Why has no one ever..

[DrR]

Made a new old car.

Say the Clio Trophy. (Just as an example) If all the bits are available new from Renault, why hasn't anyone ever bought all the bits then built the car?

 

[Ben.Block]

Cheaper just to steal one.

 

[Dom_capper]

That would cost a pretty penny

 

[Saner]

Because the the finished thing would be worth significantly less than the cost of individual parts.

Car manufacturers get a significant amount of there revenue from selling parts, not whole cars, margins are huge

 

[jeitah]

By the time you bought everything, and invested all of your time assembling, it'd be cheaper to buy one wouldn't it?

 

[dangerous dave]

People pretty much have and do but the cost spiral out of control and they give up most of the time. I've see a few Renault 5 gtt's start but not finish.. A blue one years ago was in the process of doing a 90% new rebuild but stalled and got sold off, another white one the same sorta time.

At the moment there's a guy doing another white gtt and its on upside down while he's painting the underside and making the underneath good enough to eat your dinner off. It's not 100% oe as there is chrome, but he's buying every nut, bolt, bracket, Clip etc he can. Its a few years in and far from done, but he's dedicated, looks great.

 

[bashracing]

I had a sum up at work a few years back how much an Iveco daily van would cost from the parts bin as the prices were ridiculous, a £22k van worked out at nearly £110k, plus fitting

 

[Daniel]

A 182 engine in its barest form costs £1800. Plus ancillaries.

A bare shell is £1800. Plus doors, glass etc.

The Recaro Seats are £1000 each.

How much is an OE exhaust and Cat? £2000?


You'll need a complete Loom, dashboard, carpets, wheels, tyres, brakes....

It's so far from financially viable it's verging on insanity.

Buy a decent one for £5k and spend £2k making it mint. It's a lot cheaper.

 

[levaz]

I've just binned a shell.
Not a trophy one mind, but yea.
Literally cut it into 4 pieces and skipped it.
Still had the glass in an all

 

[Daz.]

If you had a LOT of money for fun, i.e 7 figures I could see it being done for amusement but the problem is with that kind of available cash you would have no interest in doing it.

 

[dangerous dave]

They do it with car that hold true value...

There is a company down the road from me, they restore Ferraris to any standard you're willing to pay... They'll even knock up a new body.

 

[DrR]

I wish I'd not used a Trophy as an example, knew CS wouldn't see past that.

I bet there is some rich people who'd pay a pretty penny for a nice brand new car that's no longer in production.

 

[Daniel]

I wish I'd not used a Trophy as an example, knew CS wouldn't see past that.

I bet there is some rich people who'd pay a pretty penny for a nice brand new car that's no longer in production.

Pick any car and the principle is the same though? On this note...

My best mate is restoring a 1 owner from new (his gran) 27,000 mile mk1 fiesta supersport. When it's complete it will be the only one in the world like it and judging by prices of 7 owner 100+ thousand milers, it will be worth £20,000 minimum.

But he cant finish it because nobody makes the seats anymore. Not even the material so he's knackered. What can he do?? Finish it to a sub standard by fitting the old seats? Or fit new seats with material that is different to original?

Everything else is available apart from the seats.

 

[dangerous dave]

china..

 

[Gally]

They can be done iirc. Optimus trimmers in Glasgow did a set on a supersport (red one) and iirc they were as per factory. I'll try and find a pic.

 

[Gally]

Are these original Dan?

 

[Gally]

These definitely look original.

 

[levaz]

I wish I'd not used a Trophy as an example, knew CS wouldn't see past that.

I bet there is some rich people who'd pay a pretty penny for a nice brand new car that's no longer in production.

It doesn't matter what car you picked.
Unless you're talking about more money than sense, it's not viable.

I know a guy who restored an MG BGT to the point of a heritage shell and new nuts / bolts all round, as much of the car was replaced as possible and it owes him thousands more than it's actually worth.

His whole reason for doing it......
Because he wanted to.

He's now kicking himself after adding it up

 

[ForceIndia]

Amongst the people that could afford it, there isn't a market. There's a market for improved and restored versions (there's a company that does it for 205 gti), but more for decent cars (old 911's, alfas etc) .

 

[Martin_172]

I know a lad who works for the forces and they required 2 new defenders to replace old ones, applied for funding for them or what ever is required and it got rejected, but they have no budget for maintenance so his boss said ok go and order 2 of everything required for a defender and they built 2 new ones!

 

[Goodj]

I think it might be something to do with technical development in the last 10 years and people having rose-tinted glasses.

I mean, why aren't people building Fiesta RS Turbos anymore?
Or Mk.1 MX-5s. They're the absolute darling of the chavdrift set, but Mazda wont dust off the tooling and build a 20yr old car that'll fail every crash and emissions tests.

Possibly because the ST and New MX5 will destroy their ancient forebears (stock-for-stock)

The costs that'd need to be passed on to the buyer to do these re-builds of old cars, to a point where the target audience would rather put the money into something more modern and good.

Eagle E-Type is an example of this kind of thing being done right. Note the price tag, and the total re-engineering of the vehicle, not just a Wheeler Dealer chop-shop rebuild.