Custom supercar using a Viper as the host

[MannyC]

Everybody has seen all the kit cars that generally use a fiero chassis. Some of the higher end replicas (generally Diablos) will use a custom tubular chassis instead of stretching a Fiero frame.

I was wondering if anybody in here knows what it would take in terms of finance, to take a 3D design of a supercar (at least the outside of it), covert that to a Fiberglass body, that would replace the Viper Body?

Now you die heard viper fans are probably asking why somebody would want to change the way a viper looks, right? I am just curious, right now. Beyond that, there is the possibility that a company I am involved with, could help fund a prototype, if it wasn't ridiculous. It could be a Viper or a Vette or some other already powerful vehicle that from the outside, with the new body, would look like something people have never seen before, and it would be fast as hell, too.

I have seen websites of these custom kit builders who build these fantastic looking cars out of their barn or garage -- so if they can do that, I suppose it can be taken one step further.

Anyway, if you have the inside scoop on something like this, let me know, please.

Here is an example of a body they designed using a Honda host:
http://www.k1-styling.sk/attack/exterior.htm
http://www.k1-styling.sk/attack/interior.htm

And here's a custom job that sort of resembles the Saleen S7, which I think is the best looking sports car on the planet
http://www.factoryfive.com/table/ffrkits/GTM/gtm.html

 

[Austin]

I WANT ONE!!




Austin

 

[Daffy Duck Viper]

Woo. I want one, too! *grin*

USA Distributor
http://www.euroworksltd.com/ATTACK/Default.htm

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

 

[Torquemonster]

Cost depends upon how far you go. Do you go for looks on a budget, do you go for the best of the best - two extremes - two different markets.

Re Fibreglass - I would never buy a fibreglass car - that is technology so old now it amazes me people still make that stuff. Glass main benefits are cost and ease of servicing. It's budget material.

The choice today is either lightweight alloy or the latest carbon fibres and kevlar. The argument that fibreglass is light is crap - to make it strong it is heavy compared to better options and no where near as stiff.

Show me a good fibreglass car and I'll show you a car that can be improved immensely!

The high tech boat builders like America Cup yacht manufacturers and F1 racing have access to materials that make fibreglass seem like wood.

No offense to those who own glass Cobra replicas - it's just not cool on a modern supercar.

back to your question - parts could be well under six figures if sourced right and built as an aftermarket build up type car - or well into six figures if you sourced top of line factory racing parts from around the world. Labour? That is where the biggest costs would be - labour and R & D. Comes back to intended market, how much you can do yourself, whether a prototype is built under sponsorship and as a "homer" after hours etc.

For anything half serious - I'd start at around $150,000 for a decent prototype... for a kit car. This does not take into account setup costs, plant etc - unless built from a small garage.

For a serious supercar you'll need millions.

You could build a basic raw boned super light car for a budget - but I'd be worrying about lawsuits.

 

[MannyC]

You mentioned being worried about lawsuites -- what do you mean?

And aren't the newer corvettes made out of fiberglass still? They're made out of something that doesn't ding or dent, and as far as I knew it was fiberglass.

 

[b3rndtt0ast]

tq, you are missing the market for this car... its ment to be a car you do at your house... not a Enzo killer, or even a viper killer. who cares what the cars body is made of? its not ment to be a 100k car... more like 30k max.
-dan

 

[MannyC]

Dan,

Exactly. The idea is to basically leave the internals of the doner car as is, and swap out the body -- maybe even change the door so that it opens upward like many exotics. If using a Viper as a doner/host, then one could simply add a Roe Supercharger to the beast, and now you have something that for all intents and purposes is a 600HP Viper, but it looks something sort of like the car on the bottom of this image. Add a customer interior and some new style wheels, and you're wallah!

You must be registered for see images

tq, you are missing the market for this car... its ment to be a car you do at your house... not a Enzo killer, or even a viper killer. who cares what the cars body is made of? its not ment to be a 100k car... more like 30k max.
-dan

 

[Russ M]

Superbar,

You seem to have an S7 fetish, although it is a great looking car it is far from being the best looking sports car. It may be the most raced out looking sports car sold but that is about it.

If this is your low budget approach to building a sports car then a Viper is a bad choice. Vipers will never be cheap to buy, and the person that buys a Viper will never ever take a nice car and put a fake body on it.

You need to go back to making s2000 and MRS bodys, and perhaps c4 kits.

