Kit Cars

Kris threw something up about that guy who built his own Hummer from scratch..well played that guy.

I knew a guy who had a replica Lambo Contach (sp?), with a V5 in it... I wasnt such a fan of it...

but recently I have come to really like some of the kits out there...

two really stick in my mind..

1) AC Cobra


this thing is just a f8cking beast. Usually sitting with a 427 under the hood (examples I have seen) and as far as roadsters go, just pure growl.

2) 550 Spyder


what James Dean killed himself in.. only 70 of these ever built in original form, with a flat-4 mid mount powering it. 1st and 2nd placing in Le Mans in the 50's.

another one isnt really a kit car ,as you use the orignal muscle car as a donor, but FOOSE has been building "GT500 Eleanor" kits for older mustangs...hot as anything... even his latest kit for the 2008 Mustang GT, rivals Carol Shelby's latest effort.

anyhow, if you have a dream car, does it come as a kit...and short of shelling out say a Million $$, would you buy a kit car like these?

My "dream car" doesn't come as a kit, but if I had a garage, the money and the mechanical know-how, I'd love to build a kit car. Some of them are well, well worth it. I did grow up reading Performance Street Car mag and such though.

i wish the elanor kits would just die already it's leading to lots of people hacking up otherwise good cars.



a common engine choice in kit cobras these days is the lexus/toyota V8. light, stout, can handle stupid amounts of boost, or sound like pure sex with an ITB setup.

Whack a 20BTT in thurr :>

obligatory:

the people who buy the Elanor kits aint the purists, and would of hacked up their cars anyhow.

Pfunk, what its the car you want to do?

Kris - That V8 is so hightly rated by loads of people...

I'd actually probably go an AC Cobra as it seems more "acceptable" to build a replica of it and they are fucking sick.
I'd also look at some of the kits for the 1st-gen Rx-7 based convertables and similar. Generally something that is not a replica, but a modified replica, if that makes sense.

For some reason, I don't think building a replica of a contemporary car is kosher.

yeah, with good reason. in stock form, it's super quiet and smooth, practically bulletproof with basically no common faults, typical toyota reliability, and when it comes to mods, it's tough as fuckin nails.

Some of those custom cars on the Foose website are aaaaawesome. Man.

oops, missed link - http://www.chipfoose.com/gallery.aspx?LinkID=hplnk1

sO I took the 550 for a spin on the weekend... raw man... so raw. no ABS, no power steering, no stereo.. just a 1915cc air cooled VW engine throwing out about 90hp, in a car that weighs 600KG dripping wet.

good times.... and now im figuring out how I get one.

Hot Rod show in St Heliers last night... Loads of AC Cobras... car that stole the show was a custom rod.

I'll throw some pics up later on, but this car is a kit car, and has become my new favourite. Turn Key is around $150k NZ

nice. what was it powered by?

it was an aluminium version of the 351 I think.. pretty much the same engine that they were built with back in the day, just updtaed with modern materials. He reckoned it would hit out 400hp.. still fairly old tech tho.

however, this was built to order by another gentleman.. the guy who did it would love a LS1 inside it, and a different transmission as well... plus he wanted to lower the rear by another 2 inches.. this thing was airbagged already hard out..

he was hoping to get 600hp+ from the LS1 when he did it.

LSx series is the perfect option for something like this. traditional muscle cred, (particularly if you put 'vette engine covers so slower people go 'oh cool, a 'vette motor!') along with turnkey factory reliability and insane power levels available with moderate mods.

pity they still cost a bomb here, compared to as little as US$2k.