Spyder kitcar with 914 suspension and drivetrain, Has anyone heard of this manufacturer? Options

[nola914]

A few days ago I came across this site that advertises a 550 Spyder fiberglass kitcar.

5starbodykitcar.com

The unusual thing is that it uses only 914 parts grafted onto a tube frame. The body is 17 fiberglass pieces. Most of the Spyder kits use a VW pan and motor.

It uses the 914's front suspension, steering col, and wheel, instruments. wiring harness, engine trans, pedals, brake system and a lot more.

Considering that I have a shed full of extra parts, and 2 parts cars with suspensions and a lot of others parts that I may never find a use for; and that the Spyder replicars sell for $20k on Samba or Ebay, this was looking like a win - win.

Buy a kit, assemble it with my spare parts, make a few bucks, and buy a finished 914.

But........... I couldn't find out anything about the manufacturer. The only thing out there was the one page info page and a gallery of pics.

I looked up the domain registration, and its registered to a guy at 9052 Cedros Ave., # 101, Panorama City, CA. This maps to northern LA, in or very near to Burbank.

The web page also mentions that the glass parts are manufactured by M. G. Manufacturing. I couldn't find anything at all about this company.


Does anyone know anything about these two companies? Or anything about this conversion kit? Or is there really an office at the address?

This has really gotten my curiosity up. Thanks for the help.

[DBCooper]

I'm almost certain that ad was written by a Brazillian, because the English mistakes are grammatically correct in Portuguese. The vegetation in the photos also looks like the interior of southern Brazil. There are lots of fiberglass kitcar manufacturers there, including Chamonix, the company that made Jake's Beck 550. There are all kinds of kits, Speedsters, 356 club racers, Cobras, Corvettes, Ferraris, Vipers, '56 T-birds, even '56 Ford F-100's are for sale down there, all cheap and varying degrees of quality. Ever since I first saw them years ago I've thought of filling a container and bringing some completed cars back. Just the fiberglass 550 body, without the frame or trim, sells for US$2000-4000, depending on quality. I'd strongly suggest that you go visit Jose (pronounced joe-ZAY if he's Brasilian) and see his work before you send any money. Some of the Brazilian stuff is exceptional, like the Beck 550, but some definitely isn't. Whether or not Jose's offering Brazillian cars I don't know, I've never seen them based on 914 parts. If this turns out to be good stuff please let me know -- I've got extra 914 stuff lying around too.

If you want to see some of the 550's and other Porsche's for sale in Brasil see http://veiculos.mercadolivre.com.br/carros-antigos-porsche/ This is the "Old Cars - Porsche" section of Mercado Livre, their E-Bay. Be careful because some items offered are not complete cars, but body (carroceria) and/or chassis only, disassembled, even when the photo shows a complete car. The prices are in Reais, at two reales per US$, so divide any R$ number by two to get the US$ price. Container freight up to a U.S. port (with inland freight, brokerage fees etc, but no duties) for a complete car runs about US$2000.