While I have nothing but the deepest possible respect for the Davids and Stephens Walters Gossin and Mercedes (Streeters, not Benzes) of the world who will happily toil on the rustiest, crustiest conveyances and convert them into driving expressions of their automotive taste, I absolutely cannot with wrenching on the sort of well-hammered hardware they get up to. I won’t even do it with project bicycles, let alone cars.
My wrenching zen comes from assembling and installing new or at least not-neglected pieces and parts, and when I used to while away my Sundays (was it Sundays?) with The Power Block, I was always much more envious of the guys who got to build up a fresh small-block with a flotilla of parts from JEGS than I was the poor souls doing their best to get a piston to budge in some lump rescued from the dump or possibly the bottom of a lake.
Extending that all-fresh-parts engine build into a whole car is the real dream, and I’ve been fascinated with the concept of kit-cars since kid-dom. This was due in no small part to Dad having a Beetle in the garage that, in five-year-old me’s imagination, could become an exotic sports car in, what, a weekend? How hard can it be? At least order the FREE pamphlet Dad, come on.
Lola Marauder? Let’s see how lo-la we can go-la. Fiberfab Jamaican? Ja-makin’ me crazy. How about a Sterling with the trick roof? Imagine dropping me off at school in that! What happens if the car rolls over? I dunno, just don’t roll over, problem solved.
Of course, one may want their fast-and-powerful-looking kit car to actually be fast and powerful, or at least faster and more powerful than the thrust and velocity a Beetle engine can provide – though I kind of like the silliness of it all, to be honest. But I get it, most people want show and go. Suppose we do that, but keep things Beetleish? I give you the Doyle Motor Works VeeDub ReDub:
“Looks great. What is it?” I’ll let Doyle Motor Works explain:
The VeeDub Redub Platform replaces the Beetle’s antique torsion spring suspension with modern double wishbone suspension.
Say goodbye to carburetors, distributors and valve adjustments. We’re using a modern VW engine now. The VeeDub Redub Platform is designed specifically to be powered by a Mk7 GTI engine and DSG transmission. Stock power is decent but throw a stage 2 tune at it and you’ll be over 300 horsepower.
​And you can build your own in just three steps!
Step 1 – Order a VeeDub ReDub Chassis
Step 2 – Obtain and Strip Mk7 GTI Donor
Step 3 – Obtain Beetle Body & Exterior Parts
Note, there may be more steps within each step. Probably definitely more steps.
Hey man, whatever it takes, it’ll be worth it. Building a VeeDub ReDub looks like it would be a lot of fun, and I gotta believe driving it is a hoot.
While I would certainly be satisfied with hot-Golf output in that rad (and no doubt featherweight) chassis, some of you may be scoffing at mere GTI-level power. Thankfully, there are ample kit offerings for those who want big cubes for their bespoke build. And all the better if it looks like you’re driving a spectacular piece of history, hence the proliferation of Shelby Cobra replicas. Factory Five has the whole Cobra thing dialed:
Gorgeous indeed, and the thought of uncrating all kinds of fabulous parts, spreading them out across four stalls’ worth of epoxy floor, and tucking into them with the entire contents of a Snap-On truck is the stuff dreams are made of … but if I’m doing the dreaming, I think I would can the Cobra in favor of another Factory Five, the GTM Supercar:
Man, that looks sweet, right?
OK, your turn! You’ve Got The Tools, Time, Cash, Space, And Skill To Build Your Own Car – What’ll It Be?
Top graphic image: Bring a Trailer
I know everyone hates them but as a little boy in late 70’s those IMSA Corvettes always blew my mind.If I had the time,the parts,and my knees back that is what I would want to build. .
It mystifies me how people totally miss on what the kit car experience is. IMHO it is popular because in the 70s you could buy a used beetle for $500 and slap a fiberglass Manx body on it yourself for less than $1,000. Now companies are rolling out kit cars that with the donor look like retro kit cars but cost more than a new car. Hello if you want cheap and fast get a used arial atom or canterhill 7. They cost less than a new car and are crazy fast and better built. If you can’t put a kitcar out for under $15,000 don’t bother.