 

[MannyC]

Russ,

I was using that as an example. I run several successful business and would never jump into anything without really looking into it. I'm not looking for a low budget approach to buidling a sports car -- All I am asking right now is if anybody knows what it would take to create a mold and then a body and use a host or build a tubular chassis from the ground up -- a way to get a single prototype done. They're building Diablo kits on tubular chassis using chevy engines, with performance specs that beat new stock vipers, and the cars cost under $70K with zero miles on them. I'm just curious if it would be cheaper to build on an existing car that already has fantastic specs. Perhaps not a Viper, but maybe a C5 which can be obtained cheaply, is fast, and has all the creature comforts.

Anyway, I found a site that deals with this and have posted a very detailed proposal there, so I will see what happens.

 

[Jay Herbert]

Seems to me that a Viper might make the perfect base for a project like this. Think about it. Buy a good used Gen I RT in the mid to upper 30's, sell all the body panals and get maybe 15? and you only have 20 in the drivable rolling chassis. Now, bolt a 15-20K unique body on it... a "Super Car" look like talked about here (they all seem to look the same to me though).

Maybe, something completely different... maybe like the Chrysler Atlantic Show car from a few years ago? I have seen this car in person, and it is awe inspiring. Now you have a REALLY UNIQUE super touring car. The "Talbot Logo" of our age??

You must be registered for see images

 

[MannyC]

Jay, exactly -- that was my thought. Heck, throw a Roe Supercharger on there, get some custom interior work done and you're out another $10K, but now you have a super car that has 600HP and looks awesome inside and out and hauls ass.

Now, creating a body from a 3D design and actually getting it to fit the Viper Chassis -- that I know nothing about. If/when I find out a lot more, and if it is feasible, I would not hesitate to have my company pick up a viper or vette, do as you mentioned, and then work on getting a working prototype.

I was told that there was a guy from India that created a body called the INFIDEL that was based I believe on a Honda Civic Coupe, and he took it to one of the car shows and got a lot of interested people -- enough in fact to get quite a few pre-orders for the car. That is inspiring.

Ah, I just found a link to it. Apparantly he is now using a Toyota Donor car. DC Infidel

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

Seems to me that a Viper might make the perfect base for a project like this. Think about it. Buy a good used Gen I RT in the mid to upper 30's, sell all the body panals and get maybe 15? and you only have 20 in the drivable rolling chassis. Now, bolt a 15-20K unique body on it... a "Super Car" look like talked about here (they all seem to look the same to me though).

Maybe, something completely different... maybe like the Chrysler Atlantic Show car from a few years ago? I have seen this car in person, and it is awe inspiring. Now you have a REALLY UNIQUE super touring car. The "Talbot Logo" of our age??

 

[Torquemonster]

tq, you are missing the market for this car... its ment to be a car you do at your house... not a Enzo killer, or even a viper killer. who cares what the cars body is made of? its not ment to be a 100k car... more like 30k max.
-dan

Good luck! If you can build a Viper donor car for less than double that I'll be impressed - if you can build good quality into the car for that - I'll be even more impressed.

How much you plan on spending to buy a donor car? $30k? Engine now needs rebuilding - you can't use a used engine. How much to rebuild a sweet fresh V10? Now you need all the bits and pieces to turn the Viper into whatever you want it to look like, including custom trim, parts etc, then there is new clutch, rebuilt or serviced driveline etc, then the Roe supercharger and the driveline upgrades to handle it - at least stronger half shafts. Now you have to retune the suspension spring rates and dampening rates to match the new weight. You have to recover all costs including those in setup and R & D plus make a profit. Then there is the time to develop a system so a home handyman can put it all together, and the backup support to service their needs and the bozo's that will stuff it up. On top of that you have to market it - that costs, and testing may(WILL) destroy things so they have to be made again, there's another cost.

I'm the last person to kill a dream - but $30k is a fairy tale if you must buy a used Viper to start with - even net of the parts you can onsell that you won't need. And to reproduce all of that....

It'd actually be cheaper to use a special chassis e.g. something like the JBL Cobra (stretched for a V10) that can be made on a jig - than to use a Viper for a donor car. The prototype will cost more, but it'll be cheaper to make models to order IMHO...

Yes Vettes use 'glass. But they don't pretend to be an exotic supercar.... Carbon fibre and kevlar may add $5k to a car and need an oven so set up costs are higher - but you'll have export potential - you won't with glass.

You need to know your market really well before spending the bucks - many have been down this track before you and some even got to sell a few, before going bust - it's a tough game and look at the survivors - take a real good look at the surviviors - you gotta have something a lot of people want and will pay for. Sounds obvious - but you'd be amazed how many grand ideas are well into production before they learn that not ENOUGH will part with their money for it.

