Hi guys. After a few years I thought it might be a good idea to participate this forum to share our knowledge with people who want to go as original as possible and what could be better as a forum full of enthusiasts like me.
Ingo from Alloycars
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Welcome to the Madness Ingo. Do you happen to know a guy named Anand?
Oh yes, Anand is a very nice and correct guy, very busy. He is taking care for recently born babies with problems in a hospital and is busy 24/7 and as far I know he sold recently his super nice Spyder.
Yes, you are correct about Anand.
Second question. Why Spyders and not Speedsters? Spyders are nice, but there is a much bigger market for Speedsters.
When we started we had some customers lined up already for an aluminum Spyder but today I am going to consider also the speedster which for sure is a bigger market. At this moment I am not sure what for a base we could use for the speedster and if does it make sense to build it in aluminum which is what I prefer to do. The speedster should be build on a 356 base and as I can see so far the body is far easier to build as the Spyder. I have to gather more opinions before I can get into it.
Hi Art, yes it is ...
Very nice looking cars! Welcome to the madness here.
It seems plenty of reproduction steel parts are already available. Considering that original Speedsters are now in excess of $250,000 a correct steel reproduction seems a rational idea. Obviously getting a steel reproduction registered could be a problem but it is not insoluble. The 1959 356A Speedster GT/GS used several aluminum panels and this could incite your interest? There IS a market for a real Speedster replica. One needs only to browse this site to see the lengths owners go to trying to replicate the originals! Having owned actual Speedsters and now a Replica for me it's about how a car feels. Replicas not only look like what they were inspired by, they DRIVE often better than the cars produced from 1954 to 1959! Any reproduction should closely represent the car that was and recreate the FEEL of the original!Remember the car produced by Porsche in 1954 was a stripped down version of their Cabrolet and was marketed as the LOW Cost pure Sports Car. The Speedster became an Icon reaching unreasonable value, and unobtainable for those who cherish what it DID as a Sports Car . One should keep in mind that we who drive replicas today do so NOT ONLY because they are fashonable, or will increase in value, but because they are reasonable to buy, and FUN to drive, exactly what the original buyers did!
Wow. That aluminum spyder looks incredible. Nice work.
Incredible work and fantastic company. Thanks for joining Ingo!
Thank you guys for accepting me in this madness.
We have also some spy cams installed so everybody can follow what we are doing. You can access them following the instructions at our website www.alloycars.com
Anyway, we need to help each other and my team and me will do our best to fulfill the idea of this forum.
Anyway, we need to help each other and my team and me will do our best to fulfill the idea of this forum.
...? This sounds promising. Ingo? I have a fantastic idea. In my present financial state I could really use about a million in cash. Please, if you and your team can do your best to fulfill this idea man I would be so very appreciative.
Oh...we can help you with that too 
But years of hard work and patience are involved 
WOW - that's truly takes skill! How about replica of a Porsche Type 39. Fits right in with aluminum body. I'm saving my beer cans - should have enough in 6 months if it stay hot.
Ice cold beer...having now 95 F here. If we drink together we could make it in 3 month 
....PROST.
Welcome Alloy !
Make some hardtops and they'll fly off the shelf...
Greg, I thought the designation of those three 1939 Berlin-to-Rome racing coupes were "60K-10"
Hi Ingo! Great to see you here!
Ingo built a number of parts for my Beck Spyder...a wonderful guy. I've never met someone else who delivers EXACTLY at the time promised. He remains a good friend and expert on 550 Spyder authenticity.
As far as ideas: another great one would be an American Roadster. Also in the Pre-A time period. As far as I know, it was on a pre-A chassis, but had an aluminum body that was riveted to the steel body. VERY COOL.
An early GMUND coupe (~1949) would also be a neat choice...
Anand
I would gladly donate my replica Speedster to you so you could use the body to build a buck if you hammer out an aluminum speedster, assemble it, and return it to me ready to drive.
Robert, this is a very nice offer. The 356 chassis would be the first choice but the prices are getting higher and higher which will makes it unreliable so I have three options: Finding expensive 356 bases which nobody wants to pay for or building a complete original chassis with VW suspension but the best way would be to re-build existing fiberglass speedsters into a metal one which I would prefer as less development will be involved and we could start right away. I dont know so much about the accuracy between each manufacturer but I heard a lot about those Intermeccanic speedsters. Maybe it should be a good idea to open a new post about this project in this forum.
