The world's ugliest GT40

[Mark Worthington]

The world\'s ugliest GT40

Here's the Ebay link

Current bid on this "GT40" is $10, complete with VW engine, or you can bypass the bidding and take it away (please!) for $2,000. I don't begrudge anyone building their own car and, but this thing fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. The description is pretty, ummm, descriptive:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>You are looking at a very uniques kit car that resembles the legendary Ford GT40. It made of fiberglass all over. The fiberglass is extraordinarily solid. Very thick and rugged looking. The building of this car is approximately 85% complete. The interior is carpeted and all gauges in place. It needs seats though. I was goig to put dun buggy seats in it, but didn't get around it yet. It has a solidly built frame and a heavy duty roll bar on the inside. All gauges are from VW. The chasis is also from a VW. The engine is a 4 cylinder VW/Porsche aircooled engine that has been rebuilt. I drove this car into my yard about 10 monhts ago. Ever since, it has been sitting in one spot. It sits on four air shocks. The tires are the big racing tires that ok, but will need to be replaced very soon. The car exterior is great. other paint work and minor preparation, it looks good. The engine run, but has not been started lately. The engine compatment need some final touch-up. Overall, this car will definitley turn head wherever you go. Simply put, with an investement of anywhere between $1000 to $3000 (dependig on your taste) this car will look like a million dollar car gauaranteed. Look at it this way, it is a kind of car that you buy not because of what it does to you, but for what it does to those who see you in it. It is very captivating. Just sitting in my yard, I get tons of compliments on it uniqueness. This car has not been registered. I was going to get it inspected after I finish it, but I am not sure I have that luxury anymore. I have too many projects, this must go. I will assist to get this car shipped to whomever buys it, if you are willing to pay for the shipping to anywhere that you are in the US. Ask all question before bidding. If you win this car, please arrange payment within 7 days and pick up with 2 weeks. I can store the car for a few more weeks if needed.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Regards,
Mark

 

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

This guy bidding $10 must have some inside knowledge. There must be fresh oil in the engine or something. Regards

 

[Howard Jones]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

How's the gearbox?

 

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Are you kidding? That's a beautiful car! That is a Fiberfab Avenger/Valkyrie, and early example of how kit cars used to be.

It was a decendent of the Aztec (which was another neat, early kit car):

As a kit car afficionado, I have a great deal of respect for the early pioneers of the kit car industry. That car is one of the reasons we have GT40s. That car is one of the reasons we have such good kits available now. That car is a milestone.

There are many excellent examples of the Avenger out there, and many proud owners of these cars. When I see a kit like that, I can appreciate the amount of work that went into it to get it to that point. Back when those kits were made, there was no internet. There was no support group. Instructions were - at best - mostly useless. That someone managed to get the car to the level of completeness that it is - and obviously one was - shows a great deal of dedication.

You can scoff, laugh, or make fun of it...but it only goes to show your ignorance. You probably make fun of the kids on the short bus too, right?

Your pal,
Meat.

 

[andys]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Back around '68, I visited a Fiberfab showroom in Burbank, CA, with interest in perhaps building their front-engined coup (forgot the name). Goes to show how long I've had this kit/replica disease! In those days, a kit car required resoucefulness, that's for sure. I purchased the assembly manual which really wasn't that terrible. Had, as I recall, some pretty detailed instructions and drawings for example of the door hinge/latches and window mechanisms (yup, roll-down windows!). The coup was on an Austin Healy chassis, and used a '66 Mustang fastback rear window. You COULD build that car from the instructions.

I leaned toward the coup, as the Valkyrie seemed much less well defined in the fabrication methods. It had two build options, 1.) typical VW platform, and 2.) a midship V8 with I believe a Corvair transaxle. The latter required a lot of fabrication. They did offer carpet kits, though I can't recall any other options per se. It took all these years for me to truely appreciate their pioneering of the kitcar industry (though they weren't the only one's).

 

[Ron Earp]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

As posted above, I definitely have respect for people and their work, but those kits, cars, contraptions, or whatever you want to call them are poorly engineered to say the least. They only resemble 40s in a very general way, they do nothing to duplicate the true form and function of the car.

Everyone has an opinion and this board supports everyone's right to such. But I do reserve the right to eject or ban members who wish to "stir the pot" at every opportunity. Unfortunately, it is my role here, so please keep that in mind when posting.

Best,
Ron

 

[Guest]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Well said Ron,
Your judgement was wll timed and correct.
This side of the Atlantic sometimes needs a gentle "prod" as well.
Regards,
GTA.

