I love Hawaii, I used to live on Oahu in the late 70's early 80's and am glad to be back. Everyone coming to the Big Island is welcome to visit my shop. Aloha!
Disappointed to see the "car is for sale" bit at the bottom of this site. Proves yet again that replicas are only made to make $'s ... but at least no real historic car died because of this build (I believe). Pete
Pete I wouldnt do this if I wasnt passionate about it. I can think of a lot of ways to make money with alot less energy and money invested than with this project. Sure I will offer it for sale; I have over $350K in this already and have tied up my lifs savings. Maybe you can afford to spend that kind of money; I dont have that option.
Sweet bajesus thats mind blowing. The only thing better would be a story on how on earth you found the engine!!! Hope to see you on the island in June.
I found it in a junk yard in southern AZ. It was in a wash behind a bunch of cars buried halfway. I didnt realize it was a M188 block until I got it home and I was driving the rusted pistons out with a sledge hammer that I saw the casting number and the tach drive hole. I thought it was just a standard 300 series M186.. I about crapped.. That was the inspiration behind this. Five years have passed since and I have aquired several genuine W194 components that I cannot divulge yet that will put it over the top and an extrordinary re-creation.
I know there is alot of anomosity toward whatever we want to define as replicas and it has been discussed on this forum ad nauseam. So I won't try to defend this anymore.
Mark, I agree with you that the building of the car is the fun part. When I was 20 (18 years ago) I built a Lotus 7 replica. When I sold the car two years ago (after returning from a long stint overseas), the car only had 4000 miles. But the funny thing is I hooked a power drill up to the speedo and wound 3000 of those miles on because I did not want potential buyers asking why in 15 years the car only had 1000 miles! Silly I know. The good news is that the new owner drives it every day and uses it for club racing when ever he can. Pete, I was just joking with ya. Btw I forgot to send you a link to a Trade-me ad on last week. The same chap that was selling a car minus engine 6 months ago had another engine-less Ferrari listed, this time a 400i if I remember correctly, the ad has expired already.
Wow Mark, I just found this thread. Damn, you're good! Listen if you run across a 70/71 280 SE 3.5 COUPE, let me know. However, don't work on it! I'm sure I can't afford you. But keep up the passion. In this mad digital world, it is sure great to see some analog dinosaurs. Dale
the fishing looks fun too! you're having too much fun! customers might whine about the freight : ) great project, and thanks for the updates! jeff
I will pick up shipping as part of my service.. A car can be shipped roll on roll off from LA for about $1300. Add $250 for a non operable car. On another note I am almost ready to lite this bad boy off...I will post a video. Mark
Wow! That belt at the front looks a little on the loose side and moves around a lot. What is it actually doing? All the best, Andrew.
Okie-dokie. I just wondered if that was indeed the fan belt or whether it was a slightly more critical timing belt. All the best, Andrew.
If anyones interested I just posted some more videos on youtube; Just keyword search w194 and scroll down a few. There are four or five seperate videos showing and explaining various details. Mark