Ingo
Ingo
You should give Henry at Intermeccanica a call. Maybe he can supply you the chassis or maybe you can supply him the bodies. I like the idea of a 1952 American Roadster. Great lines and higher windshield.
1952 Porsche American Roadster
WOW...Three American Roadsters in a row?
I didn't imagine that Hans Hoffman imported that many!!!
21 made. 20 sold in USA.
I always have like those. Doing that in aluminum would be very cool, and the idea of a chassis from Henry has merit as you know it will be built to a high standard.
The red one has a different shape at the wheel flare section. Are they all different? Is there a fiberglass body available?
Actually the red one looks correct for an America Roadster. The green one, with the more speedster-like wheel opening and curved windshield, is the odd one.
Ingo,
I suspect that rear wheel well is an owner modification to perhaps facilitate tire changing at the track...It chops up the smooth blending of the rear 'fender' into the turtle deck. I can't imagine that it rolled out of Stuttgart that way.
One thing's for certain:
That two piece split windshield solves the problem of cracking speedster windshields. Should you replicate it in aluminum, as surely as God made little green apples, someone is going to request that you chop that high windshield by three or four inches!!!
Notice the silver spyder (upper right corner of that photo) with the centerline wheels...and the removable hardtop...very cool!
Good eye Carl! Your knowledge of the coachwork of these cars always amazes me...
To get started with an America Roadster, one would have to find a Devin body that wasn't being used; they were also based on a Pre-A chassis. I have seen a few for sale here and there.
From there, the America Roadster panels could me made and riveted.
That said, if one had a Pre-A chassis from a Devin, it would be a good base for an all aluminum Speedster, if one were interested in that...I spoke to Steve Hogue in Torrance about doing this for me about 18 months ago. It would have been about $200,000 all in, including a 2 piece engine and a good 519 transmission. The "X" factor is what someone would be willing to pay for it if it was ever sold. That was a risk I wasn't willing to take. Given what I know now, I think it would have some serious appeal.
Anand
Lane,
I think we can both take credit for the wheel well comments/observations.
The only independent reference photo I have of the American Roadster has a more open well...but, unlike the awkward circular roundness of the red example, it has a 'flattened' top to the radius...visually more attractive within the rounded smooth blending bump of the fender.
And my 'ooops'.
The initial Porsche importer was MAX Hoffman...not his cousin Hans
The green one looks like it was stopped half way in the metamorphosis from an America Roadster to a Speedster. The red and blue ones look like they have in all the references I've seen.
I know this car...John Willhoit, my friend, restored it.
Pretty cool stuff.
So we have an American Roadster and a Speedster. The fact that the Roadster was an aluminum bodied car makes it my favorite to build. At the other hand are those Speedsters with steel bodies and a lot more possible customers.
This is getting tricky. We are going to stop the aluminum Spyder 550 production as we are achieving the final quantity and besides our 427 Cobra I want to go for a second model which could be one of those two. Decisions...decisions.
Given the cost of reproducing any of these in aluminum, you might price yourself out of the Speedster market. I vote for the America Roadster as an aluminum body is more authentic, but the idea of an alloy Speedster is certainly seductive. Hmmm... Maybe the earlier suggestion of recreating the Gmund cars is a good one.
Agree Gmund would be very cool. But how do you find one to copy?
Ok, lets stay between the Speedster and the Roadster. Depend on sources for information, cars to copy, accessories and possible sales I will take my decision but it will be between one of them.
I am getting in the last 6 month a higher request for speedster hardtops from everywhere and now also requests from this forum so big question here is: For which Speedster manufacturer? I dont think that they are all interchangeable?
Without an 'A' pillar to insure exact positioning of the speedster's windshield, fitting of an after market hardtop can be problematic. Adjustments can't be made at the windshield with the header as they can when installing a soft top.
My hardtop is about an inch short. Fortunately it's fiberglass so making up that difference by 'cutting & splicing' is a possibility...but it seems that each and every metal (aluminum) hardtop would have to be a custom fabrication...duh?
That is what I thought. Will be impossible to do an universal one for fiberglass reproductions. But for the original Speedster should be a possibility which I have to check out.
