Okay, I figured out what I'm going to do to the poor Aspire... and it ain't gonna be ricey. More like "rednecky".
For the past couple months the wife and I have been running a rural paper route to help pay for the new tranny in the Contour. We were driving the Mercedes for a while (it's so smooooth), but the roads are so bad, and we didn't want to kill the expensive car, so we switched to driving the Aspire.
To my surprise, the little box 'o death was actually quite fun in the dirt (despite being FWD). Only thing you have to watch for on rural Kansas roads is livestock and such, so a bumper guard and lights are in order. Skidplates, engine and tire upgrades are next. This stuff will be homemade and probably look ghetto, but at least I'll have some fun with it.
We're not doing the route anymore (thank God), but I still have weekends off so maybe I'll be able to beat it up then. Any other ideas?
