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 Another SPEEDSTER owner in Phoenix has what one calls a garage queen. I’m finally figuring out as one person said 90% of replica owners have a garage queens. My friend in Phoenix transports it once a year to the gathering in California. I thought I was buying a daily driver and after two years,  I discovered that because of the quality of assembling  I still have more problems than I ever imagined. I don’t know what it’s gonna cost me at this time but I decided to go to one carburetor because the two carburetors were just a real mess.

 

All I want is a car to drive around my little city in. I don’t need high-speed I just need gas mileage about 20 miles to the gallon or more.  I never take it over 3000 RPM’s. On a1915 cc

I have 3300 miles on it .

 

I’ve had two engines completely rebuilt almost and I will be happy now that I have one carburetor - 30 size. I’m expecting no acceleration but at least I’ll get me around every day

Owner of a money pit Speedster. Not a garage queen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Great car assembly takes time , LOL, and I am almost done. Someday I might publish my book of   “YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING “

Justin D.,  First owner of VINTAGE  Arizona, on my first drive home two years ago said, you probably should get gas ⛽️ 

Four miles later  I ran out of gas.  Gas gauge was wrong and engine was sucking too much gas. I have made many trips back to his Scottsdale unfortunately.

I had a drink with the new owner last week, MATT T , and has some big plans.  His background is restoring rare antique tractors in Minnesota.

Is there some crossover knowledge that I am not aware of ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, well that explains the continuing problems.

JPC, some of us have a Speedster as a daily driver (like MUSBJIM) and I'm sure there are probably a few more, but not many.  Most of us just have it for an evening cruiser or maybe something longer on weekends, maybe to a show or driving event.  Mine is a dual-carb 2,110 and I don't drive it daily but it's ready to go whnever I want with minimal tinkering (most of the time) but it does require TLC.

Very few of us have single carburetor cars, but putting the right single carb on it is important.  Putting it on a 1915 means that you might benefit from something a bit larger than a 30mm, but I don't know the rest of your engine specs and can't comment intelligently, so a 30mm might be just fine for what you're looking for.  

Don't know who's helping you with the conversion, but I sincerely hope that it goes well and you get that reliable neighborhood cruiser you're looking for.  You might look up Paul Ellis in Phoenix - He seems to be pretty knowledgeable about air cooled VW engines and/or knows who the good mechanics are.  I can't recall his username on here, but @Cory McCloskey might be able to help find him (and he should see this post, too).

Good luck,  Gordon

Gordon Nichols posted:

 

Very few of us have single carburetor cars, but putting the right single carb on it is important.  Putting it on a 1915 means that you might benefit from something a bit larger than a 30mm, but I don't know the rest of your engine specs and can't comment intelligently, so a 30mm might be just fine for what you're looking for.  

 

A single Weber 32/36 does very well on a mild 1915. 

There's a vast gulf between daily driver and garage queen, and most of us in places with 4 seasons land somewhere along that continuum. The typical MO is to try to have all the this 'n that wrapped up by May, so the summer can be taken up with driving it regularly.

Sometimes that works out perfectly, sometimes not.

I too am sorry for the troubles. It stinks when you don't get what you paid for.

Last edited by Stan Galat

I’m not surprised that Justin in Arizona doesn’t own Vintage Motor-whatever anymore. His first bad act of uprooting the business and shafting all of the employees was the first bit of karma that has come back to bite him in the posterior. Problem car after problem car doesn’t make a good business model either. His inability to fix said problems showed his inexperience and poor business sense too. He has failed in regards to the purchase of the business and I don’t know if he’s gotten all of his comeuppance but if he hasn’t, he will. 

Let’s hope Matt T does a better job. He’s going to have an uphill battle to fight to get back to square one. 

JPC, My car is a daily driver type speedster with a 1904cc engine built with mostly CB Performance parts that I drive about 3000 miles a year, about 99% on back roads. I use dual baby Weber 34 ICT carbs and the engine runs great . I haven't touched them in 2 or 3 years.

Also, every tank of gas gets treated with marine Sta-Bil and I use 2 fuel filters. 

Sorry for your troubles. Best of luck .

It would be nice to see Matt revise the website to more honestly reflect the fact that it was the old Vintage Speedsters company that built over 3,000 Speedsters, when it was owned by Kirk Duncan.  The new Vintage Speedsters (located in Arizona), purchased by Justin in 2017 and now apparently owned by Matt, has built very few Speedsters.  I'm guessing, but I doubt it's more than 50 and probably closer to 20 or 30.  Again, that's just a guess, but the two that I'm aware of are JPC's car and Danny from Nipomo's car.  I drove Danny's car and after spending several thousand of dollars and several months of work to get all the issues resolved, his car is finally in decent condition.  To be fair, Matt did reimburse Danny for some of the money Danny had to spend, but not all of it.  Also, Danny ordered the car from Justin originally and Matt has at least made an effort to straighten out the problems.

Once more I will point out that Vintage Motorcars of California Inc., which is owned by Greg Leach, has no connection with Vintage Speedsters or Matt in Arizona, other than Matt buys bodies and parts from Greg.

Greg moved his company to the old Vintage Speedsters location in Hawaiian Gardens, California and hired many of the old Vintage Speedsters employees, but is a totally different company. 

Last edited by Troy Sloan
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