 

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Meat. We are all living with the legacy of these early kits, as very few were ever completed to a reasonable standard, or in a lot of cases were able to be finished to a reasonable standard. The antipathy of many to kits cars was grounded in the lack of quality in these early kits. Like it or not the world has now moved on and we are very fortunate with the standard to be found in most of the current offerings. Yep there's a lot "ignorance" out there, as I discovered this morning when I logged on and found that the bid was still $10, May we all be that ignorant. Regards

 

[andys]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Did a little surfing, and found what appears to be a well built Avenger/Valkyrie. Notice the part about the new $750 ZF!
http://www.lathingstodo.com/AvenValk/Ken%20Henderson/default.htm

Also found the kit I was considering back in '68, the Jamaican (that's the name I couldn't recall). Pretty good looking car. The Cobra Coup guys may get jealous. Notice the 1968 prices on the second link.
http://www.geocities.com/fiberfabcars/jamaicanpromoBW1.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/fiberfabcars/jamaicanpromoBW2.jpg

Andy

 

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ron Earp:
As posted above, I definitely have respect for people and their work, but those kits, cars, contraptions, or whatever you want to call them are poorly engineered to say the least. They only resemble 40s in a very general way, they do nothing to duplicate the true form and function of the car.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

When this car was made, not much out there duplicated the way the original cars were made. These cars weren't poorly engineered; they were Volkswagens...and there are still a few old Volkswagens on the road. I see alot more of them than I do Pintos or Chevettes - cars that met the same price point.

What the old kits did do, was allow an adept mechanic to build a vehicle that was unlike others on the road. For the most part, the 70s weren't the Age Of Performance that the 50s and 60s were. The old kits laid the groundwork - with all of their warts, missteps, and stumbles - for the kits that we admire and build today.

What I see when I look at that Avenger is a running kit car that can be driven - no small feat for a kit (1) that old, (2) built without builder support or guidance, (3) made with mediocre instructions. I see bodywork that's pretty durned straight - again, not necessarily something you get from all modern kits and the Fiberfab cars were certainly before their time when it came to body finish (comparatively speaking); alot of them were gelcoat finished with (shudder) metalflake finish. I don't think there are all that many kits out there today that can brag about their gelcoat bodies - many of them still need thousands of dollars of work to get them straight and true. When I look at that Avenger, I see a complete kit - again, not something you can get everyday from a manufacturer. I see an assembled car.

I see the effort that went into the car, not just an orange paint job with questionable combinations of primer grey and primer black.

No one should ever look at an Avenger and see it as a GT40, they should see it as what it is: a classic kit car that is very rare, no longer in production, and one of the roots of today's kit car industry...You don't go to the Parthenon and say "that's the ugliest broken down building I've ever seen." You don't go to the Giza Plateau and say "what were those guys thinking? No phone, no lights no motorcars, not a single luxury! Those Egyptians sure didn't think ahead when they put those Pyramids together."

The Avenger is an artifact. It's a rarity. It's a glimpse into the kit car industry in it's infancy. No more, no less.

My posts on this thread weren't meant to 'stir the pot,' they were meant to open the eyes of the beholder(s), and a note that some people may want to dilate their minds before they put their keyboard in gear. If they were taken another way, I'm sorry. As some people know here, I don't stir the pot with my posts if that's my intenion; nuking the pot from orbit is the only way.

ebay is a great place to buy stuff. I would have been suprised if the bidding had jumped all that much; there's still five days left until the auction ends...you never bid on an item if you want to win it for a reasonable price unless you're within 30 or 40 minutes of the end of the auction. To do anything different is a sucker's bid.

Your pal,
Meat.

 

[Mike Dozier]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Ron

This thread highlights two issues:

1. The industry bar continues to be raised.
What was "acceptable" quality 10-15 years
ago is considered "shoddy" today.
That leads to # 2...

2. The available quality/value has risen to
where many Cobra/GT40 replicas
are purchased ONLY because they
CLOSELY approximate the content and
"experience" of driving original cars
that are essentially unobtainable.

Otherwise these buyers would purchase
a new Mustang/Corvette/Boxster/etc.

This is not meant to offend anyone who has a Fiero or VW based kit car. My point is that
many of us really don't have an interest
in kit cars themselves. Our interest
lays only with a VERY SPECIFIC car...such as the one this Forum is dedicated to.

MikeD

 

[Ron Earp]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Meat I understand your point.

But MikeDD understands the intention of the board quite well.

