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.

I have been providing engines and transaxles for guys building Spyder kits for years and I have never heard of these guys...

Most 550 replicas are not built on VW pans, the 356 Speedster kits are...

The two primary suppliers of 550s are Beck and Vintage, both of which use a tube chassis, the Beck has a frame that mimics the original 550 while the Vintage uses a space frame much like a modern hot rod- both are exceptional.

You can learn everything at www.spyderclub.com

My personal 550 Spyder is currently on Ebay, it has one of my 2270 engines and a 4 speed tranny installed- at 185HP it is VERY fast..

Jake's 550 on Ebay

Spyders are very fun to drive and they also hold their value very well....

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.

Paul -
If I am to understand you correctly, it appears that there might be some market to import cars to Brazil...
The following link below shows what I am talking about...

http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-549...yenne-turbo-_JM

$249K Turbo Cayenne?

And a 2005 at that...

Sorry for the Hijack -

You can ask anything, doesn't mean you'e going to get it. And it's not easy sending cars to Brasil, they protect their "national" manufacturers. They can't be used, for example, and you pay a fortune in duties, which makes the selling prices absurd. That's if you can get a car into the country at all. If it were easy believe me I'd be doing it myself, but I'm not related to anyone important enough to pull all the strings that need to be pulled, or rich enough to fill all the hands that would need to be filled.

Jake is correct about the bigger outfits using tube frames for their Spyder replicas, not the VW pans. Sorry about that.

But they all rely on VW parts for the add-ons: such as the steering cols, brakes, front suspensions, transaxels, motors, etc. To the point that an individual builder should have a VW donor car available to grab parts from. The 5star kit appears to use just 914 parts as add-ons, no VW parts. I haven't see any other kit that uses the 914 front suspension as well as the motor and transmission and all of the other miscellaneous parts. And since I already have 914 donor cars... maybe its worth a follow up.

I'm going to send the guy an email to see what other information I can get. Especially to find out if it a Brazilian company; and if so, do they have a US outlet with product I can go touch and feel.

Of anything of interest develops, I'll re-post.

Thanks for the info guys.

If the ad is in Brazilizan, I would bet it is from Brazil like his wife. Chuck Beck. He has imported parts and bodys for years. One of the last places on earth to build the original VW's.

Dan