@Hisham posted:
My Motivation
I'm 49 and ripe for a midlife crisis car. My two favorite vehicles have always been the corvette stingray and Porsche speedster. specifically the two custom cars from the movie "king of the mountain" that race in the Hollywood Hills. I live in LA.
I have an 11Yo son and this is going to be the project we work on in his teen years. He's already excited to take the speedster to prom in 5 years. and he's been getting out to help me in the garage every weekend. So even without the car, It's already working out for us.
After lurking in the shadows on these forums, I've already started the project and made some mistakes.
I got a 1971 super beetle (about a month ago) and found out the body won't fit a super beetle. now I have a 1969 Bug (I got yesterday). I'm planning on driving the 71 for the next few months to work on the engine, transmission, and breaks. Prep the 69 for a body, build the speedster on the 69 then "transfer" the title from the 71 to the 69. or sell the 71 and register the 69.
I was in contact with Kitman in SD about the body but they didn't prove to be very helpful or couldn't / wouldn't answer questions about the dimensions of the body. Although I love the outlaw speedster they do, I'm not happy with the sales pitch and Johnathon doesn't read my email before sending a copy and past response. I don't know them so not sure. the world is a little crazy right now so I'm not holding a grudge. has anyone used Kitman?
anyway, I'm posting some photos of the 71 and 69 and hoping you can ask me questions that I should should be asking. any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am currently looking for a body in raw form. Just like the movie version, I don't need the body to be perfect. I would like a wide body, but It'll have no badging. I don't need a top. The car will have a custom look like a Harley-Davidson, Madmax marriage. raw flat black or white with Black and white Digital camo rasing stripes, probably a Herbie "the love bug" Number badge. I know I'm getting ahead of myself but I wanted to express that I'm not looking for perfection, but I'm looking to turn heads when I drive by.
Back in 1981, my girlfriend at the time moved to LA to pursue her modeling and acting career. (Like most, she ended up managing a high end restaurant. And becoming a millionaire.).
One of her first gigs was as an extra on King of the Mountain. I just happened to be visiting one night when they were staging in the Griffith Observatory parking lot and filming on the surrounding roads (a lot easiest to close than Mulholland). I don't know how many cars they made for the show (generally they do at least 3, but that was a pretty low budget movie.) The car I saw was about as bare bones as it gets. The fender wells weren't finished, and there was no interior save for the driver's seat. When I saw it, they'd just unloaded it from the trailer and were pulling the camera mounts off of it in preparation for doing some action shots.