Does the location of a project car ever stir you to want to rescue it solely for the story of how you found it? To me, that is a portion of what makes every barn find so captivating: where was it found? Why was it there? Had anyone else ever seen it before you laid eyes on it? I’ve often gotten quite nostalgic about certain junkyards that were surrounded by some beautiful forests or unspoiled beauty that created a noticeable paradox against a heap of rotting scrap metal, but I digress. This Laser Porsche 917 kit car replica looks absolutely serene hiding out in a Wisconsin field where it appears to have been left next to an equally forgotten boat among rows of planted trees.

The seller is asking $2,000, which may be a touch high in an era that has moved on from kit car building as a popular way to spend your weekends in the garage. However, there was a time when this may have seemed like a no-brainer in terms of highly efficient ways to part with your cash. The Laser 917 kit was offered by a company called Elite Enterprises, which was based in Minnesota. Given the connection to America’s heartland, I wonder how many of these kit cars found their way to places that were typically John Deere country versus a haven for replicas of one of Porsche’s most famous Le Mans racers. The photo of the Laser sitting in the tall grass next to an old boat makes me genuinely curious to hear its story and how it ended up at the end of a Wisconsin field.

While no kit car ever gets the proportions correct, I have always enjoyed the Laser kit for trying extra hard to look like a baby 917. To me, one of the key litmus tests for any kit car is how good does it look when its properly finished, with the right-sized wheels, a respectable powerplant, and a finished interior. The Laser kits always struck me as looking better than most and seemingly an awful lot of fun to drive with a proper motor out back. Of course, this still rides on a VW Beetle chassis, which has its obvious limitations, but as the photo below shows, you can certainly make a go at attempting to fool the layman that you own a Le Mans-winning racer.

This 917 replica done up in classic Gulf livery was previously featured here on  Barn Finds and to this day remains one of my favorite Laser 917 kits. The builder clearly knew his what his mission was, which was to craft a replace 917 in the best way possible with the gorgeous orange and pale blue color scheme we all know and love. The end result was a car that could at least make the uninitiated do a double take, and isn’t that the ultimate goal of any kit car worth its salt? If you want to build this Laser 917 into a car like the Gulf racer shown above, check out the listing here on Facebook Marketplace and thanks to Barn Finds reader Lothar… of the Hill People for the find.