New Guy

[Jon Payne]

Alan - I have a question regarding your post on buying a GT40. I never really looked at any of the other companies out there. How do the others size up in terms completeness, authenticity, and quality. I just assumed the SPF was the most accurate and most complete. I have been around a lot of real professional race cars and the SPF is built like a proper purpose built race car.

Just curious as to what the competition is all about.

Jon

 

[Seymour Snerd]

I just assumed the SPF was the most accurate and most complete.

"Most accurate" was the exact reasoning I used in choosing SPF. In fact so much so that I never seriously considered the others. But that "obsession" with accuracy also led me to go for an FE engine and all the attendant headaches. So there's an issue of how far you want to go for "accuracy" and why, and what exactly you mean by accuracy. My belief is that the "inaccuracies" of the other cars (eg. aluminum or stainless chassis) are in fact improvements or modernizations from a street-use or longevity or assembly/maintainability perspective.

IAE I'm not a good source for comparative data due to my single-mindedness. However, there are some threads that go into that in some detail. The major vendors (SPF [Rick Muck], ERA [Bob Putnam], RCR [Fran], CAV [Ian]) are all enthusiastically and articulately represented on this forum and could tell you all about the differences, and there are at least a few people with direct experience with multiple vendors and others who went through the whole analysis before buying. Hopefully they'll jump in.

 

[Jon Payne]

I guess what I am looking for in accuracy is driving experience. I'm not interested in replicating the mistakes of the past, but I also don't want to change things so much that the car stops being the essence of a GT40. At that point you just end up with a really cool, small, fast, and pretty sports car. Not a bad thing for sure, but not what I am looking for.

I guess if I didn't want to stay close to the original I probably could have just bought one of those tanks. What are they called, oh yeah Ford GTs.

Oops, I apologize to any Ford GT guys. I'm just not a lover of race/sports cars over 3000 pounds

Jon

 

[Seymour Snerd]

Oops, I apologize to any Ford GT guys. I'm just not a lover of race/sports cars over 3000 pounds

Is there any such thing?

I don't think you'll get much disagreement here. Besides, remember those tanks cost a good 50 grand more than our pieces of rolling history. So, see, I bought my GT40 to save money. :lipsrsealed:

 

[Jim Craik]

John,

I think I have some photos of your car being built.

After I ordered my car P2264, they sent me photos of it, across the factory floor can be seen a Miles/Hulme car that I bet was yours.

The numers are very close and the P1069 clone was a little further along in its build.

I'm with you as far as SPF cars go, I did mine like the original street cars, with an SBF, ZF-RBT and a Holley.

It has worked out great, If something happened to my car, I would order another just like it!

 

[Jon Payne]

Changing the subject for a moment, I read the first part of a thread that talked about the current resale value of these cars and I found it an interesting read. I did not read the entire thread but back in June the discussion was about how the prices people were asking for these things was way over stated. It caught my interest because here I am, in still a bad economy, building a new car that will cost in excess of $125K. Yes I can afford it, but no, I don’t have cash to throw in a fire just to stay warm.

There was a lot of discussion about what determines the current resale value. Is it the economy, buyer/seller emotions, or some kind of metric based on current data points (asking price vs. car sales)?

It seemed to me (at least to the point I stopped reading the thread) that everyone was missing the point. Everything sold follows the laws of supply and demand. What needs to be kept in mind is unique things behave differently than commodities. The value of unique things is driven primarily by 1) replacement cost, and 2) what the current owner is willing to sell for. The economy is secondary. Yes the bad economy plays a supply and demand part in the equation by reducing the demand and increasing the supply. But my point is, if the supply is still relatively low, then the equation is more about matching the unique item with the unique buyer. I learned this lesson back when I was playing with rare guitars. It took me over a year to sell a vintage arch top (like gt40s, not a one of a kind thing, but few of them around). I started out with a high asking price and got nothing. I cut the price in half and still got nothing. I took it off the market for a couple of months and then put it back up for sale at the original high price and it sold at that price two months later.

