Looking for your opinions

Hello everybody.

I finally decided to pull the trigger and this year i'm going to buy my gt40; so i started with the difficult task to choose the right way to have mine.
I live in Brazil and unfortunatelly here choices are not so many because can't find any used and there are very few respectable (and very expensive) builders.
I am no expert but i read a lot around the forum and i'd like to link pictures of the final product of a builder here in Brazil to i can get your opinion about the looks ( i can post also specifications of the car but the basic build comes with a Ford 5.0 345HP):
Super Olho (i'm not going to mention the builder's name as no mean to make any publicity)

What do you think about it? The price is high, around $150.000, but this is how, sadly, things are here when you deal with imported goods. Of course if i choose this option i have to wait 6 months and i get my car ready.

Another option is to get a kit, one of the good ones, import it, pay 60% taxes :)furious:) and build it.....but i never did such kind of job and i'm afraid to take forever to see some results, or even worse sell it undone; but of course all depends of the diffculty level of the task: what do you think regarding the kit possibly built to a stage where things for me might get easier? This option is "cheaper" than option 1.

Last option is to get a turnkey new from a builder in the US......but this might be the most expensive choice due to import taxes......so i'll keep it just as 3rd option.

All suggestions and comments are welcome and much appreciated.
Cheers
Ric
 
Ric,

Why not buy and import a car from the US..even wiith a 60% import duty, you could have a heck of a car pretty quickly for less than the $150K your budget seems to allow.

Can you import a completed car? If so, look into the CAV that is for sale right now on this site...$82K for a complete car. Multiply that by 60% and add shipping, and you are still well under $150K.
 
Ric,

Why not buy and import a car from the US..even wiith a 60% import duty, you could have a heck of a car pretty quickly for less than the $150K your budget seems to allow.

Can you import a completed car? If so, look into the CAV that is for sale right now on this site...$82K for a complete car. Multiply that by 60% and add shipping, and you are still well under $150K.

could be good advice Ron in a normal country, not here. New cars (completed) end paying 100% taxes or even more, you can have surprises during all the process and finally, when you get the car here in Brazil you even have to adapt her to get the 25% added ethanol gasoline........sadly can't be the way

PS: the import of used cars is forbidden
 
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Howard Jones

Supporter
It looks to me that there are 6 different cars in those pictures. I also don't see any chassis "without bodywork" pictures there. Most builder are very proud of there chassis and will post several such pictures on there website.

I would not send any money to them until you have been to there place of business and had a look for yourself. There should be at least one car in progress of being completed and you will want to talk to at least one prior customer in your country.

Better you go and look and then contact a happy customer and go and see them after. Get a ride and talk about his experience. Pay special attention to delivery delays or other money up front and incomplete order issues he may have had.

Be skeptical until you are pretty sure you will get what you pay for on time. There has been much pain in the kit car world around issues like this. Be careful.
 

Mike

Lifetime Supporter
Very odd Ford GT replica

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@ Howard: the builder is quite "safe" from this point of view; he even ended on tv shows thank to his cars considered something really special and well done......of course this doesn't mean for me that he really works fine and this is why i feel better asking in this respectfull forum. I will look after the info you are suggeting anyway and will ask some pictures about the chassis. For now the only pics that show something about it and that are in the site are these:

schermata20120321a08465.png
schermata20120321a08464.png


Not much.....

@ Michael: this model has the same body and all the rest of the '60s replica but with some GT parts that you can see.......cost even more than the original....
 
I'd just buy a car here in the US, hire a 20' container, stick it in there behind a bunch of bags of rice, and get it into Brazil. Once there, I'd find some way to register it drive it - buy a junk old ford mustang and swap the plate?

Just an idea.....
 
So you guys say that it's not even a good build......wow.....but this is how things happen when you have a closed, super protectionist market...:sad:

@Cliff: another option....:laugh:
 
OK,

So importing a new, completely built car invokes a 100% duty.

Buy a roller, and have a motor built locally (or import one), either way, you could be money ahead, and have an item of known quality and value.

Cliff, aren't you an officer (or is it ward) of the court? Can't believe you'd even suggest such a shady maneuver. :)
 
Ric,
Not knowing your experience level, what if you went with an RCR and purchase each Stage kit and have them shipped to Brazil separately? Tell them the parts are for an automotive show or spare parts for your 'race car'? More extreme might be to have RCR (if it's even possible) segment their aluminum monocoque into sub-assemblies for shipping, then have a good welder jig it properly and apply the finishing welds....at your risk, of course.

I think any option is going to cost you regardless and require some bending of the rule$. I'm in Kuwait at the moment and it didn't take me long to get exposed to their car scene. It's big, and there are a lot of nice, vintage, and exotic supercars running around as daily drivers. But, it can also be a challenge to import certain types of cars here.

How are the neighboring countries? Are you close enough to store and drive your car in Peru, Paraguay, or Bolivia?

It's up to ingenuity, money, and how bad you want it.

Tom

....Another option is to get a kit, one of the good ones, import it, pay 60% taxes :)furious:) and build it.....but i never did such kind of job and i'm afraid to take forever to see some results, or even worse sell it undone; but of course all depends of the diffculty level of the task: what do you think regarding the kit possibly built to a stage where things for me might get easier? This option is "cheaper" than option 1.

All suggestions and comments are welcome and much appreciated.
Cheers
Ric
 
Gentlemen first of all thank you all for all the ideas and the support.
I actually own a Porsche 993 and i can tell that it's a nice car to drive and i feel safe doing it: i'd like to get a faster, lighter car, but safety is at least as important. Cobra, i even considered the idea about getting the car in pieces, but i would then never have this safety feeling about getting it done by the original builder. I am after getting all the possible combinations to get the car from the Us, including shipping it to Paraguay, get in driving and then try to legalize telling i builded in Brazil :)D).
Or get something fully done and find the way to declare much less than the real deal.....at the end of the day we all know that these cars can have very different price range; but would a customs officer?
But at the end of the day maybe the best option is to get a good kit, basic build already done, and then contract a mechanic to make the rest of the build here locally. In this case, is there a kit you would suggest in my case?
Thanx again, cheers
Ric
 
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