New Guy Intro/Info Gathering

[Brett Fritzsch]

Hello all!

My name is Brett and I would consider myself a car enthusiast and looking to move into that "car guy" status! I say that because I dont know a whole lot about cars but do a lot of maintenance on my jeep, subaru, and harley myself. Basic maintenance things like: brakes, oil, plugs, filters, tires, alternator, etc.

It is a dream of mine to build an old muscle car in a resto-mod type of fashion but at this point that big of an undertaking is a bit over my head. I have been directed by a bunch of people to look into doing a kit car as usually they will come with almost everything you need and its essentially a large puzzle with some modifications at time. This has brought me to DF Kit Cars and the goblin! The price point and process seems to be a solid way to go about my first kit car.

With all that being said there are some questions that I have of course...
1. Do people usually buy/acquire the donor car prior to purchasing a kit?
2. Anyone from the North East part of the US that has some pointers on acquiring a donor (leaning towards SC/TC)? I am based out of NJ. I have read a bunch of the posts about copart and iaai but I am a bit nervous about a wrecked car based on my ability to most likely assess the damage fully.
3. What are we looking at for turnaround time from purchasing a kit to receiving chassis and all parts?

Thanks in advance and look forward to learning/taking on this project!

-Brett

 

[DanPerryy]

One great thing about building a Goblin (over restoring an old muscle car) is that you get all the newest and great technology and none of the rust! In the end it will probably be quicker than a muscle car as a bonus. I put my $ down to reserve my car before buying my donor. There seem to be a lot of Cobalts in the north east. I travel to Pennsylvania often and cant believe how many Cobalts I see. A good measure is to look at Copart and IAAI and see the selection and the area. The rear of my donor was totally wiped out. I did not need to get any parts for my car (I did however get get some I didn't need - a put new brakes on the back - DF Kit Car provides new brakes for the front, I lost some clips for the brake lines, bought new brake lines for the rear etc.). I wouldn't worry about getting a wreck (if is is not a rollover. A rollover may have oil or liquid get into the combustion chamber and attempting to crank it can damage a rod. One thing good about a wreck is that you know it was running 5 milliseconds before its demise.

 

[DanPerryy]

One more thing about putting you money down on a kit. DF Kit Car assigns your car build number upon receiving the down payment. I had one of the original 10 manufactured but I needed an extended frame. Initially they were going to modify one of the first production run of 10 cars for me but then they decided it would be best to tool up for extended versions and I got re-assigned to chassis 11, the first of their second run of 24 or 25 cars. They are now working on the third run of 100 cars. FYI - I think they build 2 prototypes prior to the first production run.

 

[RichN]

Hi Brett,
I'm up here in NH and put a deposit down 1st. The only major difference for the kit frame stage 1 would be manual vs. automatic; they are the same except the tunnel cover. I purchased a running car for $4,000 that only had 48,000 miles. If I had to do it again, I would buy a wrecked one cheap on Copart from down south. We salt the roads up here and there is a lot of surface rust on everything. I went through a lot of sandblasting media. The ecotech motors are good for 150k+ miles, so I would have been fine buying one with less than 60K miles. We can only drive them for about 5 months a year anyway, so I won't be putting more than 3k to 4k miles / year. Hope this helps.
Rich

 

[Brett Fritzsch]

Thats great information from both, thanks!

So you wouldn't buy the whole kit at once, instead you buy the 1st stage where the only difference is the transmission? If thats the case you still have to know which package you would be going for though because you'd need to have the right plumbing correct?

I was going to send an email regarding what are left in production run 3 and what the turn around time was unless someone knows already.

 

[DanPerryy]

I would buy it in stages. Stage 1 is the biggest time consumer and having the other parts around just get them in your way. You will have to ask Adam at DF KitCar about delivery.