Thunder Ranch Cars now Carrera Coachwerks

Peter - Carrera Coachworks now participates on this forum. Check out their posts/links for some background. Looks good!  

Is that the same Tom McBurnie we know???

 

"Personable??"

To get into your wallet...... Don't say your not buying from him or you'll see the "Real Tom" Just saying.....

if your buying from somebody ,dont waste somebody elses time when they need to be making $$$ for them not for somebody else. if your comparing to find out witch to buy thats a bit different.find witch fits you best & buy it.

I never got the impression that Tom thought I was wasting his time Markbug. It was a weekend afternoon and he was there to do a little cleaning up of the office. I am sure if he felt like he was being bothered he would have said so.

I'm new here, and am researching carefully how I want to proceed in buying a replica Speedster.  I've spent hours on this forum and have now driven a couple of cars... not always being very impressed.

 

I spent some time on the phone the other day with Alan (Mr AC-Carrera) and was very impressed by what they're trying to do.  I normally dislike keeping someone on the phone when I'm still just shopping, but he spent a great deal of time with me and really went overboard in answering questions.

 

Right now I'd say it's between Carrera Coachwerks and SAS.

are you looking to build new or buy used?  SAS will take the good portion of a couple years probably to build.  CCW looks like they pump out some really really nice cars.  Which ones have you driven...builder?

I  drove  a Vintage with about 450 miles on it and another car which looked like someone had built it himself.  The Vintage had some problems and frankly, drove almost no differently than my son's '74 Beetle.  The other one was so neglected that it was hard to form an opinion other than run like hell.

 

I don't mind waiting as I have enough toys to keep me busy if it takes a couple of years.  If I stumble across something I just have to have I might go ahead and purchase used.  I'm taking my time checking things out however, and just want to make sure that whatever I buy, I've reduced the chance of buyer's remorse.

byers remorse?? sounds like you talking out your ass.....or is that smoking..... find what you want, check it out good,then have it checked out good, then either bite the bullit or dont, nomater what you get it can have an issue, some small some not so small.but what in this world we live in dosent have issues?? like the head of the IRS getting caned a week befor he is to step down any way, what a deal.baffelem with bs ittell work everytime.

Not talking out of my ass.  I'm not an impulsive shopper, or at least not any more.  I've seen a lot of posts on here by guys who said they wish they'd done more research before buying something that turned out to not be what they want.

I may be wrong but I think Marksbug was referring to your very funny avatar pic!  I now have owned two Vintage Speedsters.  It drives like a VW because it is a VW.  You can add things like camber compensator, anti sway bar to stiffen up the ride...you can build a solid motor - just ask marksbug - to get a ton of HP, you can make it have great seats, great trim, etc, but in the end...it is still a VW. 

 

Some makers dont use VW pan and you will spend a bunch more on those cars.  if you have a big pile of cash sitting around and dont want to drive a vw - looks at Special Edition (beckspeedsters.com) or some of the others.  Again - you will pay more, but they are built without the VW pan, etc...

 

Good luck in your search.  there is a ton of good info on here to review as you know...whatever you get - drive the crap out of it.  Musbjim on here has a 95 Vintage with like 90,000 miles on it...there are a few of them.  Mine is now 3 months old and I have some sorting things to do, but the looks I get when driving it makes it a lot of fun!

Damn I'm dense... missing the whole butt avatar response.  Oh well, they say the mind is the second thing to go.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think a properly sorted Vintage would be a fun car.  It's just not quite what I'm looking for.

And don't get me wrong...that was not an endorsement for vintage

At least not a new, unsorted one.....

I recommend test driving an Intermeccanica.

<<I recommend test driving an Intermeccanica.>>

Earlier ones are VW pan based cars, but newer ones built in Vancouver BC are tube framed,

and are very nice, worth your consideration if you have deeper pockets.  

That said Special Edition - Beck cars are very nice too.

Too bad to hear this CCW news, it looked like they were trying pretty hard to resurrect themselves.

Looks like their web site is now Custom Coachwerks rather than Carrera Coachwerks.

Seemed like they had resurrected TR and were doing some nice builds.