The moral to my point is, when you have a small number of things and an equally small number of interested customers it is all about matching the unique thing with the unique customer. It’s a waiting game. You can’t flush the unique buyer out by dropping the price. When they come along, they will pay your price (assuming your price is consistent with replacement cost). If they are not out there when you put your item on the market, then your not going to be able to give the thing away at any price (obviously I am exaggerating but you get the point).

Ok, I got that of my chest I will shut up now.

Jon

 

[Seymour Snerd]

...back in June the discussion was about how the prices people were asking for these things was way over stated.

I know that thread well.... actually the position you refer to above was held almost entirely by one participant who thought he could read minds but definitely did not read what the rest of us posted. I think the rest of the contributors pretty much agreed with you. Since then the thread has thankfully settled down to tracking actual offerings and sales.

 

[Seymour Snerd]

15. In California at least, you need a backup light (or two if your lighting inspector is being cranky). Here are the alternatives I considered:




From top to bottom:

Modern Camaro
MGB
Modern Mini Cooper.

I'm going with the Mini Cooper because it's the prettiest and I can prove to the DMV that it's legal to have only one centered at the rear.

Why are the big ugly Camaro ones there? Because when I saw an actual Camaro they were tiny, rectangular and elegant. But it turns out that's because the rear bumper has tiny, rectangular elegant cutouts that show only a little of the big ugly lights. Anyone want a pair of brand new Camaro backup lights?

 

[Jon Payne]

Thanks again Alan!

Yeah I probably should have read the entire post (could have saved some typing time). You just can't predict pricing in a micro market. Each sale is almost unique unto itself (assuming a large group of owners doesn't start blowing the things out).

Jon

 

[Seymour Snerd]

...Each sale is almost unique unto itself (assuming a large group of owners doesn't start blowing the things out).

Jon

I don't know that you would have learned anything more by reading the rest of the thread.

But if you're, say, me, and you see a couple $80K sales go by for fairly similar cars, you're probably going to dig in your heals with someone who tries to sell a third one for $120K. It's by no means an efficient market, but there is *some* information flowing from one sale to the next. That was the spirit of that thread.... to encourage a little information flow so people didn't go into it blind. And the guy that started it did ended up getting a really nice car for what I, at least, thought was a price consistent with the data we had. So in that sense I think it was successful. But it sure got off to a rocky start.

 

[Jon Payne]

I agree current sales numbers are telling. But again, it is mostly about replacement cost, AND, what current owners are willing to sell for. In a micro market all we can hope for (assuming we ever want to sell) is that all the guys willing to sell way below replacement cost get done and get out before we need to get into the market.

In the end all it really boils down to is how bad you need to sell.

 

[Seymour Snerd]

Printing Threads

... I am knew to the whole forum thing. Is there a simple way to send all your comments to a printer?

Don't know why it took me so long, but I just noticed when you're reading a thread at the top there is a "Thread Tools" link and within that there is a "show printable version" link. Click that and your screen is now formatted in a way that prints nicely. You can collect as many as 100 posts in one page. If the thread is longer than that, you're stuck doing multiple print operations.

What I just did with one of these was show the printable version and then copy/paste the whole thing into MS Word and save it as a Word document; it looks very nice and could be printed from there (eg for garage use).

One caution: images that are in-line in the thread are URLs in the printable version. So if you want embedded images you have to fetch and paste them yourself, although there may be a way to get MS Word to expand and embed them.

 

[Jon Payne]

Yeah I took your first advise and just did a cut and paste to word.

On a separate note, I talk to Barry today and it sounds like you definitely want to go to his inspection spots. Especially his brakes and lights guy he has been using for 11 years. You won't need a back up light, you'll only need one side mirror, and the guy won't take your car apart. Barry also said that technically you are not suppose to have acrylic side windows (either glass or nothing). He said CHPs may send you home to remove the windows.

Jon

 

[Seymour Snerd]

....

7. You need an alternator. Might come with engine though. People here argue about how big it needs to be. I got a Ford "Gen 2" 70A.

My mistake: In fact I have a Ford "Gen 1" 70A. But thanks to Rick's comment and studying the drawings in the powermaster catalog I think any "small case" gen 1, 2 or 3 will fit (bolt circle 6.93", pivot boss 3" deep).