Key number is - how many will you have to sell to break even? You need to know that the market shows more than enough support to pass that baseline. Here's a tip worth several thousand dollars to you for free - in this game - "YES" actually means "MAYBE!" A yes is only when they part with their money... and then delays and problems can quickly have them asking for it back! Don't be careless in assessing level of support... many will give moral support - how many will coff up cash?

There are only 5 things you can control to make profit - a good idea isn't one of them. A good idea is great, but doesn't make money. It has potential to make money. For $1.50 and all the potential in the world - you can buy a cup of coffee.

I'm not being an ass - I've helped set up over 100 new ventures and buried several more that came to me too late.. There's good money in burying corpses, but it is not as satisfying as working with those who want to be winners and helping them achieve their goals. I'm not interested in soliciting for work - but I'm saying this so you stand back and think it all through. You can be passionate about the dream - but not the business. The business has to stack up free of all emotion.

Go get a really good independant CPA but also go find someone who has done what you want to do (and succeeded) - they'll share with you all the issues they faced and how they overcame them if you handle them right. Remember however - someone like ERA started with a concept every leadfoot already wanted - a COBRA.. you don't have that - you are talking about selling a unique unknown shape you have to sell....

You need to be able to handle the tough questions or you have no chance. If you believe you can do it - you can do it - but success will be no accident - it'll be carefully planned in every major area - of which the car details are only one. If research shows people think your design ***** - change it and get over it.

Good luck. Interesting concept!

 

[b3rndtt0ast]

was the car on the links turned from a viper? NO. im not talkin about changing the viper into anything... that was a kit using a early 90's honda accord, then you went off about how you cant use fiberglass for high end stuff. the ATTACK isnt ment to be a super high priced car... most kitcars can be fairly cheap.... and btw... who would want to change the body on a 80k car? btw... if i was to build a car... the skin would be alum, thin, light. and not that hard to do (if you take your time).

 

[MannyC]

Torquemaster,

Thanks for the comments. When I started this thread, my thought was just to get some ideas on what it might take to turn a used viper into a prototype concept car. I wasn't the one that threw out a $30K cost, because I know the donor car alone is going to cost about that amount alone. I've read online that creating a plug from which to make your body molds is going to cost roughly $15K.

My idea was to create a prototype, assuming all the research and math has been done. Test marketing the concept before spending money on the product would need to be done as well. In the end, the concept car might end up costing upwards of $100K to build. However, let's say that when you are done, you have something that is absolutely beautiful and exotic to most people, based on some serious market research, and you now have somethng that people could potentially want. Worste case scenario is you have just spend (example again) $100K on a car that you now own and are driving around that is truly a super car to you. On top of that, it will spank the pants off of most stock sports cars (Porsches, Vipers, Vettes, etc.)

On the flip side, you have something that your research has shown people are interested, perhaps at a price point of $90K. I'm just making up numbers here. The biz plan shows that future production of the vehicle can get costs down to $50K. Somehow you have worked out an arrangement with Dodge or some other place, to get the cars without the bodies and part of the interior. You are saving a ton because you are getting this direct and without all the pieces you would need to strip off anyway. Your body molds are done, and you have worked out most of the bugs and kinks during the build of the 1st one. Perhaps $50K is not realistic and it's really $75K, so you need to increase your selling price by the amount of profit margin you will want. No doubt it would take a crew of guys a good amount of time to finish just one car, and you need to pay that crew.

Anyway, I don't know what it would cost. I was just asking. Like you said, it might be better to farm this stuff out and find a company that builds and sells tubular racing chassis with suspensions, and you have them add a crate engine that meets the specs you want. You take it from there.

I'm pretty happy with my current businesses which give me the freedome to do pretty much whatever I want. I own all of my cars outright, including the Z06 and the Viper, both of which I purchased this year (in fact, I just got the Viper back from the shop today.) This project, if it came to fruition, would be more of a hobby -- a test so to speak, to see if it could be done. If it didn't work out, oh well, I am in a position where it's not going to affect my life style all that much and in fact will create a tax break for my company. If it does work out, then it's just one more business I can add to the list.

I'll keep you posted as to what ultimately comes about all of this. Right now, a lot of research needs to be done. Once that happens, then we can start looking at the many other pieces of this puzzle.