There’s a huge difference between some kitcar rebody of a Beetle and a component car with its own engineered chassis. In a way, they’re pretty much opposites where one is a POS in drag and the other is (usually) a performance car that looks like a discontinued production car (if not something as pedestrian as a Beetle). Up to 325 of them annually can even be bought turnkey (unfortunately, regulations allow this only if they are close enough to be considered a replica rather than a more original design, but I suppose it’s better than nothing). It’s about the only way to get something new that isn’t packed with wussware and “safety” harassment or is an otherwise unattainable car. Building a fake Cobra is a hell of a lot cheaper than getting a real one and modern component builds can have better chassis than originals. Caterhams in the US are component cars and Ariel used to be, though I don’t know how they’ve gotten around selling them turnkey, they’re also expensive and have a long waiting list. Used ones aren’t cheap. Besides, today isn’t the ’70s—even if the old business model worked, half-decent paint alone will run you $6k.
Ariel gets around regulations by having you install stuff like the rear-view mirrors yourself, making it technically only partially pre-assembled and still technically a kit car despite barely needing “some assembly required.”
I would build my own copy of the Canoo LV.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canoo_Lifestyle_Vehicle
And the donor vehicle I’d use for a lot of the powertrain bits is a Tesla Model 3 just because how commonly available the parts are and will continue to be due to the number of them made.
Of course part way through that build I’ll realize that it makes way more sense to just buy a VW ID.Buzz.
Ok… so forget that.
Maybe take a luxury car from the 1970s like a Lincoln Continental Mark IV or Mark V and convert it to a BEV… while keeping the exterior and interior as original looking as possible.
I love how those cars look but would never want to own/drive them beause they suck to drive and have abysmal fuel economy/emissions.
A Factory Five Type 65 Coupe. All I’ve wanted since I was about 13 and saw a Shelby Daytona for the first time.
Part of me wants a late ’70s Tbird (I know) with a 2000’s 4.6 or 5.4 F-series drivetrain. Upgraded brakes. Double the power and economy with the same old school vibe. I always felt dropping a Panther (AOD) driveline in an older F series would yield a great vehicle.
Man, this reminds me of a 1978 I saw sitting under a tree in an area not too far from where I live. It was in nice condition considering it was last registered in 1999. Maybe one day I’ll go back and try to buy it.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3cs26S6te4CTo5te9
I’m going either Cobra or Super 7. But I’d like to do an Ecoboost or similar instead of the V8. Really dial up the lightness and handling. Then I say, just buy a Miata.
Always wanted to take a plain-Jane, two-door Ford Fairmont and build it up with Fox-body Mustang parts, and either a Ford V-8 or suitably souped-up 300 I6. Re-do the interior with proper seats and gauges, and the not too much to the outside other than fender flares to accommodate a better wheel/tire combo and a simple spoiler lip on the tail, and some angular aero work on the grille and headlights to be more like the original Mad Max Interceptor. Just to have some fun with a basic but very customizable platform.
Either that, or a resto-modded Avanti/Avanti II with an SBC or LS engine and modern transmission plus suspension work.
Better off V8 than 300 I6 tbh. Part of me wants the same, but poverty dog dishes and trim rings on 15 or 16″ steelies. No fender flares or wide tires. The ultimate sleeper. The Gettysburg Fairmont featured in Shitbox Showdown would have been a perfect starting point. I thought about it, I’m only 3 hours away.
I also know what complete POS a Fairmont is, I grew up in one. The later Fox body LTDII was leaps and bounds better.
I’m building a Jamaican w/ the chassis from scratch. My to-do list is at 54 full-8-hour days. Facebook
Nice!
If it were mine, I’d give it a red/yellow/green striping from front to back with a giant green marijuana leaf decal on the hood, Perspex lenses over the headlights, and put a 5-cylinder Mercedes turbodiesel in it tuned for 300 horsepower running on waste fryer oil, or even better, hempseed oil.
First a fact that I think everyone knows: The ‘Japanese Beetle’, the Subaru 360, had the same motor mount as the VW Beetle, and the transmission matched. This was still true when it became the Impreza. And still true when that became the WRX.
You can basically plug and play a WRX STi engine into a VW Beetle.
Remember that gif of Herbie doing a wheelie from a standing start? Yeah.
(you have to do a lot of work with the electrics, but people have done it.)
As for me? Well. I’m a wagon man, so I’d take an old Chevy Nomad donor body, a WRX chassis, and make them work together. Give it some flames, crank it to maybe 350 horse, and you got yourself a ride with style.
The Subaru 360 had a transverse, inline 2 cylinder.
Hm. I may be off about origin of the motor mounts matching, but I do know the Impreza engine fitting the Beetle.
