Jim,
I hope you have a lot of cash sitting around as I had the same thoughts. If you want to get the cost down (sales price) you need to produce around 100 units.
100 transaxle cast housings (50,000) for design and initial tooling and about 2000.00 each for a limited production run so 250,000.00
100 sets of shafts, seals etc. expect at last 1500.00 or more like 2000.00 for the shafts and such. so that is 150,000.00 to 200,000.00
100 front engine transmission for Donner gears and syncros 1500.00 each pr 150,000.00.
100 differential's 350.00 to 1,800.00 depending on style and source. 35,000.00 to 180,000.00
100 custom ring gears as it needs to be made with the same machine as making the shaft with the pinion gear at least 500.00 each or 50,000.00
So just to get you 100 transaxle the cost is going to be
250,000.00 +
150,000.00 +
150,000.00 +
100,000.00 +
50,000.00 =
700,000.00 or 7,000 each with no profit
I'm sure I forgot something but as you can see it takes a lot of capital to just produce 100 of these things and the price per is already 7,000.00 each with no profit.