friends and a car, suggestions? Options

[Mike]

Here's the deal
My friends and I enjoy buying heaps of junk and fiddling with them, making them go fast, taking them apart, you name it..

Anyway, I had an idea inspired by the leaf blower threads (new and old).
4 of my friends and I are going to put our money together (maybe 4 or 5 hundred dollars) and buy an old car and we want to make it go fast at any cost! We want to make a real redneck sleeper, stock and crappy on the outside with redneck / ricey engineering under the hood.

This is purely for fun, we're not doing it to be cool or to race, we're doing it to see what's possible!

So I have 2 questions for everyone:
1. What make/model/year car should we buy?
2. What sorts of modifications should we do (I don't care how ricey or redneck the suggestions are), leaf blowers, no exhaust, you name it I'm open to it if it's semi-serious!

Let me know your opinions and I'll post pics of progress and let you know if I decide to use your idea and if it was successful or not!!

Thanks!