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Never heard of ‘em, but they’re certainly ambitious ($89,900). I kinda wonder how they do the AWD setup from a WRX STi - if, in fact, they’re for real.
Here are two links with information about the owner.
Looks suspiciously like an e-mail harvesting site.
It may not be, but I wouldn't offer them any personal information.
There are two forms where you can enter YOUR phone number, name, and email, but THEY show no business address or phone number.
They claim Subiswaps is a 'sister' company, but no mention of them at the Subiswaps site and no links there back to this site.
ONE photo on the whole site for a company that supposedly creates 'hand-built, high-performance coupes and speedsters'.
The web site (created in Wix) could have been done in about 20 minutes with a photo and two text blocks grabbed from the internet.
Which reminds me, I really need to put up a web site for collecting $5000 deposits.
PS: Just found that one photo on Subiswaps' Twitter page here.
Hold the phone!
Just got an email from the Subiswaps owner who says the Replicars site IS legit. It's a separate company he runs that mainly does chassis work on replica builds but has just completed three complete cars.
He also says these may be the last 'regular' builds they will do and that they'll probably specialize in AWD Suby turbo builds from now on.
This is the same dude that Troy's links point to.
So, I have been reading posts on this site for about 2 months now, and have been looking at 356 replicas for about 4 months. I have noticed that there are more shady business practices in the selling of these cars than most businesses. Is that an accurate observation? Or am I just getting more and more cynical with age? If it is an accurate observation, why are there more shady dealings than usual?
Also, it seems that there are a few busy 356 replica manufacturers and a slew of small, not so busy builders/manufacturers. It appears to me that there is greater supply of persons thinking they can build these cars at a profit then there is demand. I see the demand for the more reputable builders, enough so that there are waiting lists. But, I don't see the demand for the less known builders.
Is it accurate to say that most of the builders/manufacturers get their bodies from facilities in Mexico?
Todd wrote: " I have noticed that there are more shady business practices in the selling of these cars than most businesses. Is that an accurate observation? Or am I just getting more and more cynical with age?"
IMO, no. It's not much different than the Hot Rod/Custom Car business (which is what this is, after all, a Custom Car hobby) or even the regular used car business. There are shady people out there building '32 Highboys, too, not to mention a whole slew of shady custom motorcycle guys, or the odd "used car" dealer.
What makes this a little different is that some members on here, myself included, are willing to share their experiences with others, good and bad, so that others might be better informed and can make better purchase decisions. It doesn't always work - (people are STILL giving SAS deposits, as we have recently seen) but we try. It's a fine line to walk, sometimes risking retaliation from some builders when bad news is exposed (I have personal experience with THAT), but truth usually wins out.
Some/many of us have knowledge of the likes of JPS, Thunder Ranch, SAS, and others going back into the early 1990's - Some of those outfits were into Dune Buggies in the 1970's and other customs in the 1980's - Trust me, they never changed over the years. What surprised me, a little, had been the earlier steadfast support for SAS by owners, even when they knew/surmised what was going on behind the scenes. Other buyers got caught in the trap of give 'give a deposit and never hear from them again' that might have been spared, but that's all water under the bridge.
And then there is the other side of the coin: Bruce Meyer and his Manx Dune Buggy business has always been a stand-up place to do business with, as was Alex Dearborne and his Deserter line of Buggies and so have been Kirk and Mary Duncan at VS, Henry Reisner at Intermeccanica and the Hines family at Beck. There are other, smaller builders that are reputable, of course, but I don't want to turn this into an epistl and, quite honestly, apart from the popular builders I only have anecdotal knowledge of their practices. gn
Todd,
This is a very small hobby. There are lot of people who like these cars, think they're cute, etc.-- but the number of people who actually OWN one is vanishingly small. It's a niche market in the extreme.
There are established players with a backlog of orders supplying the demand, but they're not inexpensive-- because regardless of how it looks at first glance, there is nothing inexpensive about building a car.
Most people can't accept this. They think the cars should cost less. Into this breach step those who say things people want to hear. Perhaps they have built one or two cars from somebody else's kits, but they aren't "builders" who are making their exclusive living producing 356 replicas.
