Intermeccanica or Vintage Speedsters

G'Day from Australia, I once had a Vintage Speedster replica. Being that I'm in the market again and seeing that there are a few Intemeccanica's out there also for sale; should I be considering those as well? The question I guess is which one is the better replica in terms of the more accurate or faithful reproduction of the two. I have also seen some 'Chesil' and they just look wrong from the front. I read somewhere that the Intemeccanica are on a VW pan which makes them more susceptible to flexing and therefore inferior and if so is this true? My old Vintage Speedster had like a box frame chassis and was nice and tight.
Thanks,
k

Is someone pulling our leg?

LMAO

Kyle, Kyle, Kyle. Ask a man that owns one. BUT I cnverted a VS into a nice Speedster D Basicly a Roadster on a speedster cab. My cab frame is bolted well to the K frame and I extended the cab corner frames out to the front beam , Mine is a nice and tight car

BUT!! a Intermeccanica is like a Cadilac by comparison, and is a very faithful representation of the 356. It's just a better designed car.

If your serious you need to see as many IM.s as you can find take careful notes of any thing special on any paticular car and just have Henry Build yours the way you want it. If you don't find one you like.

They can do so many extra things now it's to much to list..

Plain for a $40 K car, and that is a modist quoat.

Kyla,

Bottom line is Henry's father built the first replica Speedsters. They have improved the design from the original shortened VW pan based car to a full tube integral frame. If you want as close of a copy as you can get with a few extra creature comforts then Intermeccanica is the way to go.

http://www.intermeccanica.com/history.html

Kyla-

The "Henry" Dave is talking about is Henry Reisner of Intermeccanica renown. You'll hear about "Kirk", who is Kirk Duncan of Vintage Speedsters. Each of these builders have their respective place in the Speedster pantheon.

But- you're asking us to compare apples and oranges. Aside from a body shell made in roughly the same shape, out of roughly the same material, and running gear in a similar configuration- there isn't much the same. Do a site search, or at least read the post on the top of every single section of this website.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Any other IM owners want to chime in here...before I puke

LMAO

I'm sure someone will be along shortly.

Kyle - buy what YOU prefer and what YOU can AFFORD! If I could afford an IM I would probably own one... but I CAN'T so I DON'T.

Keep in mind that no matter which make replica you buy and no matter how 'accurate' it may be and no matter how much you spend....its still a phony, not authentic, fake, simulated, an imitation, not genuine.

You're paying for a level of duplication quality. You can pay a LOT of money, or NOT as much money. As you probably have realized on here, most every SOCer on here (regardless of the manufacture of their Speedster) thoroughly enjoys their car.

A similar scenario would be a woman saying...'my cubic zirconium diamond is more real looking than yours'!

...I'm just saying...

OH PLEASE BUY THE IM
CAUSE I WANT TO SEE WHAT VINCE WILL POST

C'mon, Gerd. You're not stirring something up again, are you?

As far as I'm concerned when it comes to these cars.................................................................................................................................................................. nevermind.

Kyla,

I have to thank my friend Stan for pointing out the obvious about Henry. I forgot you are new.....as for one car builder vrs another I agree the main thing is to have fun within you own budget.

My father told me: "Son you can have 90% of the fun for 10% of the money, it's the other 10% of the fun that will cost you 90% of the money."

I'm shooting for 100% fun with my IM-6......;-)

Cheers!

Buy what you can afford. Look carefully, at what you really want out of the hobby, because you wont recoupe your "investment". But you will have fun.

" Get her a CZ and you'll have money left over for beer "

I think that all cars must be right hand drive in OZ.

Kylee,

if you are going to dish out that much money for an Intermeccanica, I would consider buying an original instead as they are very similar in price.

Bwaaaaaaaaaaa.....good one David!

Kyla I think Howard said it best. You have to know what you want in the car. If it's just a sunny day puddle jummper. Defintly a VS speedster,,, or a long distance touring car,with comfort a IM is best,, or is just for playing on the roads hot rodding.,, JPS.. BECK... Or Street Beast.