Maybe it was the generation after the 360 that started it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzB1Vc1h-Tc
The 360 was part of a Kei line that didn’t use boxers, but you’re not far off. The 1000 that came out in the mid/late ’60s was a boxer using the EA series engine, which eventually overlapped with production of the EJ, both of which used the same transmission bolt pattern as they shared transmissions (at least the cases). I definitely wouldn’t doubt motor mounting was the same and plenty of people have swapped EJs into EAs.
…wait. So could you, theoretically, plug a souped-up Beetle engine into a WRX or Impreza transmission, and have a FWD drivetrain that way?
If you get a reverse cut ring and pinion.
Oh right, coz the Beetle engine turns the other direction, coz rear engine+RWD.
Relatedly, I recall hearing/reading somewhere that the Beetle transmission could be flipped upside down for mid (or front) engine applications, though I don’t know if that’s a fact or if my memory is correct.
Well, I’m playing with an absolutely mental hot-hatch design, and unfortunately, Because Reasons, it absolutely has to have a CVT transmission.
Incidentally, I left a particularly… interestingly-phrased ;3 comment about CVTs on Matt Hardigree’s article about selling his Subaru Forester. I’d be quite interested in a response, over there; automotive CVTs have a remarkably frustrating mystery to them, and I can’t figure it out —>
One of the cars I’d (pay someone else to) build if I had the money would be an open-wheel tadpole trike with a 9-cylinder Rotec under a NACA cowl in front mated to a CVT with manual control as a kind of analog for manual aircraft prop pitch control.
Rotec… those are Wankel types, right? I can make a lot of “warranty void if seal is broken” jokes about those, for better or worse.
Let’s see how well I can even describe the concept I was working on yesterday… it’s a front wheel drive, rear mid engine two-seat-plus-trunk hot hatch with an 8-cyl turbocharged air-cooled engine and a shiftless CVT trans with reverse gear. It has a joystick-drive control system, a lifting canopy AND gullwing doors for entry, the interior is a love letter to the cassette futurism of the 1980s, and on the outside… “imagine if a jungle cat were a spaceship” is honestly the best I can manage.
No, it’s a radial engine—9 cylinders. I have no use for rotaries of either type.
Why FWD?
One of my major inspirations was a concept car from 2007 called the Peugeot Cub. Go look it up, and look at the rear wheels in particular and how they’re attached to that concept car.
Same config here.
That reminds me I watched a YouTube video of. Willis 4 stroke “with no valves”
https://youtu.be/6rGFeL_BnwI?si=zh4DQz6eGPIIUWTN
It Does have valves, just ‘sliding valves’ where the piston is inside two tube’s that contain the valves that move up and down with the piston
Never heard of such an engine design before, pretty neat
My grandfather had a Willys Knight, which famously had sleeve valve engines. For a fairly short time, they had their advantages.
1st very cool your grandfather had one. I love unique engineering solutions.
Re: “For a fairly short time, they had their advantages”
Curious as to what were the advantages?
Quiet and, compared to the alternate head designs of the time, they offered better breathing due to the allowance of larger ports and more efficient head design. Also more reliable and couldn’t burn the exhaust valves. I imagine they could also run higher compression. Oil consumption was high, but it was the 1920s. Once manufacturers started to improve their designs for poppet-valve engines and fuel quality got better, their advantages were gone and they disappeared (though some aircraft manufacturers kept trying with them until jet engines started … uh … taking off).
My grandfather had a few cool cars back then, including a ’28 Packard limo. He was officially an ice man during the depression, but I’m 98% sure he used the route to run booze during prohibition. He never quite admitted to it, but he’d kind of chuckle and nod when suggested, which was his kind of “you guessed my number”. Logically and with the stories he’d tell, it added up. I wonder if the quietness of the sleeve valves were useful in his work.
That sounds more like an engineer having a bit of fun than anything designed to be practical.
“The more they overblow the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain…!” ~ Scotty, ST:TMP The Search For Spock
Yes Wayne with Chassing Classic Cars had an episode with some sort of beattle that was set up this way specifically for hill climbs
Thank you. it was the 1000, not the 360. I always forget it. (there were actually a lot of 360s around me growing up)
A gnarlier, sturdier Rally Fighter. I’d like it a little boxier too.