I tend to give people too much credit for goodwill they may or may not posses, but I don't think that most of these big talkers are being deliberately misleading-- I think they themselves are greatly underestimating the cost of building a car to order at a profit. There are exceptions to this rule, and I've been caught in the snare in the past, but most of the "Johnny-come-lately" places you see are just dreamers hoping they can build a couple of cars. People spend their money and take their chances, but I'd stay away.
If you've been around a while, you know who the established builders are, and where they fall in the price/quality continuum. You may think somebody can give you more for less, but they most likely can't.
Regarding the bodies: no, most builders do not get their bodies from Mexico. Vintage Speedsters used to when they were in Hawaiian Gardens, and once upon a time Beck got theirs from Brazil. Intermeccanica, Beck, and now Greg Leach's Vintage all currently produce the bodies in-house.
And you type all that on your phone???
Must be one helluva phone keyboard, is all I can say.......
Good insight, as always, Stan. (I gotta get a better phone, for sure.)
Stan Galat posted:Greg Leach's Vintage all currently produce the bodies in-house.
I'm not sure that it really matters we're they come from. However, if I'm not mistaken, Greg can produce some bodies at his shops in California, but the majority of them still come from Mexico.
Troy Sloan posted:Stan Galat posted:Greg Leach's Vintage all currently produce the bodies in-house.
I'm not sure that it really matters we're they come from. However, if I'm not mistaken, Greg can produce some bodies at his shops in California, but the majority of them still come from Mexico.
I have been looking for a few short months, and it seems that there is almost no way to know where the body was manufactured, except to trust whatever the builder has said. And, it would appear that the country of the body manufacturer is not a large indicator of the body quality and certainly not of the overall quality of the build. Anywhooz, just my observation.
My experience is that one has to be very careful with claims made by builders. The points made above seem very reasonable, especially making an accurate assessment of what type of market this is.
I agree with Troy about where the bodies come from - Given the ease of producing fiberglass molded bodies, pretty much anyone can produce more than decent fiberglass things - even me! CMC bodies got a bad rep (IMO) from their inconsistent quality and various "Cracks appearing around the headlights and door corners" reports. A little investigation usually showed that either necessary body support brackets were never installed or the body was simply installed poorly on the pan - both of those contributed to gel coat cracks, but that was improper assembly of the car, not necessarily the body itself.
The bodies produced by CMC did, indeed, have inconsistent quality, mostly from the differing thickness of the fiberglass. They were produced with (Gasp!) a "Chopper Gun" which cuts fiberglass "cable bundles" into 1" - 1-1/2" long fiberglass filaments which got combined with lots of air and a 2-part epoxy resin in a gun that shot the mix anywhere you pointed it. Shoot it into a mold and, with a little practice, you could get a consistently even-thickness coating of body material in there (it is usually applied in a "star pattern", like an asterisk, so many passes in each direction then move on). This is the same process that has produced millions of fiberglass boats the world over and nobody asks about where they were made. Many, many FG boat makers migrated to Eastern Europe and Asia decades ago to produce their boats with the lower-cost labor available there. Turkey and Malaysia come to mind. Using a chopper gun, overall thickness in any particular area was determined by sight lines and experience. Linger in one spot a little longer and the body got thicker right where you pointed the gun. Don't shoot long enough there and the material was thinner - simple as that. The alternative to that is a hand lay-up of fiberglass mat which is impregnated with the same 2-part resin and takes a LOT longer to produce. Anyone could produce 4 - 5 bodies with a chopper while a single body was being hand-layed-up.
Hours could be spent debating the pros and cons of chopper gun versus hand lay-up. In my honest opinion (and with more than a few years of managing all sorts of molded commercial parts into production), for our little car applications it really doesn't matter at all. Nor does it matter where the body was produced - Mexico, Brazil, Chula-Vista, Vancouver, Bristol RI, et al. Any of those places could produce extraordinary bodies or junk, depending on who was doing the lay-ups. It's that simple. Same guy on two different days could do a beautiful body or junk. Period. You tended to keep the good guy and find something else for the not-so-good guy to do in your mold shop.
