I'm a dreamer. Which of these dreams can become a reality?

[MonteCarbo]

I've never built a kit car, but one of the things that has kept me interested in the idea for the last few years has been how customizable they are by the nature of the craft. Rather than buying a car that's market for the masses, I love the thought of being in charge of the build process, and consequently apart of the design as well. I'll admit that I'm still a few years away from taking the plunge, but I'm at that beautiful dreaming stage which will hopefully merge smoothly into the saving money stage. With that in mind, I had a couple of questions regarding exactly how customizable these beautiful 818's are (I'm specifically looking at the coupe).

I've compiled a list of some of my favorite features to be found in super/sport cars that aren't necessarily apart of the kit's design and was wondering if this awesome community could help me out by affirming or crushing some of these dreams. I'd imagine that most anything can be done if given enough time, attention, and know-how, but you all are wiser than I so I'll let you be the judge. Any input you can offer would be appreciated, thank you all in advance.
Oh, and please keep in mind that I'm just a noob who's in love haha. Thank you for your patience!

List:
McLaren f1 style middle seat arrangement (obviously requiring the steering column and dash to be in the middle as well)
Gullwing or butterfly doors (I noticed from pictures that the doors curve to go into the front panels, so perhaps gullwing would require a bit of modification to the fiberglass)
Gated shifter
Push to start ignition (flicking a leaver or something similar would also be cool)
Elongated tail lights (something to replace the round stock lights)
I'd also like to hear what performance tuning/mods you would recommend to increase overall power/top speed

[flynntuna]

Welcome to the forum, any mods can be done givin enough money and skill. The gull wing doors would be the most difficult and expensive mod. The center drive has been done in a GTM and I think I read here on the forum of someone was going to build an 818cr with center drive. It would make the car a single seater though. A gated shifter has been brought up in a thread before, a search should find it. The others push start, taillights and performance mods are fairly easy.

[AZPete]

Everything you've listed can be done. However, you wrote, "anything can be done if given enough time, attention, and know-how", but you forgot one other important ingredient: MONEY.
On the other hand, Love Conquers All. Many of us have loved creating our own cars and at least you understand the spirit of "Built. Not Bought". Welcome to our wonderful world.

[Barrel]

What about getting hold of the FFR 818 build manual as your first step? Even dreamers have to walk before they run.

[MonteCarbo]

Thank you for the welcome and the reply. I'm happy to hear that I was well based in my initial assumption about the majority of mods being attainable for the most part if I'm willing to put in the time/money investment.

Would the middle seat arrangement really make the build limited to a single seat? I watched a relatively full build by grassrootsmotorsports and it did look like it could be a bit of a snug fit, but the width of the 818 (69.5in) being only 2.2 inches narrower than the f1 (71.7in), I figured I could squeeze in a couple (perhaps uncomfortable) bucket seats on the sides to make it a wonderfully awkward three seater. I looked for a post about the center seated GTM and future center seated 818 that you mentioned but found nothing. If you ever stumble upon them in the future I'm sure that would be a good read for me if you are willing to send me a link.

I figured the gullwing doors would be pretty hard to pull off haha. The heart behind that is to have something abnormal and exotic without coming across as "that guy" who put scissor doors on his Celica. I feel as though gullwing doors have a sort of class attached to them, so I'll do more research on that, but perhaps butterfly doors will be the better option if I can pull them off in tasteful way.

Thank you again for the help!

[MonteCarbo]

What about getting hold of the FFR 818 build manual as your first step? Even dreamers have to walk before they run.

You bring up a good point. I've been doing research on the project itself and just finished watching the grassrootsmotorsports full build of their 818, but you're very right. That will be on my reading list for sure.

[Fire Alarm Guy]

MonteCarbo, welcome. The dream stage is just as important as any other stage of having/building a car. If you can't imagine yourself owning, driving, and in this case working on and building a certain car, then you will never have the passion to do it or finish it. I love muscle cars and have great respect for a 69 Camaro, but I think they are 'belly button' cars. Everyone has one. And every style of build has been done to them. I can't see myself with one for those reasons.
Gullwings would be a huge challenge! Just engineering the frame to support the hinge and carry the weight of the doors would be monumental. Yes I know they don't weight that much, but there is nothing on the FFR frame to start from. All of that would have to be scratch built. Would be seriously cool if you could pull it off thou.
Center steer would be tricky to do too. Not just the dash but getting from the steering wheel to the front wheels and have them turn. Lots of scratch building again, but easily more doable than the gullwings.
The adding of more seats if you did the center steer like the McLaren wouldn't happen. The seats in the McLaren are behind and off to the side of the drivers seat. The 818'style cockpit isn't that long. You would have to stretch everyting, body, frame, ect.
I haven't been trying to turn you away from your dreaming, more like give you more to dream about on how to make it all work as you want it to be. I wish you good luck and pleasant dreams.

[flynntuna]

Here is a link to a center steered GTM https://www.rcnmag.com/garage/battle-hardened
There have been gull wing tops built for cobra replicas which could be an alternative...http://www.ffcars.com/forums/17-fact...t-hardtop.html
Hot Rod magazine had a feature on a rat rod with an interesting top.