You have a lot of choises to make.. VS don't have a good trunk and not as much of a cargo shelf as a Beck or JPS > The one Beck I have seen had side curtian issues,I did not like > I updated my trunk More like a real 356 also. So I have jumped classes a little..

If you want it to look and be real . You need to post in The 356 Registry for a real one. BUT $$$$$$$$ Oh Boy!! The the Insurance OH boy again..

But if you want a decent representive JPB, BecK and of course ***IM*** are better cars .IM also having some more foot room and a better suspencion are just a few of its advantages as a better speedster.

If my Vs were to be destroyed ..Id go IM. Because they offer the Roadster which is the best all weather 356 replica's. and it is offered with rack and pinion stearing and AC. and a bunch of other stuff..

I do use my car alot But never to work. ( it's the rif raft)
If I had a better job with better people She would be there.

I hope this inlightens you some.

A buddy, who lives up in Morro Bay, owns a 58 Speedster he bought in 61. Pictured below. The car is in
new condition and has scored in the mid 90s in several car shows especially in Santa Barbara. He has been offered 150k for the car and refused to sell. He has driven my IM and, in his opinion, the IM is better in every way except for the monetary value and collector interest. Would I trade him straight across, sure. But I'd sell the original and buy another IM.

Well said Bob. Even at the top price you can pay for a really tricked out Intermeccanica you could get two IM-6's for the price of a real Speedster and have something you can drive and have fun with. While I would have fun driving an original I would also be scared to death someone would wreck it......:-(

BTW I'm pretty sure Henry can or would build a right hand drive car if you want it.

A while back Classic Car mag did a comparison of replica/real cobras. The Superformance Cobra in everyway was found to be a superior car due to the fact that the car was developed from the ground up to be a modern car, and to right the wrongs of the original. Even the Real Cobra owner was forced to admit that the Superformance was a better car. I love my IM it would run rings around a real speedster, and keep you dry and warm to boot. I would still love to have a real 356, just so I could trailer the IM to the 356 Registry folks and shown it off.

Easy there fellas, lets not go dissin the cars we're all driving replicas of. I personally drove an original 59 Coupe that would probably kick 99% of the cars on this sites ass. That said, it wasn't stock, but then again neither are ours.

HEY VINCE,
I NEED MORE BEER BEFORE U POST
JIMMY U NEED ANYTHING

Man Mickey, that must have been one fast sumabitch...Howard's car is almost as fast as mine and that's FAST.

BWAHAHAHA!

Tomm

My very good friend, Dave Mitchell said:
"BTW I'm pretty sure Henry can or would build a right hand drive car if you want it."

Just so happened that Henry sent a couple of pictures of Intermeccanica's most recent RIGHT HAND DRIVE Speedster my way last evening. Here you go. I do not know the new owner. The engine is a 1.8 Golf Turbo.

HEY
IRWIN HAS A RIGHT HANDED JPS
I WOULD HATE THE SHIFTING
LOOKS AWESOME THOUGH

Mickey, you know my Franken-Speedster has 37.5 more horses than my 2006 Golf, right? And it's about three seconds faster on the zero-to-sixty?
I'm just sayin' ...

Kyla, I really do think these cars are unfairly stacked against originals. These are legitimate 'sport' cars, true, but they're also built with as many or as few technological advances as we choose to imbue them with -- with fifty-odd years' worth of potential tech to poke through that the original cars couldn't have dreamed of!
Nobody in their right mind would drop a water-cooled or flat-six engine in an otherwise show-quality Speedster from the fifties. There are some steel coupes out there with heavy mods -- and y'all know I love an outlaw -- but a Speedster? Not unless the steel Speedster was a catastrophe survivor with an intact VIN plate.
So I just think it's apples and oranges. It's Batman and Superman. I wonder that we continue beating our heads against that same wall over and over. That wall ain't moving.
Meanwhile, what we do have are five or six manufacturers who make GREAT reproductions, thousands of drivers who are able to take home something in their price ranges and a sh*tload of options available through a vast after-market for VW-based replicas.
It doesn't really matter which one you think you like from looking on the internet, BTW. You really ought to try one out. You might discover that one make has things you love about it, while another has some little thing that bugs the crap out of you.
Sitting in several them will help better formulate your opinion, I think. Is there a Volkswagen club near you?

