Have you ever wanted a vintage Porsche 356 but never had the funds to pull it off? You could consult with a kit manufacturing out of California and build a kit car that comes with Volkswagen power. Or you could buy the seller’s kit which has had much of the heavy lifting already done. It needs paint and to be assembled, but you might have a nice quasi-replica for a lot less money when you’re done. Located in Miami, Florida, this project is available here on eBay for $19,700 (Buy It Now).
When the seller ventured down this kit car path, he envisioned a 1957 Porsche 356A as a race-style coupe. If you research these cars online, you’ll find they can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, what’s the next best thing? A VW-powered quality kit car that could end up being solid on its own merit, not like the dune buggies that often come to mind? He acquired the necessary fiberglass body and other bits from Kitman Motors and began pulling it all together.
However, as often happens with collectors, there are more projects than time in his/her future and that seems to be what happened here. At the asking price, the seller is taking a $5,000 bath against his investment to date. We’re told that much of the work needed to pull this off has already been taken care of. This includes mounting the body on the frame, installing the roll bar, a 4-wheel disc brake system, and more. The more part includes the 4-speed manual transmission.
A 1915-cc 4-cylinder engine block is ready for the buyer to finish building. The interior pieces are there to be installed, including a Nardi steering wheel and red leather upholstery. When you get done, you’d have a cool-looking sports car that can be registered as a 1973 Volkswagen, which is what the seller did. Thus, if you don’t have a half-million bucks laying around and don’t mind a car like this not being the real deal, is the VW/356A something you would tackle?
This really ticks all my boxes for a project. I’ve got a perception problem though. I look at this, I see what’s available and I think to myself, “sure, here’s a neat project that should sell for $6000”. I guess I’m stuck in the ’90s. Still at BIN of 19k, you have a lot of $ left to spend. Complete interior? About 3 grand? would that do it? Build the motor? $2,000? Is that enough? Install running gear and electrical? Another 5 grand?
It adds up fast. My first car was a ’59 356A. I miss it, but I don’t have the $150 k for a decent one. If you keep the expense under 30k all in, you’ll have a great fun little car. That’s worth around 30k.
The body goes for $9k on ebay.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/143919761535
I’m gonna take shit for saying this, but aren’t they ALL VW-based?
No.
ah…the power of marketing.
Buy an mr2 and drive circles around this for a few years while its being finished
I don’t see anything good here …
When my dad bought a 914 in 1975, the selling point was that the 914 was “VW based”, because he figured that it would be more likely to start than some of the other cars he was considering at the time. Think anything from England and Italy…
If you have $20k to drop on a puzzle have fun with this. Rule of thumb is what ever you think its going to take to finish it double that price.
The other half of my brain says I should buy it and start over so I can put a V8 in it because it is a kit car
Check the size of those jugs!
I’ve never seen disc brakes on an old VW hub before. Weird.
Needs to be painted and assembled. That only takes 40 minutes out of an hour TV program.
A lot of work to be done. Too rich for a starting point in my opinion. It is begging for a 164 cu.in. Corvair 140HP engine.
A god Mazda rotary at the back … popular conversion in South Africa, goes like stink and lightweight.