New Owner - what brand?

Welcome to the madness and congratulations on the new car. If you could post a few pics, including those items that you think point to Fiberfab/CMC you will get a rapid response from the guys who know. Sounds like you are surmising correctly, but pictures help.

Great that this is a family project. You will get plenty of advice and help here.

Hood handle with CMC SPEEDSTER crest or FF one (often replaced with PORSCHE one  - not used on wide body though).  Gold CMC serial # badge (often left off by builder).  Cast aluminum Hibatch looking engine grill (early IMs also used).  If you have the wide chrome gold slotted wheel then you must have a CMC/FF California Wide Body - those wheels were an option.  Gauges may say VINTAGE on them and there are 5 of them ($325 option but VDO repro avail too.

Welcome to the Madness, from your detailed description you do have a Fiber Fab Speedster. First thing to check out is confirm the vertical door gaps are even then replace the rivets in the flat fiberglass panel in the wheel well with bolts and exterior construction adhesive. You'll get a lot of help here...just ask.

Those are definitely the wheels I have in that pic of the California Speedster! I will post some pictures later in the week. I have the Speedster on wheel dollies slid over to the far side of the garage for now so I will pull it out this weekend.

I appreciate the help!!

Welcome to the Madness, Trey!  You said "This will be a family project, I have 3 girls who have inherited my interest in cars, and a sweet wife who likes car projects too."  That makes you a very lucky man.  This should be a great family project.

Hey Trey, building cars is fun!

Welcome to the Madness!  It's always good to see new members that are closer to home.  

@TreyG  Feel free to message me with questions as I have build a couple CMC - F/F Speedsters.

Saying Merklin built a "couple" of FF/CMC's is like saying Wright built a house.

TreyG Welcome. I have a Fiberfab Californian Speedster most likely the same as you have. I have a Subaru engine powering mine. I love the shape of the flared fender speedsters like we have. You are fortunate to have found this forum. The people on here have tons of accumulated knowledge so you don't have to make the mistakes we did. Please post lots of pics if you can. We love pics. You are now part of a very unique group of people with very unique cars. Don't forget rule number one.. Have fun!

Welcome to the madness. I love the family connection with your girls. My two girls and my son all inherited the car gene. Not to the degree to learn how to wrench but the basic understanding of how cars work. It has proven to be very useful for the girls and their relationships with men. Mostly when they know more than the men about a particular car (Cousin Vinny). My 36 middle girl just started a restoration project on the car I bought her in High School. It is a 91 VW Cabriolet Etienne Aiger edition and is quite rare. She drove through College and her first couple of years in business. She put into storage since then. Cosmetically it is in great condition but it will need a lot of mechanicals. My old Porsche guy in WA is taking on the job. Amazingly enough this particular model is actually going up in value and when she is done it will be worth more than what she spends. It appears less than 200 of these cars remain. This was a USA only model with a total production of 2000. 

e' komo mai Trey:  It's a done deal, your addiction to VWs and your post means you'll fit right in. 

 This group has gobs of knowledge, on how to do stuff.  I think you'll find uniike some other folks this bunch will not tell you what to do.  You have complete freedom to make this ride your own.

In other words, since you've joined the insanity, go completely nutz. 

Thanks all for the warm welcome! I will post pics as we go along. We are in the middle of a renovation at our house, of which we are doing 95% of the work. So the Speedster will be a very slow start for the next 9 months to a year until we complete the house work. No doubt we will sneak in some time to work on it though! 

Here are few pics of when we picked it up. 

TreyG posted:

Thanks all for the warm welcome! I will post pics as we go along. We are in the middle of a renovation at our house, of which we are doing 95% of the work. So the Speedster will be a very slow start for the next 9 months to a year until we complete the house work. No doubt we will sneak in some time to work on it though! 

Here are few pics of when we picked it up. 

Looking at the photos it looks like you have a nice set of 914 gauges and what I consider the right gauge dash layout. You're off to a great start!

For those unable to open photos in the .HEIC format (thanks, Apple!), here are Trey's photos as jpeg's:

Thank you @Sacto Mitch 

Burgundy (or red?) gel coat looks well preserved.  With a little elbow grease, it can really shine (wet sanding and buffing).  Seats look professionally done - CMC supplies the fiberglass seat frames, hunks of foam and sewn covers so you can DIY.  The red oblong fiberglass piece goes above the exhaust (covered in build manual).  

Sorry about the HEIC, I didn't even thing about that. I'll do jpeg next time. Thanks Sacto Mitch for reposting! 

Those are VDO gauges and there is a "VDO" wire harness ready to go with them.

There were several loose pieces like that oblong piece and after looking through the FF/CMC manual that was some of the clues that I was on the right track for what brand. 

The color is burgundy or maybe an ox blood. Its in pretty good shape so our plan for now is to buff it up and then paint it some other time after we have enjoyed driving for a while.