Looking through the Kit Cars on eBay is pretty fascinating. You will see Cobra and Lambo replicas and things all the way down to a VW powered dune buggy. The variety of cars is pretty incredible and sometimes the prices can be very attractive. For the price or an expensive luxury sedan you can have a replica of an almost unobtainable Cobra or a high performance Lotus 7 like vehicle that can corner like crazy.  Alternately, you can build a space aged looking three-wheeled vehicle that will accelerate from 0-60 in 4 seconds like the Scorpion in the photos above.    

I have built and completed 2 kit cars in the past 5 years and can share with you some of the things to look out for. One of the cars was purchased from a builder that had given up on the project and another vehicle came directly from the kit manufacturer.

3 types of eBay offered kit cars
Most of the cars on eBay will fall into these three categories:
1. Completed kit cars.
2. Incomplete kit cars.
3. New kits offered by manufacturers.

Insurance and Licensing
One of the first questions that I hear from many aspiring kit car owners is how you can insure and register/license a kit built car. Both of my kit cars were insured via Grundy Insurance. Grundy deals primarily with collector cars but does insure kits as well. Grundy Insurance policies that I had were limited to general pleasure usage and did not cover every day commuting or racing. As far as licensing, I can only tell you what California regulations are. Kits generally fall under the specially constructed vehicle category in CA. The kits I have built were three wheeled vehicles and so these fell under the specially constructed vehicle motorcycle section. Probably the most important thing that you should look for on purchasing an incomplete and unregistered kit car is sales paperwork for all the major components. This would include the certificate of origin for the kit and the receipts for engine, trans and differential. At some point in the inspection process the serial numbers of these major items will be verified and at that time and the number will need to match your paperwork and also not show up a stolen on any motor vehicle databases. In CA these inspections are done via the CHP. These days smog compliance can be an issue in your state. Determine how kit cars are handled by your state. Some owners may choose to register their car as an earlier year car that removes them from smog testing and compliance inspections or may fit an engine to the car that is a pre-emission controlled motor.

Do your homework
Do some homework on the kit brands you are looking at on eBay. If it is not a new car, determine if the manufacturer is still in business. Contact the manufacturer and see what kind or support or parts availability they still have on the model you are looking at. Some kit manufacturers are very supportive of builders – even second hand builders as they want more completed kits on the road. They may be responsive or may not really care. One kit manufacturer I dealt with got my money, shipped me my car and suddenly decided to go out of the kit car business. Unfortunately, I still needed some parts and paperwork I was never able to get. Find out what owner associations still exist. Are there discussion groups where owners tag up and meet to address each other’s questions?

What about unassembled cars?
The truth about kit cars is that many of the cars are not completed by the original owner. There can be a number of reasons for this. Often the complexity of completing the kit assembly is so great that the original builder gets discouraged. The kit that seemed like a simple build turns into a multi year project. Another common reason is many kits are sold with many of the component parts excluded. It is not unusual for you to pay $5,000 or $10,000 and then turn around and spend twice that for the missing component parts. Consequently the kit that seemed like a good deal at $10,000 may cost $20,000 more to complete. This is especially true if you want a nice completed appearance. Today a quality paint job is $1000 - $4000 and a nice interior upholstery job can run the same. A nice looking set of wheels could run $2000+. So the good news is if you find an incomplete kit car on eBay you may be able to purchase this for a lot less than if you went out and bought the same kit brand new and collected the parts to go with it.

How do I tell how if the kit car builder did a good job?
Obviously, being able to do a personal inspection of an eBay vehicle is always the best idea and this would be especially true of a kit car. If the car is drive-able and you can arrange a test drive, you can deduce some of the quality of construction in how the car drives. Does it have major rattles, vibration in the steering or braking, etc. Find out what percentage of the parts are new that were used Vs what parts were wrecking yard sourced. Look under the dash and see what the quality and neatness of the wiring looks like. Is the wiring neatly tied down with tie straps or just hanging down? Check under the hood to see how neatly everything is arranged.  If visible things like wiring, brake tubing and radiator hoses look disorganized, you can bet there are invisible issues, as well.   