So, Todd, try to get over the "where was the body made" idea. It is far more important to see how the final car was made and the quality added during those steps, particularly, who built the engine and what parts were used, who built the transaxle and what parts were used, and then you get into dash gauges and interior stuff. Those are the biggies. Everything else is mice-nuts.
Just another thought, Todd.
From what you've posted I get the distinct feeling that, while you're keenly interested in these little cars, you also don't want to get taken if you choose to buy one, so let me offer the same alternatives and guidance we all often offer to newbies:
1. ALWAYS buy a used one first. This is because these cars are NOT wha they appear to be at face value. They are noisy, smelly, windy, bumpy, etc., based on 1950 technology and often new buyers find that their spouse or spouse-equivalent (or themselves) quickly realize that it is NOT what they expected and then re-sell it. THAT is why so many cars show up for sale with 600 miles or less after a year or two from new.
2. ALWAYS buy from the more popular/reputable builders. They get talked up on here all the time so you probably already know who they are. There are only four of them, so that narrows down the choice. I include Troy Sloan and Alan Merklin in with "builders". If they sell a bad car we subsequently beat them up at group events and then shun them (oops, sorry - They haven't been shunned yet).
Regardless of who builds the car (or even if you get it used):
3. Get your engine from Pat Downs
4. Get your Transaxle from Rancho Performance Transaxles
5. Get your gauges from Carey Hines (Beck).
Buy stuff elsewhere at your own risk.
I'll let others add to this list. What do I know.....I live in Massachusetts (at least we have the best health care in the US).
Troy Sloan posted:Stan Galat posted:Greg Leach's Vintage all currently produce the bodies in-house.
I'm not sure that it really matters we're they come from. However, if I'm not mistaken, Greg can produce some bodies at his shops in California, but the majority of them still come from Mexico.
I may have misunderstood, but I spoke with Greg just before Christmas, and believe he said he's taken all production in-house.
It doesn't matter at all, really... other than that when production is moved in-house, the outcome is likely more consistent.
Let me put it this way. The Mexico molds are still being used, somewhere. Again, it doesn't really matter; they are good molds.
@Gordon Nichols - "Nor does it matter where the body was produced"
I thought that's what I said. But, I do not always communicate so clearly.
"From what you've posted I get the distinct feeling that, while you're keenly interested in these little cars, you also don't want to get taken if you choose to buy one, ..."
Well ... I already bought one. More accurately, I bought an adventure, usually referred to as a project. Right now it is on a transport truck, I am guessing somewhere between Sacramento and So Cal. Yesterday, it was in Reno. Last Thursday, it was in Lees Summit, MO. where I bought it and put it on a transport.
I kinda think I know what I am getting myself into. In my young adult life I owned and worked on VWs; Type Is, IIs, IIIs, and at one time had a '58 356 coupe, badly in need of restoration, and I loved that car. I had to sell it because my father was tired of seeing it in pieces in his garage every other week, and it was not consistently providing transportation to school. I was taking the bus more often than I was driving my car.
I can't see buying a '58 356 coupe now. The prices are nuts, and I would not feel comfortable driving it, either on the street or on a track, and I love driving on tracks. A replica seems like a good fit, and I will get to know the car as I put it together.
I would not have considered buying a replica had I not found this forum.
No problem, Todd. You and I are very much alike.
I bought a CMC kit and asked my Dad, who had a HUGE, mostly empty garage building at the time, if I could “store it in there for maybe 6 months at most”.
3-1/2 years later (I kid you not) I finally got it the heck out of there and moved on to building a car (I got side-tracked building a garage to build the car in, first).
You’re right. This will be a great adventure and lots of us on here are on your side and want to see this be a fun project for you. Keep asking questions. There is more great info on this site than any number of other “car” sites I’ve haunted in the past.
Best of luck with this build. You and the rest of us will be following it all along.
Gordon
OBTW: There is an original 1955 Speedster and a 1958 Cabrio in my town, and I know of a very rare 1958 Speedster (dual grill) in southern Maine. None of them get driven to anything but several certain, managed events each season, whereas I drive my Replicar to a whole bunch of events and at least 4 or 5 evenings out, just cruising the New England countryside, each week, so, you’re right; at least we drive these little cars.