 

[SnakeBitten]

On a different note...I would love to see someone put the Gen II GTS body on the SRT10 chassis. Of course shaving a few pounds off in the process.....Its a pipe dream I know but Ive seen them put Jaguar bodies on C4 chassis amoung other things........I like that pic of the maroon car better than the other one.....

 

[b3rndtt0ast]

what i would love is, to see some one put a genIII motor into a gen II :-D i love the way the gen3 intake manif looks
-dan

 

[Torquemonster]

Superbar - Ok - now we are on the same wavelength... I think that going the factory route will be difficult for several reasons.

Of course - that is no reason not to find out - the worst case is they can say no - so what... they might say yes.

My pick is Dodge won't want a bar of anything onselling body-less cars unless they perceive that what happens after that adds value to their own brand name - which means the production car would have to be very good. On top of that - there may even be legal concerns for them - e.g. what would be their liability if they sold you chassis and drivetrains to finish off and someone gets killed, then the family sue because they claim the car was faulty or Dodge was negligent in selling a rolling chassis and drivetrain to a company making cars that were not certified nor crash tested and approved etc.... see my point?

To satisfy Dodge - you'd end up with a very expensive car and be appealing to an entirely different market - and that is entirely possible too, but not what you are talking about.

Therefore - for a budget car - you are really forced to consider having someone make up your own chassis. Advantage is you have complete control over design and body shape - it could even be mid engined - plus you can run them off as needed - an arrangement Dodge would not be comfortable with given each production run is planned well in advance. Of course you could use 2nd hand Vipers and cut them up - but someone here might come and lynch you just kidding - but it's not the thing to do - other than with the prototype if that is what you wanted.

You will battle to keep the car under $75k finished and something to be really proud of - but if it can beat an SRT10 around a circuit - or at least be right there, plus beat it in acceleration etc.... I'm sure there's a potential market big enough to make it worth while.

You could offer a carbon fibre option - some will pay the premium to get the exotic material - which would allow for a lighter and stiffer car. The extent of gain would depend upon how much was used and whether used for structural or load bearing parts. A race V10 could easily be built around 1750lb using composites, add road going accessories etc - no reason you could not build a 2240lb (1 ton) road car. Then you'd have an SC Cobra weight car with a 500 cube supercharged V10 - do that right and you'll get some serious press!

For a premium you could even forget the budget and run a used and upgraded AWD setup out of a Nissan Skyline or Porsche (complete with looms etc) and build the car around that. It's no major technical difficulty custom casting and fabricating to mate the V10 to AWD but when sorted it would have huge potential if given the development to make everything work as it should. Imagine AWD traction and a power per weight better than 4lb per hp! I guess we've moved well away from kit car to hand built exotic now.... oops... got carried away

 

[MannyC]

Shelby Exotics builds custom cars for a lot of manufacturers. This is not the same Shelby that makes the Cobra. However, they build some of the fastest and most beautiful kits and also build their own chassis, suspension and build up various engines to the specs you want. They might be a company to outsource something to. However, their turn around time is about 6 months for a single car. Not gonna make a big business out of anything if you're only chruning out 2 cars per year.

I suppose though, that once you have the prototype and all the build specs, and if you have enough business, they could do what they needed to, to get production going faster, or farmed out even more.

Lots of research to do. First I would love to find a concept car that I really love -- one of them deals that those students submit to the car shows for best concept car contest. Some of those things are fantastic, and some have even made it into movies.

Looking cool and being aerodynamic are two different things, though. I assume there is software that can run a 3D wireframe mesh through a simulation to get close to real work wind tunnel stats. I remember reading about this stuff. Not sure how much that would cost.

Have you seen any designs (not owned by a manufacturer) that have blown you away? There are tons of sites with these designs on display.

 

[MannyC]

Torquemaster, what do you think of these designs? I just did a quick search and these three cars are from one design facility (from what I read, it sounds like a one man shop.) I know what I would want changed on certain models, but I think it is a good start, as far as what a supercar concept might look like.

Car 1

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

Car 2

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

Car 3

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

 

[remster]

^ . . . . YUMM!!!!
||
||
||
||
pics


I like car #2, ja ja!

 

[MannyC]

Yeah, but I don't like that wing on #2

 

[Mike Brunton]

The things about doing a custom car based on some other car

1) In the mind of the creator, they have a super-unique something. To everyone else in the world, they have a bastardized nothing. It's cool if you own one of the very few Veyrons or something ever made. If you have a custom car, it's just another one of many

2) Using a Viper to build another car is way too expensive. Who is going to hack up a $50-80k car? I doubt many. Kit cars are for people who can't generally afford something super nice, so they get something cheap and go from there. That's why Fieros, Camaros, C4 Vettes (usually early 80's) and other cheap cars are used.