Where am I going to get the car serviced?
If you are asking this question you might want to reconsider looking at a kit car. Depending on the kit and power plant you may be on your own for service. Obviously if the engine is an American 6 cylinder or V8 you can get help at a Hot Rod shop on any drive train problems. If it is a VW engine you probably have independent VW garages in your area that can help. If the car uses a Citroen engine (used in Lomax and other kit cars) or other rare engine you might be in trouble and need to work on the engine yourself.

As far as assembly and maintenance you will probably need to have skills in the following areas or have friends that have these skills. If you don’t have equipment and expertise or have friends that can do these things for you, you can hire this labor to be done for you. Obviously, this will further add to your kit completion costs.

Paint and bodywork
Upholstery
Glass and rubber molding installation work
Wheel and tire mounting
Mechanical – Engine/drive train work, shift and clutch linkage
Mechanical – Chassis, hubs, brakes, steering, alignment work
Welding and fabrication - Yes, there is always some welding.
Machinist – Fixing things made improperly by the manufacturer.
Electrical – wiring harness, gauges, adding circuits, fuses, troubleshooting, etc.  

The car I’m looking at has no wiring harness
This is not really a major show stopper as you can pick up a universal wiring harnesses on eBay. I believe in using a master shut off switch (like a Hella – available on eBay) located on or near the battery. The last thing you want with a fiberglass kit car is an electrical fire. Electrical issues are really problems that you will probably be diagnosing yourself for the life of your car. A wiring diagram is pretty essential although both of the cars I built did not have one available from the factory. Fortunately this was one area where other owners were able to help with wiring harness color codes and wiring suggestions.

I think the number one problem on fiberglass kits as far as electrical problems is ground issues. On one car I was working on I was trying to diagnose why the car would not start. I was removing the fuel tank from the car to inspect another issue when the electrical power in the rear of the car went dead. No rear lights and no power to anything in the rear of the car. I reinstalled the fuel tank and power was restored. It turned out the fuel tank had a ground wire connection to the fuel gauge sender unit that was not properly connected to ground inside the electrical harness. Because the fuel tank was touching against the metal chassis, the fuel tank sender ground wire was supplying ground to the rear of the vehicle. Clearly there was a problem with the harness but this is the type of electrical problems you need to be able to diagnose.                     

The car is 90% done
One of the kit cars I bought was supposed to be “90 percent done”. The brakes were not hooked up. Also, the wiring and cooling system of the car were not connected. It took me about 6 months to complete the car and finish that last 10 percent including almost 2 months diagnosing why the car would not start. If you are buying a car that is supposed to be nearly complete you must ask yourself the question as to what made the original assembler give up at this point. They may have hit a roadblock in their own lack of knowledge, they may have had health issues or they may have run out of money for the missing items. Try to determine this reason as you are about to inherit their problems in getting the car done.

What space will I need for building a kit car?
I have restored several cars and built a couple of kits. Because in the early stages you may be working on the body, chassis and engine separately you may have 3 times the space consumed by your kit while it is still in pieces. Often the assembly process involves putting the body on the chassis for a test fit of some clearance and then removing it to drill, grind or cut followed by another trial fitting. You will need space to do all this so it is not unusual for an entire 2 or three car garage to be consumed by a single kit car project. You may need additional outdoor space for a trailer to tow the chassis, body or completed unit out for paint or other work you have contracted out.

Will these cars appreciate?
You need to be realistic about any potential appreciation on kit cars. No matter how high the price of a real Ford 427 Cobra goes it is doubtful this is going to greatly increase the price of your Cobra kit car. If you are buying for appreciation buy an original car of a lesser price range because a fiberglass replica will probably not appreciate substantially.

Give me the up side
Most kit cars are replicas or distinctive and unusual cars and that is why we buy and build them. You will suddenly have friends or neighbors wanting to come over and help hold wrenches. When you finally get the car finished you pull up in a parking lot or at a car show, a crowd gathers and you will have to answer a lot of questions. Ultimately, our real reward in building or owning these cars is we can tell an onlooker that we built the car ourselves. They gasp and realize that they are talking to a real mechanic – someone who has built their own car!