When I began my first arcade cabinet project I spent a long time scouring the internet looking for a beat-up cabinet that would be suitable for conversion. At the time I figured that by using a pre-existing structure I'd be able to save myself some money and time. What I discovered was that waiting for a suitable cabinet took too much time, and getting one to me would probably take too much money. Long story short, I ended up building my own cabinet. This time around things are a little different. When a friend of a friend offered up a beat up but workable trivia cocktail cabinet I jumped on it.
The cabinet in Friend of Friend's garage
Based on the picture I saw and the dimensions I was given I figured the cabinet could be disassembled and put into our relatively small car. This ended up being a mistake; the volume of the cabinet would indeed fit in the space of the car, but the size of the thing wouldn't fit through the trunk or doors (it's times like these that make me wish we had a lift back). After several attempts to reduce the bulk to manageable pieces I called it a day and put the top in the trunk. The top was the most important part anyway.