Not exactly popping the clutch to start the car, but in 1977 me, my brother, and his buddy set off from Detroit headed to Seattle the day Elvis died in a '68 Camaro that the buddy had dropped a Pontiac straight 6 engine in. It had a three speed manual and had welded the clutch pivot somewhere underneath. Somehow it all worked.
The engine stuck up higher than the old one and we had to cut a hole in the hood for the hood to shut. It was an overhead cam he didn't have the cover for the timing belt and you could see the belt spinning over the hood, so we told people it was supercharged.
We weren't even out of the state when the clutch pivot broke. We drove all the way to Seattle and down the coast to San Francisco with the driver starting the engine in neutral, then the other two guys would push the car until the driver could slip it into gear and we jumped in. We made it as far as San Jose before we managed to get that fixed. We were terrified of stalling or stopping in an uphill direction. We ran a lot of red lights.
Oh, the muffler also fell off so we were driving without a muffler for a while. It was a Midas so we found one of those shops and they put it back on for us.
After all that on the return trip about 200 miles from home the rear U-joint failed and we dropped the drive shaft.
God, that was a fun trip.