Dale my friend you do know where that car is going.......England. We both met the owner and his son at last years BBQ if it's the same car I'm thinking of.

A very cool car made to pass the very latest British standards just like the new car it is in an iconic looking package.

Vince-

See, I knew somebody else would come along.

Mickey-

I'd like to give you a ride in mine. I'm not given to hyperbole, but I'll bet it's faster- for sure, uh huh. 200 h/p is swinging a big stick in a sub 2000 lb car.

Cory-

Well said, and apparently more to the crowd's liking than the way I said it in the fifth reply to this guy's question. I'm not sure he wanted to start a holy war, but I also doubt he read anything before posting.

Everybody-

"Can't we jes' all git along?"

Wow, I didn't realize it would stir up this much discussion. I apologize if I have offended anyone. We don't know much about these cars here as they are as rare as the originals. I have been offered a couple of IM semi-projects for a reasonable price, in fact one has sold since(both from L.A.). I cannot afford the real one for the meantime but I guess the answer to my question is that based on the feedback here, an IM is better than a VS and therefore I should consider them as well..Thanks everyone!
p.s.It's cool and legal to drive a LHD car here.

STAN
YES :)

kyla,

One thing you might or might not realize is that early IM's were "pan" cars as well. I'm not sure when they switched to full frame. Others here will be able to let you know.

The ones you might have been offered as partial kits could have been of the earlier versions.

Just something to look for when doing your research before buying.

except for the guys in LA everyone has cabin fever and wants to be out driving instead of on the puter looking to raise some hell.

I like chicken pot pie!

By my count that's 5 cars that are "exceptional" in their own way with regard to power/speed though I'm sure they're more. So maybe my "99%" claim was a little exaggerated, more like 90-95%.
Look, I'm not saying there aren't VERY nice SUPER bad-ass cars on this site that could beat the snot out of an original. What I am sayin is there are a lot of times that people start tooting their horns about how ridiculous it is that originals go for sooooooo much more $ than the best IM etc... blah, blah, blah.... It almost seems like a contradiction to critique the antiquated technology and boast how mush better our cars over the originals, the very cars we all drive copies of because we admire the original so much. The kicker is that when someone puts a V8 or a Suby motor in a 911, or modifies an original 356 in some way, it's usually looked at as an abomination. So the way I see it is we're saying "Na na na na na, our cars are better than yours" but in reality they're not even close so why even compare them in any other way than looks?

Are Bee Hives better than Tear Drops?

Kyla - REGARDLESS of what Speedster replica you decide to buy, I guarantee you'll have a good time driving it!!

...and THAT'S coming from a person with lifetime membership in the PCA.......Pineapple Craniums Amalgamated! :-)

Mickey,

A different motor in a 356 is not an abomination. It's an "Outlaw".

Kelly,

You are right the early IM's were pan based and changed I think in 1982 along with the Roadster style. It is a huge upgrade in the design of the cars and creates a car that is much stiffer than the pan based cars.

The bottom line for me and everyone should be to have fun. Nothing more nothing less. We all have a passion for the hobby and cars.

The price you pay to scratch that itch is yours and yours alone. Like my dad said you get 90% of the fun for 10% of the money.......

Jim,

So your a plastic reproduction loving guy that gets crap from your PCA friends too.......:-0

Stan,

I love you man.......got keys? I hope to see you and your lovely wife later in the year.....;-)

Kyla,

I wish you luck finding that special car that scratches your itch.......;-)

Cheers!