seems like it'd be a lot of fun. does it really weigh only 1200lbs?? anyone drive one of these replicas? looks to be nicely done.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...item=2400890280

A couple of us here have a mutual friend with Beck 550 spider. It has a 300hp 3.6 liter Porsche 911 engine in it with a 915 gearbox.

SCARY fast. I think Mike Mueller rode in it.

B

oh my god, now that would seem scary.

yeah, they should have put something bigger than a 4 in this one.

I like the Spyder replicas but they seem to command a high price. This guy on ebay has a "Bite-me-now" price of $32k. Beck sells the same Spyder as a turn-key for about $24k. That's still a lotta bank for a bug motor.

I think the rolling chassis with painted body for $15k is pretty fair tho. Wouldn't mind having one of those someday.

Jon

I guess the $32k car as all the additional options, which add up, maybe not to that much though?

so if you buy the "assemble yourself" version with body. chassis, etc what motor options do you have without changing anything?

what scares me about the beck 550 is the cooling air.

the motor can't last that long recycling all of that hot air. i'm sure you could glass in the engine compartment to suck cool air from above.

if i'm going to smell fiberglass, i better be in a boat.

Scary fast is not the word.....

Literally the week before that drive my wife and I got new life insurance policies...all I kept thinking during the "test-fright" was that Sherryl is going to be sad yet rich if this thing hit's any of the big old redwood trees just a few feet away from the road....


75mph in third he punched the gas...tires broke loose and we went sideways

This particular 550 is flared with huge tires on all four corners...not easy to smoke those tires with a regular car....

I am pretty sure the T4 motors bolt in with no probs ... but you do have to do some tricks to get a six in there ...

I donno a big T4 in there would be a blast 200hp with 1200lbs ... w00t!

I have one of those on my list of cars to build one of these days

Hey Mike,

Got a pretty good idea of how scary that musta been

A friend of mine took me for a testdrive of his Super7 replica
It's about 1200lbs and has a souped up 2.0 Ford Cosworth Turbo engine making 325bhp

On top-rpm upshifts this thing was trowing flames outta the sidepipes that lit up the night like it was highnoon

He said he had no idea how fast it was. He had it up to 170mph still had some left, but he chickened out

Cheers,

Jeroen

Well, the original Spyders all had four-cylinder engines. Most were four-cam Carrera engines, but they were four-cylinder. (A few early ones had pushrod 356 motors.)

If you look, the motor in the thing right now is a Type I--the exhaust ports are on the sides of the heads, not the bottom. (It ain't a 356 motor because you can't build those up to 2.0 liters.)

32K is a heck of a lot of money. But Vintage and Beck are two different outfits. As I recall, the Beck cars are more about using modern parts and techniques (brakes, suspension, tube frame, engine, etc.) while the Vintage cars are more about replicating the original Spyders. That means drum brakes, swing-axle tranny, ladder frame, etc. Each company/style has its own proponents, and each will generally claim that their way is better.

--DD