This forum is not for "kit cars" as most of us think of "kit cars", it is for replica cars that very closely match the one car we are interested in - the GT40. One reason why many, many, months ago someone brought up the Fiero kit and the VW kit, along with the Lonestar Wankel powered job.

At the time I suggested they go to a "kit car" site, or something similar, as this site was mainly for GT40 replicas - form and function.

I hope this doesn't offend people, I don't want that, but I also want the signal to noise ratio to be high for the primary users of the board.

Ron

[ January 07, 2003: Message edited by: Ron Earp ]

 

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

I usually do alot to avoid getting involved in anything posted in the non-technical section but this one got my attention. I agree that those things are "ugly" if you look at them as a gt40 but if you just leave it as "its an avenger" it looks ok to me, definatley not a 40 but designed off of it, just my opinion.
Which leads me to what i am building. My desire was to build my car from scratch, everything including the body. I like a challenge. I will succeed. Out of luck i found something that was described as "a gt40" body in the local buy and sell. I checked it out just for laughs and it looked remarkably correct with some obvious error in the slope of the nose (it just doesnt look right) after some measurements it seemed to be very close. 70" wide at the rear, the overall lenght is about 1" too long and the height about .25" too tall etc but close enough and the price was right. The only downfall was someone fiberglassing over the original tail light holes and the signal light holes and they butchered the rear wheel well, cut it way too far forward. My plan is to use it to build as exact a replica as possible BUT there is one deviation which I am not comfortable letting out of the closet just yet, never mind, it is the suspension, mostly due to Vehicle Inspection dificulties but in the end it should, assuming i measured right, it should handle and perform as well or better than the real thing, and i will make the body as close to the real thing as i can, which i hope is flawless. So in saying all that, does that make mine a "kit car" or a replica? I will post pictures of the body some day when i find out how to make a website, maybe someone can tell me what it is i found because it doent look like any "kit" car body i have seen.

 

[Mark Worthington]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Meat, I am ignorant of many things, but not about the fact that that the implementation of that car is poorly done and as a result it is ugly. That, of course, is my opinion and you may choose to disagree, as you often seem to do.

As a point of clarification, I have nothing against any kit car and realize that many of the early kit cars were built with VW chasis and powertrains. My father and I came "this close" to building a Bradley GT in the 70s. But I have no qualms about ridiculing overtly shoddy craftsmanship when I see it, particularly when the person selling it is making it out to be something it's not (in this case a car that looks like "a million dollar car guaranteed.")

[ January 07, 2003: Message edited by: Mark Worthington ]

 

[Mike Dozier]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Meat

The problem is not a lack of respect for those who worked on these early kits.
They certainly had to have skills and
perseverance beyond what is required today.

The problem is that today's modern GT40/Cobra "replicas" have evolved so far beyond those early crude "kits", that they
in many cases they meet or EXCEED the looks, performance, and quality of the original cars they mimic!

If anyone with an Avenger (no matter how nice) tried to convince me that his car is "similar" to a GT40, I'd laugh.
Call it snobbery if you like.
I call it fact.

MikeD

 

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

This, dear enthusiasts I believe happens to be the Karman-Ghia 40 that won the Tijuana-Tequila rally of 1973.

P.S. When is some company going to offer an affordable (as in FFR cobra) gt 40 kit?

 

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ron Earp:
Meat I understand your point.

But MikeDD understands the intention of the board quite well.

This forum is not for "kit cars" as most of us think of "kit cars", it is for replica cars that very closely match the one car we are interested in - the GT40. One reason why many, many, months ago someone brought up the Fiero kit and the VW kit, along with the Lonestar Wankel powered job.

At the time I suggested they go to a "kit car" site, or something similar, as this site was mainly for GT40 replicas - form and function.

I hope this doesn't offend people, I don't want that, but I also want the signal to noise ratio to be high for the primary users of the board.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have to say that I do agree with you; I don't come to this board when I'm looking for information on a OSCar or a Devlin, I come here for GT40s.

But - at the same time - I also think that it would be a disservice to the GT40 manufacturers if you can't help them with their - for lack of a better term - "training wheels." The guy who buys that Avenger may think it's a great looking car, but may want more performance after he finished reworking it. He may step up to the Lone Star (which looks remarkably like an Avenger...) or an ASPP. And when he finishes that, he may wish to "step up to the plate" as it were, and get an RF. Or he may be in a place where he can afford the CAV and not have to get his hands dirty.

This board is a great source of information on GT40s. Searching through the internet using various engines invariably pulls this site up high on the list when looking for GT40 info. You should cultivate the guy who wants the GT40 but owns an ASPP. He may be the next ERA GT40 customer.

