HELP Looking at 1979 IM

I am looking at a local 1979 IM, what should I look for? The guy wants $12k, new VW engine. Body has some spidering and needs a little work where a dumbell hit it. Brightwork needs to be replaced and needs a new steering wheel. Were these cars built with a frame around the VW pan? or just a shortened pan. I am new to all of this. Test drove the car, fun to drive -- needs a carb rebuild. Is that a fair price? Also needs a new windshield -- anything special about those 70's IMs?

Ed, contact Rick Davis (see the Registry listing) in Vancouver, BC or give Henry Reisner a call at Intermeccanica. Between the two of them they can answer any question you can come up with.

Ed,
I have an early 80's IM and it's great! I got mine for $8500 and have put a ton into it since. Depending on how much work really needs to be done will determine how good of a price it it. After redoing practically my entire car I may be able to get around $15000 for it so do some repair cost research first.

It can be really fun to restore an older replica, since you can rebuild it exactly the way you want it. The price sounds a little high for a car with those kind of problems though; you might want to add up all the repairs and see what else is out there for $14,000-$16,000 since that will be closer to what you are spending.

Ed, most interesting detail to me is; the bodyshape is an exact copy of the 'real thing'. Frank Reisner (Henry's father) lent an original Speedster which had some body damage. After fixing the damage he secretly made moulds of it. These were used for the first IM series (about 700 peaces).
The real difference is (compared to the other replica's) the car is less broad at the rear.
IM used shortened early VW-pans which had swing axles (like the original) which were the only ones that 'fitted' the body. It might be that the CMC's from that period are alike because they took over the IM production line after the company was sold.

Is Vintage Speedsters using the old IM molds? I ask this because of the infamous right front fender "defect" in all VS's. You can tell by looking from the back of the car towards the front that the right front fender is not totally aligned with the body side as in the left. I read that the car from which they had made those molds had been in an accident and the repair wasn't 100%.

Ricardo, as far as I know the moulds went to CMC in Miami after the (first) IM company was sold. The early IM Speedster project had two founders: Frank Reisner and Tony Baumgarten. Reisner sold his share first and later on Baumgarten sold the complete production line to CMC.
European maker Apal started with copies of the IM moulds, which were copied again by Roadline (Sweden) and an English manufacturer (not Chesil).