Originally Posted by
Mechie3
Here are my thoughts on why people sell. No real data to back it up, just my best guesses based on what I've seen and experienced.
1: Cost. FFR touts the $10k kit price and $15k finished price. In general I've seen more interest from a younger demographic, mostly the Subaru/tuner crowd. They tend to be on the younger side, statistically they earn less money, have less saved up, and have higher expenses (daycare anyone?) than someone interested in a Cobra. The $15k number sounds fantastic. A porsche for the cost of a rather decent used car (see reason #2). You quickly realize that a $15k 818 looks worse than a $15k used car. No one wants that. Add in wheels (that don't look like they're sucked into the car), seats (that don't put your head above the rollbar), new seals and bearings (since you'll likely have to replace them eventually), new brakes and rotors, powdercoat for the myriad of bare aluminum parts, and any other things like paint (see #3) that make the car your dream car and you're easily approaching mid $20k's or low $30k's. That's almost double what someone signed up for. $30k almost buys you a brand new STI. Sure, it isn't as fast, but it's more usable (see #4).
2: I think a lot of people thought they were getting a Porsche (or insert other luxury marque) for the cost of a 5 year old Camry. The pics in magazines look good. The high profile builds look good. Their build doesn't. Up close you can see the rough edges and the out of the box fit and finish isn't OEM level. It takes a lot of work (time and/or money) to get it there. This makes a builder feel disenfranchised. We've all seen ricers with chipped and cracked body kits. No one wants their dream car to be on that level.
3: Paint. We were sold a paint free kit. I can bolt things together, machine things, and fabricate lots of stuff. Bodywork is out of my wheel house. I've never done it. Doesn't mean I won't try, but the idea of "buy it, bolt it, drive it" became "buy it, bolt it, fix it, bolt it, body work, paint". I've seen a lot of builds stall out on the body work portion. Wayne has built a lot of great looking cars, but he farms out the body and paint. I recall he said he spent $6k on the body and paint for his first orange one. Add to that the body fitment is so-so (fenders 1/2" difference in length anyone?).
4: Usability. This was mentioned before. I have two small race cars (F500, F600) that I only drive for an hour or so a year. They're only race cars and they were rather inexpensive (I have about $6k tied up in each). $6k doesn't buy you anything faster or nicer so it's easy to justify. $30k buys you some really nice and rather quick new cars. It also buys you some nice and even faster used cars. They won't be as fast, but they'll be rain tight, have heat and AC, a radio, a roof, windshield wipers, known levels of safety and crash worthiness, probably more than 2 seats, and daily driveability. My old WRX was super stiff, had no AC, and was built to be a street legal race car. People that thought their car was stiff would complain about mine. but I loved it. Not everyone does. The less it gets used the harder it is to justify having spent $30k.
5: Demographic. Aside from cost and usability, the demographic I've seen most attracted to this car has two other things stacked against it: 1, young family age and 2, tuner culture. I had zero kids when I started this project. I worked on it all the time. I now have two kids and a business I didn't before and my build time is much more rare. I know of at least 5 other people that started with zero kids and now have one or more. This also feeds into the usability. I can't drive my car (when it's done) unless I know the weather will be good AND I don't need to pick up or drop off at daycare. Double whammy. With the tuner culture (which also fits the younger car demographic) I've seen less deep car knowledge and fabrication skills and more general knowledge and general hand tool (bolt on) skills. Most WRX/STI owners will bolt on an intake and an exhaust and call it a day. Some are more adventurous and do bushings, maybe suspension. That's it. Once the 818 ventured beyond "bolt on" (see #6) it became daunting.
6: Skills required: I've had several people come look at my kit. It seems 50/50 who builds one. More of the older generation went ahead and built one. The younger generation all said "I'm glad I saw this first" and didn't build on. Many didn't have the tools or skills required to go beyond basic bolt it together builds. Fixing the things that don't quite fit right and doing body work turned off a lot of people prior to getting one. I only imagine lots of the unfinished builds for sale are in the same category.
That said....I'm keeping mine. I haven't worked on it more than an hour or two since my son was born 17 months ago. Doesn't help I picked up a box truck, the F600, I rebuilt my backyard pergola, and business picked up in the same time frame. I've accepted it won't be the same quality as an OEM and that it will need bodywork (which will be slow going). I paid cash for everything and I'm not hurting for money so that doesn't really factor into a decision to keep or sell. The kids will be older some day and I won't have to drop off for daycare. I have access to a full machine shop and can fix and modify anything I need to, so that doesn't turn me off either. To be fair though, if I had dropped the car off for bodywork 2 years ago I'd be done. It's about the only thing holding me up now.