I have a soft spot for kit cars, having spent countless hours as a kid in the UK poring over kit car magazines during long school holidays, dreaming about one day building my own GT40 replica. There’s something wonderfully audacious about a kit car that looks like it escaped from a Can-Am grid. This Manta Mirage, currently for sale on Craigslist here for $27,000 from Santa Clara, Utah, is one of the roughly 1,000 examples built by brothers Brad and Tim LoVette between 1974 and 1986. The seller claims it’s a “1967” model, which is impossible given that Manta Cars wasn’t founded until 1974, so this is either misdated or there is some confusion about the car’s origins. What we do know is that it’s powered by a 400ci Chevrolet V8 putting out over 400hp, mated to a four-speed gearbox, and has covered just 3,898 miles since it was built. With its Lamborghini Orange Pearl paint and McLaren-inspired wedge shape, this is a proper California special. Thanks to Rocco B. for the tip!

The Manta Mirage was originally called the “Manta Can-Am” when it debuted in 1974, and the McLaren M8 influence is impossible to miss. These were built around a tubular steel spaceframe chassis with independent front and rear suspension, mid-mounted American V8 engines, and lightweight fibreglass bodywork. The result was a car weighing around 1,900 pounds with 300-400+ horsepower on tap, making it genuinely quick by any era’s standards. Manta offered these as complete turn-key cars or in kit form, with most using Chevrolet small-blocks mated to inverted Corvair transaxles. This particular example claims to have a 400ci big-block Chevy, which would have been a potent choice. The Mirage also became a Hollywood darling, appearing in the original “Gone In 60 Seconds” film in 1974, which gave it cult status among enthusiasts.

The seller’s advert is refreshingly blunt but a little sparse. We know it has front disc brakes, rear drums, adjustable front suspension, an aluminium radiator with electric fans, air conditioning, four-point harnesses, and working gauges. The seller states they received it in trade and doesn’t know the history, which raises more questions than it answers. Was this a factory-built car or a home-build? Who assembled it and to what standard? The photos would be helpful here, but without more detail about the chassis condition, the quality of the fibreglass work, or the engine’s provenance, it isn’t easy to assess whether this represents good value at $27,000. With such a rare and unusual car, sourcing spares and finding someone to maintain it properly could prove challenging – these weren’t mass-produced vehicles with readily available parts suppliers.

These Mirages usually fetch between $20,000 and $60,000, depending on build quality and condition, so the asking price sits at the lower end of the spectrum. That could mean it’s a fair deal for a solid example, or it could reflect issues the seller hasn’t disclosed. These Mirages are undeniably cool and increasingly rare, but would you be tempted by this Californian special with its mysterious past, or does the lack of history raise too many red flags?