#KitCars

If you’ve been an automotive enthusiast since childhood, there’s an extremely good chance that a portion of your early life was dedicated to building Tamiya models. You may even have owned some of their RC cars, perhaps assembling or modifying one with your own children years later.

For many, Tamiya kits served as a precursor to full-size vehicle projects that would be attempted in adulthood. But things have come full circle now that The Little Car Company has built a version of the 1985 Tamiya Wild One RC off-roader capable of holding two grown adults.

While remastered versions of songs, films, and video games have become commonplace, remastered vehicles are exceedingly rare and typically limited to the world of personal resto-mods. But there are exceptions, with Meyers Manx, LLC having recently announced a revised dune buggy kit that’s supposed to help customers build the project car of their dreams with some updates designed to improve quality of life without totally redefining the concept of the original VW-based scrambler from the 1960s.

Today’s Rare Ride is an ever-desirable Pontiac Fiero dressed in an elegant, Canadian-designed fiberglass body.

Let’s talk about a forgotten car with two fake names: Enterra Vipre

Low-volume manufacturers may now sell replicas of cars made at least 25 years ago. At long last, The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has completed regulations to allow specialty car makers to produce and sell completed, turnkey cars.

Every once in a while, a car surfaces from the vast internet that truly deserves the title of “obscure.” It happened previously with a beautiful Gordon Keeble, and now Rare Rides is proud to present another very obscure British two-door.

It’s a Midas Gold, obviously.

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll probably recall the Ford Shelby GR-1 Concept revealed at the 2005 North American International Auto Show after a brief stint as a clay model. Having already introduced the Shelby Cobra Concept as the hypothetical successor to the American roadster inspired by the original AC Cobra in 2004, Ford wanted a follow-up. The end result was the GR-1, which bore a striking resemblance to one of the best-looking cars ever assembled — at least from this author’s perspective: the Shelby Daytona.

Unfortunately, Ford never built the GR-1, as it was tied up finalizing the first-generation GT. We thought we’d never see one on the streets but, as it turns out, we were wrong. Superformance, an aftermarket company based in Irvine, California that specializes in vintage Ford race replicas or continuation cars, has picked up the torch.

In 2013, Texas’ Department of Motor Vehicles began revoking titles on newly built dune buggies. While that was already a bit of a dick move, the state was at least good enough to grandfather-in existing vehicles. However, that has changed in recent months now that the state’s DMV seems keen on enforcing Texas Administrative Rule 217.3 (Section 6).

The mandate, which appears only to exist to make automotive hobbyists sad, came into rule in March of 2015. But it has picked up lot of steam since then, denying titles on dune buggies and kit cars that had previously received them without trouble. As a result, enthusiasts are starting to organize in the hopes of lobbying the state to re-legalize the vehicles as others sell off their beloved rides — fearful that nobody would buy them in Texas since they aren’t street-legal anymore.

Struggling for decades, Marcos Engineering produced very few examples of its flagship GT model. This excellent condition restored example recently made its way up onto the eBay auction block, which presents a good opportunity to take a look at this stylish British sports car.

Bob Lutz And Henrik Fisker’s feisty Michigan-based VLF Automotive is bringing the H1 back to the masses — provided they don’t reside in North America. Lutz has struck a deal with Humvee Export, a small collective of off-road enthusiasts and entrepreneurs in Saint Clair, Michigan to assemble the trucks using GM powertrains at VLF’s petite factory in Auburn Hills.

Even though General Motors abandoned the Hummer brand in 2010, and H1 assembly in 2006, AM General has continued production of the High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle for allied military use. It has also begun offering a C-Series kit to private citizens for $60,000 in 2013, which includes the HMMWV platform minus a powertrain. Seeing an opportunity, Humvee Export began ordering C-Series kits that same year — finishing them off for sale in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. In 2017, they branched out to include export to China and are enlisting VLF in order to expand production.

It wasn’t for kit cars, the Pontiac Fiero would have never realized its dream of becoming a Ferrari or Lamborghini, and we’d be just fine with that.

That product, born of the heady 1980s, seems tame compared to N2A Motors’ latest offering. The U.S. coachbuilder has taken three classic American designs and melded them, Island of Dr. Moreau-style, into the 789 SS.

It’s a questionable way of hiding a fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro.

For the “Back To The Future” fan keen on winning the parking lot at the next confab, DeLorean announced this week that it’ll make “new” cars again in Texas.

Thanks to a change in the small volume manufacturing law, DeLorean Motor Company said it could build around 300 new cars from parts it purchased when the original DeLorean went under.

The Texas outfit said they’ll bin the puny Renault-Volvo V-6 that made 130 horsepower in favor of a crate engine sourced from somewhere that’ll make 300 to 400 horsepower. Electronics, brakes and other drivetrain goodies will be similarly updated on the car, according to Jalopnik.

Trying to track down the history of all the varieties of fiberglass-bodied kit cars intended to look something like the Mercedes-Benz SSK will drive you crazy in a hurry because so many companies building these cars popped up in the 1970s and 1980s. You could build an “SSK” based on hardware from a Chevy Chevette, a Ford Pinto, or a VW Type 1 Beetle. Many did. Because Classic Motor Carriages and Fiberfab and Tiffany Motor Cars all called their versions “Gazelle” (trying to parse the relationships between those companies is like deciphering the wiring in a Porsche 928), this has become the generic term for these cars.

Anyway, here is an early variety of Gazelle, built on a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle pan, that I found in a Denver yard a few weeks ago.

Has the thought of assembling a replica vehicle put you off of buying one? Thanks to Congress, you may soon be able to buy a factory-direct turnkey model.

We recently looked at the Volkswagen Type 181, known as the Thing in the United States, along with a couple of World War II era variants on the VW Type I Beetle, the Kubelwagen and Schwimmwagen. By 1960, the Volkswagen company was selling three vehicles that were very similar mechanically, the Beetle (and the Karmann built Cabriolet), the Karmann Ghia and the Type II Transporter/Bus. The folks in Wolfsburg weren’t the only ones who realized that the sturdy platform chassis, suspension and drivetrain could make the basis for an interesting vehicle. First EMPI and then Bruce Meyers made what became known as dune buggies, open fiberglass bodies *mounted on shortened VW chassis. EMPI and Meyers were successful enough that they spawned many imitators, including Volkswagen. The Type 181 was VW’s attempt to capitalize on the dune buggy craze. Off-road enthusiasts were paying attention too, which is how we got kit cars.

Perhaps inspired by my recent TTAC fiction piece The little death, I was idly shopping for 360 Modenas on eBay this morning when I came across this little gem. Obviously, it’s not a real 360… but it’s not THAT bad, right?