3) You will ALWAYS be constrained by the unchangeable dimensions of the car. The Viper has a BIG engine, a BIG driveline and a BIG rear end. You can't change that. You can only ADD material, not subtract. The OEM designers take those unchangeable dimensions and pretty it up with panels, etc. If you want a radically different design, with different looks, you need to add a LOT of material. Hence, you end up with tons of "dead space" in the cabin, a seriously small cockpit, and an overall bastardized look, when things don't seem to "line up" right. That is why kit cars usually look like a$$.

One more thing... the only Diablos I have seen that are worthy of being unique and attractive cars cost WAY WAY WAAAAY more than $70k. There is no way to do a good Diablo clone w/Chevy motor for $70k. Simply impossible.

 

[Snakester]

The biggest advantages of kit cars are price, and easy availability of parts.

Both the Cobra Kit cars and the Attack have these crucial advantages.

The Attack makers have an inexpensive, skilled labor force to exploit in the Slovak Republic to cheaply build the chassis and body.

And the drivetrain is plainly common with millions of early 90's Honda Accords available as inexpensive donor cars.
So the total cost(excluding labor) is around $25K.

Similarly, the Cobra kit cars can be put together from an inexpensive donor Mustang for the same price or less.

I don't think that I've seen an inexpensive domestic kit based on the Chevy LS1 from a Camaro or Firebird (I wouldn't count the Ultima or Mosler cars as they certainly aren't inexpensive).

I can think of MANY appealing 90's Dodge designs, from the beautiful Copperhead and Charger R/T, to the Sidewinder truck, to the classic Chronos and Phaeton sedans.
It's unfortunate that after Daimler's takeover, D/C's designs all look more like chubby-taxi-cab tanks, from the Razor, Pacifica, and Crossfire to the 300C.

But parts on the Viper are hard to find, and many times the price of most other cars.

Some skilled metalworkers decided to build custom replica bodies out of aluminum to transform Ferrari's more common 60's sedans, morphing them into looking just like the specialized 60s Ferrari racecars that did share the same drivetrain and chassis.

They call them "rebodies" and all of the work can be justified by some rich folks because Ferrari themselves rebodied some of their own cars into specialized racing cars, and those special cars now cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But I don't see it working with the Viper, especially in a rear-mid-engine design. Maybe with an LS-1 drivetrain donor instead.

Also that upcoming Factory-Five racing car design looks MUCH more like a Ford GT clone to me than a Saleen S7 (no gills).

-Dean.

 

[MannyC]

Snakester, you made a point in your email where you mention the Mosler. This is more of what I would like to achieve. It's a car based on a Corvette, yet they have done enough to the car to make it unique and call it something else, and then they quadruple the price tag and sell them.

This is more in line with what I would achieve, versus the kit car approach -- both of which are very similar, depending on how you look at it. I don't want to create a cheap LOOK A LIKE kit car that has no power. I want to take something and make it even faster and give it a completely new body/interior so that nobody would ever know what it was at one point.

However, the more I think about it and the more I read what you are all saying, the more sense I think it makes to fabricate something from scratch so you can build what you need, instead of trying to adapt a body to the doner car specs.

Mike, I would have to disagree with you on the $70K Diablo. Shelby Custom was selling one for $64K that was said to be an exact replica inside and out with a brand new chevy engine. I *think* that particular one was putting out 350HP, and you could upgrade to more powerful engines at a higher cost. Their site www.shelbycustom.com is under construction right now. They also build very, very high end replica's that exceed the original car specs. Here is one that they did:
http://www.infinetivity.com/~jch/diablo/

If I were going to pay that much for a "Fake" so to speak, I would just cough up the extra $20K and get a real one.

 

[Torquemonster]

Of the 3 designs - I like 1 and 3. 1 would be first choice as it is essentially a Maclaren F1 lookalike. Awesome design tho... that similarity may actually help it to sell. There's many who can afford a very nice car that cannot afford a $1m F1 who would not mind people mistaking their "exotic" to be an F1. Isn't that what the Cobra replica industry is all about?

It'll be a smaller market - but it has potential. Sourcing a strong rear transaxle will be an interesting exercise.

That design number 1, built to a quality and performance level of an Ultima would sell! It would retail about the same as a well built 600hp Ultima. That's the market for a car like that. But it will have to deliver. The Ultima has run 200mph and was good enough to be used by Maclaren as the test bed for its F1 road car development on the V12. You'd need a ground up chassis built by people who know chassis science to compete - but everything can be done.

