After a hiatus from building Speedsters & doing four dune buggy builds, in August I purchased Arden Neer's "CFM Inc "....aka Rafael) Speedster Outlaw body & (edit) Berrien square tube / Mendeola suspension chassis. The chassis has R & P steering, four- wheel double piston disc brakes, 17" Airkewled" modular wheels. The outer section of the rims are painted beige metallic with the centers being chrome, I need to address that down the road for more eye appeal.
The square tube chassis is a beautiful work of art with all the bells & whistles including A- arm suspension, coil overs, Kafer & sway bars, 1.5" steel drop floors. etc. I was surprised with the Speedster body quality, extra steel bracing, the fiberglass thickness and the body was custom made 1" wider at the rear quarters but is not noticeable to the eye and has the realistic rear seat area too. Complete with fiberglass tonneau, show bar, faring and functional side intakes. Complete baseball brown leather interior with a carriage - scissor style top frame assembly, side curtains and matching quarter boot.
Last week I trailered it home from a storage building setting it up on jack stands in the garage. The body was loose on the Mendeola chassis, I squared it up to the chassis running four hex screws into the chassis to temporary hold it in place. Removed 5/16" from the rear wheel well edges for increased tire side wall to body clearance. My goal is the option of either use the fiberglass tonneau - roll bar & make it simple to change it out to the Stay Fast quarter boot. The trick is combining the top storage placement under the fiberglass tonneau while retaining the show bar horizontal framework, driver's hoop and faring in place. Engine is a new turnkey 2165cc with a custom built transmission I had specifically done for the engine and tire size match up.
Today I went through all the extra cartons of goodies that came with it including hyd. pedals, " Vintage Speed " shifter and much more. I started to install the windshield assembly so I could get an eyeball on how the top will fit as well as store but the chrome aluminum windshield frame was too thin of a gauge for my liking & I happen to have new VS frame here but the ID is different so I need to get the correct upper and lower rubbers.
That's it for now, we'll be headed to Florida for Turkey week on Monday & back on the project 12/ 2 and will begin mocking everything up before I remove the body from the chassis for paint is scheduled for about January 15th . The total build should take about five months to complete & then it will be made available, Hence no two year wait :~). I'm undecided as to color but considering Jaguar Vapor Gray Metallic . Photos to follow Comment if you want me to continue to do build updates.
