"I am selling my CAV GT40. IT is Dodge Patriot blue with 342 Coast stroker with Wayne Presley's stacker injection system. Car has less than 1000 miles on it! Problem is, I just do not fit in it comfortably and with the Daytona 1/2 way done one has to go. $70,000 FIRM"
This is a fellow Spec Racer (owner of the Home Depot orange one in my photos. He lives in NH. Let me know if you want his info to get in touch with him.
Damn, I would be tempted to trade my SC GTS for that thing just based on the way it looks!! I have always loved the GT40's. Thing is without AC and without functional windows, I think you would roast to death in that thing.....i mean literally DIE from heat stroke.
My buddy Hershel made it in the latest Kit Kar mag with shots of him at Bondo's going through the turns. His has A/C. Not sure what it would take to put A/C in the Cav, I assume it can be upgraded since the Roaring 40's can. My buddy Hersel says the Roaring 40's is like riding in a lazy boy leaning back at high speed. He has a 306 with forged crap ect built by Gordon Levy (should have at least 400 to 450 HP) He did have one close call, he was blazing through the desert at 130 mph and a coyote jumped out, swerved and nearly went off the road. He said he had never puckered his butt so much but the car handled like a dream, he couldn't believe it. It took him a good year to build his and he did all the body work ect. I know he has at least $65K in his. These cars are not cheap to build but still cheaper than the price tag of the new GT. You don't realize how low (40 inches)these cars are until you stand next to one. His roof was barely above the door on my other fakey do Cobra and Cobras are small! These are far from being your typical kit car that is for sure. Handcrafted and built from the ground up racecar is what they are.
My goal is to build one of these babies before I am 50. God I love the GT-40!!!! There are only a few cars that I would sell my wife for and that is one of them!
By the way, if I had the cash, that bastard would be mine in a heart beat! [img]/images/graemlins/headbang.gif[/img] Thats on the "list". [img]/images/graemlins/supergrin.gif[/img]
They sound unique but not like straight pipes. High pitched race car is what they sound like. The exhaust is different and crosses over ect. My understanding is to utilize the firing order and sucking of the exhaust. When you can pull a 100 + hp out of the exhaust by doing this, it is worth it. I think Winston Cup set ups operate the same way. Gordon recently built a 351 Winston Style motor for a Factory 5, the exhaust runs in the front and all around, looks strange. But he is pulling nearly 800 Hp out of the carbed 351. He will have it in Vegas weekend of November 8th for the Factory 5 Spec Series Nationals. I talked to him yesterday and he said he had it out on the road to make sure all the bugs are out, he had a hard time describing the car it was so good. Gordon is the guy who I believe holds the fastest time in a Cobra replica (ERA) at aroud 180 + mph in the straight at PIR. He learned to road race in Dick Smith's 427 (FRICKEN LUCKY DUDE). He is also a bit crazy. Hell I would have a hard time going over 130 mph, I'm such a p@ssy!
When I first saw Hershel's, I had my pants halfway down when I realized I was in a public place. I was ready beat the $hit out of the monkey right there. Beat that little bastard until he was purple.
Words cannot describe the feeling you get when you walk up to one of these. Ford truly did a great thing with this car. There is nothing that I don't like on it. Perfectly built for its time. The Shelby Cobra was powerful and rude and kicked your arse screaming down the track. The GT-40 did it with style. Like art in motion.
While it's gorgeous, why would anyone spend 70K on a kit car?
That thing is far from a "kit", although it is not original, Id say its better in many aspects. The whole monocoque chassis is polished stainless steel with ground welds, and perfect beads where grinding is not poissible,...basically artwork. Stitched dash perfect paint, etc.
Depends on what you want to buy the car for I guess. If it is investment they still get a good return, I even made $1,000 off mine after owning it for over a year and selling it. If you are going for original then buying one of these would be foolish.
If you are looking for look and performance, why would you spend $500K to a Mill on an original when you could build one for less. Depends on the world a person lives in. If money is not a problem or consideration then perhaps building one of these would be foolish.
There are many factors that come into play and the kit car of old is not the kit car of new. Just because something is not an original does not mean it is a kit either. A replica is much different than what you generally view as a kit.
Using myself as an example, I don't care about a car being original. My Spec Racer resembles a Shelby Cobra in a sense but is nothing like the original. I am building a racecar that has a skin on it that resembles slightly a Shelby Cobra.
Would you consider a Nascar a kit car of the car it resembles? Are prototype cars that race, considered kit cars? They are welded frames built from the ground up for one purpose, to perform. They are not built to resemble a certain car, they are real performance.
Take the Roaring 40's it resembles the GT-40 but it is far from a kit like a model kit car on the shelf. Kit cars of the 70's lie the VW set ups were designed for looks and that is it. Some kit cars these days are designed to look and even out perform the cars they copy.
If you only have $100,000 and cannot afford the real thing, then why not build something equal or greater in performance and looks? Perhaps people who like to build these cars are in a different frame of mind. It has nothing to do with somehting being original, it has to do with the love of building them and racing them. To some of us they are work of art and labor of love and you can't beat the performance. A collector of type will never understand this because their focus is somewhere else. In a collector's mind he or she thinks people like me are being posers. They have no clue and missed the point completely as to why we do what we do. Granted there are posers out there in the Cobra World with their garage queens. Old men who simply want a nice looking coffee table in their garage. But there are some of us who build these cars for a different purpose.
I am not lashing out at you but I wanted to point out the differences as I see them. Just like in the Viper World there are those that take theirs to the track and drive it around town putting serious miles on them and then there are the ones who put 25 miles a year on backing out of a trailer or their garage to wax it. Those view it as an investment and in their mind, every mile is a deduction in value. Quite sad because they never truly enjoy the car for what it was designed to be used for.
In one year I put over 10,000 miles on my first Fakey Do Cobra and that was driving it part time on the weekends and after work as a destresser. It has been over a year that I have been without a Fakey Do Cobra and I am going nuts. SERIOUS What I would give to turn the key and hear that rumble and punch the gas out of first gear and feel the car getting loose and have my head shoot back!!! I have almost worn out "Bitten By the Snake" watching footage of Fakey Do Cobras in action. That is why people like building these kit cars because in reality they are not kit cars but racecars and they look cool!
So you are right to question why if you are looking at it from an investment stand point. If from a performance or track car view, then I don't think I have to explain any further.
The bodies/chassis components come from NZ,AU,UK. CAV is from south africa.
RF kits, among others, are all sourced from the same place. Body shells are hand laid, chassis are jig welded in house. Front suspension uses components from the C4 corvette. Fiberglass seat shells and the like can be upholstered local for a MUCH less cost than buying them complete. CAV and others are using Audi 5000 transaxles, which have a limit of around 400hp give or take.
The fuel cells in the sills are mild steel in many cases. There is not a power-window based kit as of yet (more on that later).
If you want specific info on a kit, lemme know. Note: The wait time for a kit from Aus is ~20 weeks.
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