People buy an Ultima not just because they are still cheaper than a brand new supercar exotic - that is only a small factor, main one is the car is special and outguns the big guns. It can because it lacks the constraints that production car manufacturers have to meet - it's very light. For that reason you'd need to find out the law re when crash testing and certain certificates become necessary because at that point it becomes uneconomic unless extremely well backed!

A twin turbocharged or high tech blown V10 in a car that weighs a ton has the potential to become an American custom built icon - in which case it could take it well into six figures down the track.

First objectives however with a more budget supercharged first series would be that it handles, brakes, and accelerates incredibly, can be driven without a back brace or your teeth falling out, does not rattle and squeak so bad you can't wait to get out of it, and has excellent finish & fit. If it can get under 10 seconds for the 0-100mph-0 - it'll be an instant legend. That is a marketable product, and the biggest challenge will be to harness the power. I think big turbos or centrifugal blowers would be the longer term ticket as excess bottom end is no good in a very light car.

 

[ChrisXoxide]

Happened to run across this thread, and being as business minded as a 19 year old can possibly get, the entire thread had me drooling.

First - I'd like to compliment Torquemaster on his realistic analysis of this entire "idea". When considering anything like this, you need to always step back, lose your excited and uncalled for optimism, and think "worse case scenario". Often times in business, the result is worse, than this "worse case scenario".

A few quick points I'd like to make on the above.

1- Dodge won't have anything to do with this. Trust me.

2- You are dealing with a 50k, 60k, or whatever 80k car... that is being tossed out and offered up to a cash market. No bank or agency would loan money for this. This cuts out a huge percentage of what you thought was your market. Many people here will agree, cars are bought usually using loans.

3- Since the first part of this car is going to be the appearance to people who view it, you are stuck with a bunch of biased criticism. Everyone who criticizes this is going to say they want one, but a low amount of them ACTUALLY would shell the money for it. If they had the money to be buying a new car, my wager would be they wouldn't put it on this car when it all boils down.

4- Timeframe and financing seems bad. This isn't really a good market for a business idea. There will be many delays, with a huge amount of financing *******. I've had some other interesting ideas with the car market I've tossed around, and I always weigh this in as a major con.

5- You have no safety approvals, and there may also be resistance to even have the DOT classify it as road legal.

6- You have no dealership support.

Hmm, those are just a few things I thought about immediately. Give me another hour, and I can triple the cons on this scenario. Lets just face it - About the only thing you have going for you is someones initial "Wow, thats a cool car". It might be capable of press, but press is rough, I've learned from experience.

Torque, I'd like your input on an idea of mine, email me if you get a chance ([email protected]) or PM me.

Chris Francy
CEO Xoxide.com

 

[Nexus-6]

Monster - you've graduated to Master! My regards!

 

[jrkermode]

Superbar,

I agree with the other posters, building a supercar is a daunting task. What if you went in the opposite direction, still keeping the dream of Viper power?

During the fifties numerous privateers built road racing specials using spindly home fabricated bodies mated to the "new" thin wall V8's of the day. What if you were to do something similar?

Come up with a robust chassis and cover it with a simple retro styled body. Focus entirely on performance and basically ignore creature comforts, noise, vibration and harshness. Conceptually, it would be the steroid enhanced cousin of the Lotus Seven. Now you have the prospect of a Viper powered car at less than the cost of a Viper. Keep it simple enough and the weight benefits will ensure supercar performance. Pricewise you would be hanging around the Cobra fake neighborhood, an infinitely larger market than the $100k+ market.

I realize this scheme does not result in a supercar, but it is a more realistic way to build your own super performance car.

 

[MannyC]

Ah, this thread is still alive. I own and run a software company. Works out well, as there are massive margins and very little fuss about anything. The car project would have been more of a hobby, just to see if it could be done.

I agree with a bunch of what was said, but I disagree on other parts. There are too many people who have told me in life that you can't do this or it will be very difficult to do that, so I went out and did them. Had I listened to them, I would probably be stuck in some $45K per year finance job instead of owning several businesses and doing extrememly well.

I do agree that there would be a lot of research required to make something like this work. As for a Viper platform, that was just a question. Economics would suggest going with a custom chassis and a chevy engine, porsche tranny, etc., similar to what some of the high end lambo replica guys do when they create they're 3.6 sec 0-60 MPH cars and sell them for less than a new Viper.