Brett,
I understand why you baulk at the price of a precise reproduction of the Steeringwheel Badge.
But lets take a clinical look at the costs involved. I'll leave the price until later.
Firstly, you have to foster the contacts to be able to obtain an original. Guess how many hours spent on that... & how many favours done along the way.
In this part's case, the original Steeringwheel & Badge from the second prototype car cost an arm and a leg, and we are not talking mere hundreds of dollars here. It could only be prised from it's owner if the purchaser was also willing to purchase the archive of GT40 related materials and parts collected by Des O'Dell, back in the day.
Then factor in the time in hours involved. Not mere days or even the odd week, think wider. The countless international phone calls.
Now...once we have the items, start to add up the ' shit where do I go here from now ' hours in trying to figure out how to remake the item. Again, days, nah weeks in man hours of going down blind avenues in researching how to remake the item. Oh yea, sure... they all say, I CAN MAKE IT, but you make the car journey, only to find out they haven't a f'ing squit of an idea how it was made.
The only thing they can suggest is an injection mould at over $ 6,000 and then they can't guarantee beforehand what it will look like. Pfff...
So, finally after many months, by chance, you make contact with a guy in his 80's who used to make something similar.
As to costs versus profit. I had 10 made, all sold now. But to recoup my costs, I will have to sell nearly 30. At the sale of the 31st, I will enter into profit, and those costs don't factor in any of my time spent. It will only be recouping the original cost of the badge, production cost in terms of prototyping, moulds, materials and his labour to make them.
You are building a replica. You have a multitude of ready made options to buy your various suspension etc parts from, off the shelf, life couldn't be easier, simple.
Ask RCR or Tornado about the costs of small scale manufacture if you don't understand.
I only do this for 4 reasons :
All that is on TV is rubbish.
Ditto cinemas.
I can no longer enjoy a cigarette with a beer in any local pub.
I got the GT40 bug.