That SanDiego thing is vaporware.
Sacto Mitch posted:
Hold the phone!
Just got an email from the Subiswaps owner who says the Replicars site IS legit. It's a separate company he runs that mainly does chassis work on replica builds but has just completed three complete cars.
He also says these may be the last 'regular' builds they will do and that they'll probably specialize in AWD Suby turbo builds from now on.
This is the same dude that Troy's links point to.
Hey Sacto Mitch, Bob Z from up in Cool. Would like to check out your car sometime. Just purchased a Mexican made 356 (manufacturer unknown) from down in Turlock and would like to take some pictures and gain some advice on the build. Let me know if you are interested please.
Thanks.
@Bob Z , if you're in Cool, we could meet in Auburn, maybe at Tony's shop.
If you're working on a Speedster, you'll probably need help or parts or spiritual guidance from Tony eventually, anyhow. Probably a good idea to meet him early on.
It looks to be a trifle damp this week, so maybe sometime next week?
It is certainly possible to make a AWD 356 replica,* but not for an amount of money that anyone would pay to get it.
Call me when he has an operable one for sale and I might retract my "vaporware" comment.
*i.e. theoretically, just as it is possible to make a Lunar Landing Module 356 Replica and a Marianas Trench Cave-Diving 356 Replica, and so forth.
My 2 cents opinion is that most buyers/ builders have specific ideas what they would like to have in/ on their individual cars. And 95% of them are all different that the next one. ( Unless you buy a "semi-stock" car from a reliable builder and finish out the way that you want.) This is exactly why i do not build individual cars for clients any more and closed my shop. Remember what Henry Ford said about the Model T , " Sure,you can have any color that you want as long as it is black". We have come a long way from that attitude of builders of that day. But ........when you make multiples of a car you have to limit the option choices or the buyer will drive you nuts having you build a custom car while limiting the budgeted costs and time to do so. (Offroad 356 Coupe buggy, Hovercraft 356 coupe........these are actual requests that I have had!!)
Regarding fiberglass bodies, Location does not make that much of a difference other than the logistics of getting your bodies to the garage where it is built. I make mine in Tijuana, BC Mexico that is just across the border from San Diego where I am located. I use a hand laid fiberglass cloth / resin and no chop gunning. My molds are constantly evaluated for correct surfaces and it takes one full day to get one body. No other way around that if you are going to have the resin properly cure before removing it from the mold. Yes, there are sometimes hassles getting my products across one of the busiest international borders in the world. I try to keep a few on the USA side of the border for immediate shipping.
I went to a powdercoated DOM steel subchassis ( made in the USA) that the body bolts on to instead of fiberglassing the body to a frame. This way it all bolts to the shortened chassis and if it ever has to be removed it can unbolt instead of being cut off. The big benefit has been to foreign buyers that can use the subchassis as a template for shortening a VW chassis with a donor VW that is ALREADY REGISTERED in their country. (works will for Canada, Australia, and Thailand as it is almost impossible to import a car into their country). It can also be bolted on to a standard shortened VW chassis or the tube chassis that I manufacture ( in the USA of DOM steel)
Hope that helps explain a few things.
Cheers,
Dr. Chris
@Chris Kleber, KitMan Motors wrote- "Offroad 356 Coupe buggy, Hovercraft 356 coupe........these are actual requests that I havehad!!"
Ok, the Baja 356 coupe would be actually kind of cool, but the Hovercraft coupe- now that's just silly...
I am constantly amazed at what some folks dream up and ask me for. Must be some desert rat tweakers on a bender!
Chris Kleber, KitMan Motors posted:The big benefit has been to foreign buyers that can use the subchassis as a template for shortening a VW chassis with a donor VW that is ALREADY REGISTERED in their country. (works will for Canada, Australia, and Thailand as it is almost impossible to import a car into their country).