My kit car dream has long been finding a good condition R4 chassis/drivetrain from one of the many examples that got scrapped while still fully functional over the years – there was a time when you couldn’t pay someone to take a Renault 4 off your hands, where I’m from – and go hunting for a decommissioned Mireli shell. These were never built in large quantities, but they were THE national kit car for a few years in the 70s and 80s. You could order one of two types of fibreglass shells with canvas tops (I prefer the one with actual doors) and do the conversion yourself, or you could bring your old R4 and have company adapt it, which was more expensive. Later on, they even struck a deal to buy new units from some dealerships, that they stripped for parts for resale, and put their custom bodies on the new chassis, which were then sold as new, zero km cars (in both TL and GTL trim). As luck would have it, I moved over to the city where they built them originally, and we do have a few still being daily driven, but I remember seeing some abandoned ones rotting away over the years in various parts of the country, and the urge to save each one of them being seriously unmatched by the numbers in my bank account has always felt depressing. So that’s where I’d be spending that virtual money and time.
In the early 80’s I was a couple years away from getting my license and my father bought an unfinished Cobra kit car from his co-worker. I remember him sending off a check for a sizable sum to get the actual manual on how to build it. We brought it home with the idea of me driving it once I was 16. Pre-internet, we had to scour the junk yard for parts. We worked on it for 2 years together, made very little progress, and he traded to yet another co-worker for a Camaro. I don’t think that car ever hit the road or moved under it’s own power, but I wish I knew where it was now. I would buy and it with the intentions of finishing it, then sell it again I imagine.
GT40. Easy.
Porsche 904 GTS. The original 108 (of which I have met 3) of them were also in fibreglass, so… Just such a beautiful car, and I don’t have the 2 million dollars a real one costs.
Mid-90s Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham + A range extender PHEV drivetrain from BYD/SAIC/Changan/major Chinese automaker.
Imagine a 90s luxobarge with 500+ HP at all four wheels, yet does 50MPG on the highway! All the street cred + hybrid tech without the awful Chinese UI or screen crap!
Better early ’70s Caddy.
I was a kitcar fanatic as a kid. My dentist had a Sterling and with the verticle raising top it was the coolest of the cool. Jamaican was amazing as were so many others. I once owned a Bradley GTII for a short while when I was 19 and while interesting it was a boring drive. If I could go back in time though I would build a Beck 550 Spyder!
I always liked the factory 5 818 not sure about using Subaru running gear but a neat little car.
There are so many suv’s I like to turn to trucks. The Smyth kits are a few. The Jetta and charger especially. But a first gen highlander hybrid truck i think would be alot fun.
I’ve seen so many mini trucks do turbo diesel swaps too. Would be kinda fun to get a really cheap non runner or something with the drive train pulled and put in a salvage diesel from a reefer or Apu.
Holy shit. That kit car magazine cover? I had that issue. The Manta Mirage, Montage and the Lola kit cars were on heavy rotation in my spank bank. When I was 12 or 13 I was so sure I would have a mirage when I was grown I would have killed for it. Now I’d die if I
was seen in one . LOL!
Morgan 3 wheeler.
Westfield XI or Cobra Daytona Coupe with a 289. I’m old…
+1 for the Cobra Daytona Coupe.
Always an excellent choice there.
I built a factory 5 type 65 coupe with my dad a year ago. Go for it. It turned out amazing and had we used a windsor block rather than a coyote it would have been a cakewalk. Don’t get me wrong, the coyote is a good motor, it just meant a ton and a half more electroonics, multiple 4 figure tuning sessions, and a wiring specialist to et everything talking to each other. The only other major change I’d make is cutting the door frames and custom making roll up windows just to give us more days to drive it given extremes of weather.
Jag XJ13
I’m very intrigued by the mk5s extra legroom for tall people like myself. I wish I could jettison my herd of triumph spitfires for a factory 5 but I don’t think I can handle the loss emotionally.
Lotus 7. From scratch
Does the car have to be physically possible to build?
If not I’ll make mine a Star Wars Landspeeder.
If it does I have other ideas:
E30 GMW M357
Devin
Toecutter’s dampest dream design
Ferris Buhler California 250 GT
LS swapped Lada Niva
EV Lava Niva
Nuclear powered Landmaster
Hmm, I have a couple of them I would like to try if I had the money and shop to do it in.
One is take a Land Rover Series 2a 110 body and graft it to a 4th generation Toyota 4runner chassis. Since there is only a .8inch difference in wheelbase, it should be a relatively easy swap. This one i have thought hard and long about.
I would also like to do a Smyth Performance Ute kit for a Charger Hellcat.
Now for something I don’t thing I have the skills for, I know where there is a 1942 Dodge Power Wagon Carryall for a decent price. I would love to grab that and put it on one ton axles with build an off road rig out of it.
I was going to say for the Power Wagon I wanted to put in a built Aussie Hemi 6 for the engine.