Kit Cars

  • Thread starter JohnBM01
  • 10 comments
  • 5,165 views

JohnBM01

21 years!
Premium
26,911
United States
Houston, Texas, USA
JMarine25
GTPlanet, hello again.

GTPlanet, looking online, I hear of kit cars. Are these simply cars you build up and be able to drive on the street, to the track, or wherever you want? What are the advantages and disadvantages of them?

GTP, I'm not an infinite source of knowledge, so it is your turn to educate me on kit cars.
 
to me the biggest advantage of kit cars are that YOU make the car from scratch how YOU like, also you get to know the car inside out and apperciate it more and its a great learning experance.
would be great for a father & son thing
 
Kit Cars are basically fiberglass body replacements for existing cars. The most popular chassis is the Pontiac Fiero. A kit car would be replacing the body panels on a Fiero to let's say a Ferrari or Lamborghini, making a simulated Lambo or Ferrari. They're getting good at making realistic likenesses so, it's not a bad idea to buy one.

Though, there are some kit car manufacturers that go from square one, as to build a chassis-up vehicle, but you're looking at about 30 grand for one of those. Some good places to check out.

http://www.factoryfive.com/
http://www.kitcar.com/
http://www.kitcarnet.com/index.shtml
http://www.carsecrets.com/kitcar2.html
http://www.kitcarmag.com/
http://www.kitcarmag.com/techarticles/142_0309_guide/
http://www.vitessesportscar.com/
 
Advantages:

Cheaper then buying it "ready made"
Can be great sources of enjoyment - if you like building stuff

Disadvantage:

Can be an expensive mistake if you dont know what you are doing.
Can take years to complete the project.
 
You can make money buy building them and selling them on, a friend of mine works for himself, he builds kit cars based on the Locost project at around £750 each, they are lotus super 7 replicas and they use Ford engines. He builds 6 or 7 a year, he takes his time and trims them nicley once they're built he advertises it for sale in kit car mags, takes them to shows and he sells them for between £7000 and £9000 each so he gets a nice sum of money for it, especially since it's his hobbey.

He uses sheet alluminium for the body, this is taken off the side of a van from a scrap yard, the engine is taken from a written off Ford as long as it still works, he re-builds the engine and builds the chassis himself from steel.
 
Thanks again, GTPlanet.

Some of the models I seen require that you have parts from another car to make the kit car work. For example, this "super kit car" (supercar) I found online required that you had the Corvette C5 motor, roll cage, and something like that. Some models were based on other cars, like one car I found was based on the old-school Honda CRX. Of course, the magical thing about these kit cars is that you can build them up any way you like. If you want it to have ducts and louvers, go ahead. If you want a geeky look to it, go for it. I've even seen Ford GT40 and Porsche 917 replicas. I guess people don't like to get into them much because they aren't that creative in having a car, or because they don't have the time to build a car up even with the car parts included.

Maybe someone can build up a race car that can be a nice race car, if you don't have the money for one of those SCCA Formula cars, a touring car, a Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR, or a Bentley EXP GT. I think kit cars are nothing new to this world, so it will be interesting to see how popular they can be.

Now, I hear of kit cars in rally. Like in my "GT4 Rally Experience," there was a Volkswagen Kit Car that rallies. I wonder if that kit car was any different than some of the ones online (and the many more, considering Toyomatt's links).

Well, if you own a kit car or thinking about getting one, come on into the Chat. If you know you can't afford a classic car like at Barrett-Jackson, you can always get replicas. You may not have the real thing, but at least you can have a replica. Just spend some off-time building up the car. Okay, anyone else?
 
These are pretty fun. Give or take the risk involved, I like it. We can Chat about kit cars, of course.
 
Good use of a CRX.
MVC-3.jpg

MVC-144.jpg

MVC-147.jpg

MVC-145.jpg
 
As I said, should be fun, granted you have everything you need to do it yourself. If you DON'T, you might have to pay more to make it work out for you.

I think there are even some race cars you can make with this kits, I heard of a street-legal Indy car kit...
 
Back