The Economy

Where is Spaghetti Sauce Man?

 

Hasn't posted since July 6.

 

As in "If those Philistines do to a Shelby what they did to that poor defenseless 356.". Actually, that's an overstatement. I can deal with restomods of all sorts. That Electric XKE gave me a woody. Or maybe that was Meghan, I'm not entirely certain.

If it's a new built car, whether they use styling cues from a Mustang or not, I don't care. There simply are not enough real Shelbys to make that ok for me. Build it from reproduction sheetmetal and a modern chassis and I don't care.

 

One problem with those retrofits, they usually run about $100k.

 

If you watch a Youtube from someone who does those builds right, you come to understand why they're so damn expensive. It can take hundreds of hours to do sheet metal repairs and bodywork just to get an old car ready for paint. The parts you need are often either old dead inventory of twenty plus year old parts (read $$$$$) or new reproduction parts that often don't look or fit right, or that break for no reason. Trim pieces, you're trying to take them off without breaking them, then you have to straighten and recondition and polish them and reinstall without messing them up. If the people doing the work are doing it right, not halfassing and covering stuff up, a build takes just tons of time, and the per hour cost of guys who know how to and are willing to do things right is a long way from cheap.

Check this out. I follow this girl on Youtube. She's a far better skilled and trained car tech than I'll ever be. She's an ex-Air Force airplane mechanic. She's anal as hell about things being done *right*, down to the very small details. She found a '74 Toyota Celica in amazing shape, tore it down and installed a V-8 engine out of a Toyota truck that her dad owned, wrecked, and kept. Lots of custom work, lots of new/better/improved parts in the suspension and engine. Lots of original JDM parts replaced, sourced from Japan and crazy expensive. She's really picky, but the work she puts out is done properly without any shortcuts. She's goofy and cute as a bug and one hell of an auto technician. Ten minutes of this will give you a good idea of what I'm talking about.

 

That's why this electric, sort-of-Shelby (!) costs +/- $400000.

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/gone-60kwh-driving-electric-eleanor-mustang#1

 

Couple others. Have to say I like the looks of that Alfa.

It reminds me very much of the old 60s/70s/80s SCCA B-sedan class.

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric-awards-2022/here-are-15-cool-electric-restomods

 

When I acquired my classic 'stang a few years ago and was looking into various projects I might take on, I came across this video series of a conversion. These guys in Austin don't fuck around. For the conversion I followed, they fabricated custom batteries.

 

Yes and no. That car is fresh production,a repro body shell almost certainly on a modern chassis designed for four electric motors and the battery. No one is having to restore anything. It's just a high end modern custom car that looks like Eleanor, custom built for rich guys. I'm sure it's a blast to drive and the looks are classic, but it's a different animal from a resto-rod.

 

I think they tried to source an original and couldn't find one in sufficiently good shape. (Full disclosure, I was never a fan of the Eleanor variant from the movie.)

The Alfa I mentioned is about 10% original according to the story.

Always interesting to me, this: if you replace every part on a car - especially in light of the restomod programming on Motor Trend TV - is it the same car?

 

wow

 

When these are done correctly and well, excellent.

Now ... can we get people to stop trying to restore Zs by replacing the Nissan straight six with a small-block Chevy V-8? I mean, if you wish to use the straight-six, add fuel injection and upgrade the manual to a five-speed - both of which Datsun/Nissan later did starting with the 280Z – that's one thing. And, where applicable, installing disc brakes, which are big upgrades over drums, some suspension upgrades, etc. But too much cross-pollination is crap.