I understand the spirit and the theory of this board, but you are in the enviable position of being one of the only sites that can help or cater to the GT40 replica replicas (that made sense when I wrote it). Maybe just throwing up a board for the rebodies would lead to more and better knowledge about what a GT40 is, and what a GT40 can be.

Your pal,
Meat.

 

[Mike Dozier]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

Meat

If you are suggesting that anyone who has
an Avenger or ASP and is looking to upgrade
it's performance, the answer is not to be found on this Forum. These vehicles are too
far removed.

If you are suggesting someone buy/build an
Avenger/ASP/Lone Star as a stepping stone
to a GTD/ERA/RF etc, the Forum consensus
is DON'T DO IT!! Buy a used GTD or buy
a starter kit and complete over time.
Most companies (except ERA) will sell stages.

MikeD

 

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MikeDD:
"...If you are suggesting someone buy/build an Avenger/ASP/Lone Star as a stepping stone to a GTD/ERA/RF etc, the Forum consensus is DON'T DO IT!! Buy a used GTD or buy a starter kit and complete over time. Most companies (except ERA) will sell stages.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, then I heartily disagree with the consensus. Especially if you don't know if you've got the skills to assemble a GT40, which is not an easy car to put together...and kits that are 'assembled over time' are usually not assembled over time; they're forgotten, interest is lost, or they're sold as part of the divorce decree.

I strongly recommend that you don't start in on a GT40 unless you get your feet wet first; a GT40 is a nasty starter kit; exotic materials, exotic things like 'transaxles,' etc. are not the 'norm' when it comes to kit cars or mechanics. So yes, I'm suggesting that the GT40 not be your first kit car. Maybe not even your second.

And getting a used GT40? Well, I'm a poor candidate for saying 'don't buy an SEP*,' since every kit I've ever purchased has been second hand, but generally starting with a kit that someone else couldn't finish isn't a guarantee that (a) you can finish it, (b) you got all the parts, (c) the previous owner assembled whatever they assembled even remotely correctly or with the right grade of nuts, bolts or torque, or (d) that you'll be able to find all the parts and support. Used kits aren't calculated risks; they're a great way to throw away money.

What I said - obviously not clearly enough - is that someone is going to purchase the Avenger that started this whole thread. That person is obviously internet-savvy enough to get onto ebay, bid and win. Which means that they're smart enough to look up GT40s on a search engine. Which means that this site will come up. Which means that they'll as a question like "I'm fairly new here and had some questions about a GT40 kit car that I just bought..." At that point, they'll be educated about their purchase.

An Avenger or a Valkyrie isn't a bad little kit. They can sell for quite a bit of money (see this ad). If you take a kit like the orange one, drop another $3K on fixing it up, and you sell it for $10,100, you're well on your way to (1) being mechanically adept enough to put together a GT40, and (2) having a nice chunk o' change for the real thing. ASPP? Same thing PLUS - as a rebody - it's reasonably safe.

I do agree that they are not GT40s in the truest sense of the car. In spirit, they're not all that far off. In execution ... well, in spirit they're not all that far off.

I've gone to basketball games and seen the Lakers win (not lately, o'course!), and seen Shaq thunder down the court making shot after shot. I've gone to South Coast Plaza and have seen scrawny little white boys wearing the same Lakers jersey and number as Shaq. I wouldn't for one minute confuse the two, but I can see how the kid with the jersey is supporting the team.

The guys with the RFs, the CAVs, the ERAs, etc are obviously on the team. The guys with the Avengers, the Valkyries, the Lone Stars, etc ... well, one day maybe even they can be 'like Mike.'

I hope that clears up what I was trying to say.

Your pal,
Meat.


*SEP = Somebody Elses Problem.

 

[Howard Jones]

Re: The world\'s ugliest GT40

I would like to chime in about GT40's not being a good starter kit. First I completely understand about rear engine/ Transaxle, door closure body fitting etc. I am sure that a corbra would be easier. But If you are willing to develope youself as you develop a car like mine, a GTD, the project can, as it has for me, be a very rewarding experience. If you are a person who wants to learn new skills then there is no better car to build. I think that some of the problem, if there is one, is the term "kit". My car is not mearly a assembly project. If you want to do a assembly of a kit with detailed instructions then some of the newer 40's with fitted bodys etc. are more in that vane. But if you are looking for a project to expand your skills and meet many very nice helpful people then build one yourself. I think that this concept also applies to many other kinds of "kits." I'm just VERY happy that this forum is for GT40 builders and owners.