The C8 Corvette is a legitimate supercar. I have always been a fan of Corvettes but there were a few reasons it wasn't bad ass enough to me. For one it always seemed like a car that corporate guys who did pretty good at their engineering or programming job would buy when they were 55. Something that a person with a good job could get but not exactly exotic because there were too many of them on the road. Also having the engine in the front typically didn't give it the performance edge that Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, Mclaren....etc had being mid engine supercars.
All that changed with this C8. I must say it looks sharp and it has the performance to really gain a lot more respect.
So what did this do to the Rebody / Component / Kitcar market?
I put those type of cars in a couple different categories.
- Rebody - Existing car that gets a new body that is a unique design. (Vaydor, VEX)
- Component - New Design but most of the parts are sourced from existing cars on the road. (Rally Fighter)
- Kitcar - Reconfiguration of existing car to boost performance? (GTM Supercar)
- Replica - Knock off trying to look like an exotic Lambo (I don't like these)
The lines are blurred on some of the cars and what they are. I have always had a fascination with the industry and see the positives and negatives of it.
My grandpa built a custom sports car out of a 1950 Chevy and it is 1 of 1 in the world. There was no kit. He came up with a plan and put something together that was very unique and turned a lot of heads.
I respect some of what the industry has done but in a lot of ways it sometimes seems like it isn't quite the exact fit. I did think the GTM Supercar was a pretty sick setup. I more put it in the Kitcar category that was really reconfiguring a C5 Corvette into a mid engine Lambo slayer. These seemed more well suited to be track cars.
These were really sick when they first came out and are still sick but there are a few things you run into with these. Everything has to really be spot on in my mind with these. The paint. The roof scoop, the rear wing. I almost bought an incomplete one in Tucson a few years ago but it was more of a situation of turning around and flipping it more than finishing it like I wanted to.
Overtime that lost it's luster in some respects and then the Vaydor came out. I was instantly in love with the body style and really had mad respect for the designers ability to come up with a unique design.
The Vaydor is a rebody of the Infinity G35 and looks really sick if done right but it was almost impossible for people to finish these on their own. There were tons of failed builds and at one point there were only about 6 of them on the road. So depending on what color you got and how you did it they at least ended up being unique. There was a company called SuperCraftCars that was doing a lot of the builds and Shaq even bought one but the price go so high that it didn't make sense in a lot of ways to get these if you were price shoping and comparing to Audi R8, BMW i8, Corvettes....etc.
Shaq loves cars and I think he had an appriciation for the design and even if he spent $100,000 or more on his build that was negligible to him. But if a normal person had $100,000 budget then the decision gets a lot harder because again they might be attracted to the new Corvette C8 at a lower price point, an older Audi R8, BMW i8....etc.
As much as I love the design of the Vaydor it is configured to look like a mid-engine supercar but in reality the engine is still in the front and unless you do an LS swap it is still going to be the V6 that is in the Infinity. You can certainly put Twin Turbos on it to make it scream but it won't ever perform like the setup the Corvette C8 has especially around turns. The Vaydor is widened out with some 6 inch spacers. The thing is more of a showcase to turn heads as you cruise around. Don't get me wrong..... the Vaydor is still Sick.
The next project by Matt, the creator of the Vaydor is the Valarra. It is a C6 Corvette Rebody.
Again Matt's design is totally savage but if you spend $20,000 on the C6 and then another $20,000 on the kit and the time and the upgrades ....etc. Suddenly you get in the price point of the $60,000 that the C8 Corvette costs and with that you have a warranty, brand new electronics, and a mid-engine supercar. Again I'm not taking anything away from the Valarra.
The Vaydor and the Valarra now have competition out of California.
The VEX is a Porsche Boxster rebody. I really like the design and there are some positives and negatives to this setup compared to the Vaydor. For one it is built on the Porsche Boxster in the first place which was Mid-engine to start with. The downside is the earlier Boxsters had a 2.0L engine in them. They are underpowered for something that looks like that and has scissor doors. You want the thing to have a certain level of performance.
Also again you could be $60,000 deep in this easily and not get as good of a product as what a brand new Corvette C8 is because you are building on a 10+ year old car and every component will have wear on it compared to something that just rolled off the assembly line. You almost have to go with a newer Boxster with a 3.1L in it I believe and then put turbos on it to get it to something respectable. The situation would be different if you could get into something like this for $20,000 total. There are only 2 of these on the road from what I understand. I think a lot of people are coming to the same conclusion I'm coming to with it.
Factory Five Racing is working on a new car called the F9R. It looks good but there have been delays with it.
I'm not sure why they made this front engine but regardless it looks like a really sick design and they have been testing it with at V12 in it. I think it will be a couple years before we see this thing honestly and they act like it is a concept car and it isn't for sure they will go forward with it. I think they will because all the responses have been positive.
Another issue with these types of cars is trying to make the interior look good. The thing with some of the Vaydor builds was that Matt the designer could hand stitch the seats and was really good doing interiors so his builds looked spot on from everything I heard from people who got up close to them and got in them.
DDR is another company making high performance Kit Cars down in Florida. There are some really good designs but they seem more suited to perform well on the race track in a low of ways. They don't quite have that design to them that gives me the same thoughts when I see a Lamborghini Aventador.
I feel like the platform these cars and the GTM Supercar are on is solid. But then if a person took the existing body and modified it further or changed the headlights and some of the stuff like that to make it unique it could be really cool.
I honestly think once the C8 Corvette is out longer that it will be very popular to rebody because it will already be a Mid-engine setup so there won't be a need to build an entirely new tubular frame.
In Conclusion
I feel the industry is very interesting but almost always I'm left with the feeling that almost always you are better off buying a slightly older production car because the price has came down on it and what we are seeing is some of these higher end cars actually going up in value. With interest rates so low and the industry giving away auto loans like they are Halloween candy you can take the route of just financing a relatively new exotic car and end up with a pretty nice setup.
For me getting an Audi R8 is marginally better than my Audi S8 in a lot of ways. I still have the V10 and a lot of power. The Corvette C8 is about the best bang for your buck but you pretty much have to go brand new which is something I don't typically do. You can get a Mclaren MP4-12C for under $100,000 which is a solid option. The BMW i8 has came down a lot in price for used options. Ultimately it would be nice to have something that is mid-engine that legitimately does have the performance and where the doors open vertically in some manor!
A lot of the Kitcar / component cars aren't that great of a value once you factor in the doner car and then everything it costs, an the wait time / build time. The one main thing that option provides is having something unique on the road.
I think for that I will eventually use one of these platforms and try to design a new body style to make it 1 of 1 like my grandpa's car he built!