Cheers,
Dr. Chris
Hi, Chris. Could you please elaborate on what you say about it being almost impossible to import a car into Canada ? Are you thinking that a VW donor chassis could be shortened, a Speedster type body attached to it and it would pass inspection as a VW using the VW vin ? Thanks.
Yeah I would appreciate knowing how as well. Thanks
David just to say that when I read the HTAct it states emphatically that kit cars cannot be imported. Then there is a statement that over 15 y.o. it can be but it may not be licenced. Every time I read this I am never sure how the border unit will respond so I stayed away from trying to bring one over.
I have on the other hand personal knowledge of a body coming over as parts and it was accepted. In this case a cobra. The metal subframe also came over as parts.
BTW the project has yet to be started so if someone is looking for a cobra kit full gel coat body and all the parts to do it I can put you in contact with someone here. The money exchange is great for those south of the 49th.
You guys have me wondering sort of out loud. I have driven my speedster into Canada many times as registered in NY State as a Porsche. However, the VIN is stamped into the chassis as a VW. I have never had an issue. What if I drove my car over the border and sold it in Canada and the new owner registered it as a VW using the chassis number. Would that work or would there be some hands on, official Provincial inspection process regarding registering a 1971 VW beetle in Ontario even if all the sales documentation was for the original VW? Just being a curious guy? My cousin in Hamilton ON had asked about bringing one up from the US.
Hi Guys,
Sure, I have sold several kits ( body and subchassis) to Canada. they have an up to date Canadian registered VW (1967 to '1971 Beetle). Then build your car. Keep it registered as a Beetle. All you are doing is changing the body style. ( just like a Meyers Manx dune buggy)
The subchassis acts a 3D template to verify the shortening of the Beetle Tunnel ( and interior tubes) to the required 83 inch wheelbase for the kit. There are plenty of YouTube videos on how to do the shortening. You probably want get a new set of pans and shorten them also.
It does not seem to be a problem importing into Canada the fiberglass body or the subframe since they are " just car parts".
I think you would have a world of difficulty if you drove your USA registered Speedster ( as a Porsche registration) into Canada and sold it to someone who tried to register it in Canada as a VW! I would bet against that going through. Better to get a Canada VW and build it to stay under the radar.
Hope that helps,
Dr. Chris
P. S. David. I get up to Ontario occasionally as we have a family fishing cabin on the Rideau just north of Kingston. My wife loves to go to Ottawa. Will look you up next time we go there.
Safety Jim posted:You guys have me wondering sort of out loud. I have driven my speedster into Canada many times as registered in NY State as a Porsche. However, the VIN is stamped into the chassis as a VW. I have never had an issue. What if I drove my car over the border and sold it in Canada and the new owner registered it as a VW using the chassis number. Would that work or would there be some hands on, official Provincial inspection process regarding registering a 1971 VW beetle in Ontario even if all the sales documentation was for the original VW? Just being a curious guy? My cousin in Hamilton ON had asked about bringing one up from the US.
That can be done, as I did it. My first speedster was a VW basd IM that I bought from a site member near Detroit. As long as you have docmentation that the car is registered as a VW older than fifteen years, it can be brought into Canada. Get it certified road worthy here, licence and insure it, then enjoy it.
You cannot drive it across the border to Canada and sell it. It must be imported legally. If registered as a Porsche in NY, that should work here, if registered as a Porsche more than fifteen years old. Canada should accept the NY registration as being valid, and your car would be registered as such.
Whatever, lots of research and documentation is needed, and all protocols must be followed. It’s the paperwork that gets the deal done. Have that all lined up and in your possession. Deliver the paperwork to a US border station three days ahead of when you want to bring it into Canada, as the US wants to record the car as being exported legally. Show all the documentation to Canada customs once across the border with the car, pay sales tax on the sales invoice/receipt and away you go. A good idea is to have copies of similar cars and selling prices. You have a certain number of days after importation, to get the car certified and registered in Canada.
Dr. Bob.
Jim's car was built 30 years ago so I think he could export it to Canada under their rules.
Well, I am not going to send my car up there. However, I may try to source another vintage replica for him when he is ready.
Thanks for the process info for Canada. It may get implemented later this year.