I'm your poster boy for what you are looking for. I have mechanical and electrical experience but not the time or the inclination to build my own which is why I bought my new MK2 from someone else who had put it together. I know plenty of people out here in LA who would gladly pay someone else to put their car together for them "professionally". As a matter of fact, I wish I had done that as I have had nothing but system after system failure with my car and it has less than 1600 miles on it. All of the screwups were due to sloppy buildership and total neglect by the schmuck I bought the car from to thoroughly go thru and drive it for 1000 miles before throwing it up online to sell. At the end of the day, I only have myself to blame for not realizing that a kit is a kit, no matter hwo builds it and I should have known better than to buy a new car that came with ZERO warranty. Shame on me.

 

Thank you Cobranut1, that is great to hear. If we go forward with this would it be ok if I looked you up to pick your brain and make sure we do it right?? Also are you going to Knott's this Saturday??

Also is there others that also could share their desire/need for someone to build their kit for them, and what exactly they would be looking for??

 

I would have been glad to have somone build my kit if it were in a reasinable price range. All the turn key builders were pretty pricey, but then they have been doing for a while. I hope you know how much work is involved before you start. Have you built any of these cars before? Ther is a lot that goes into them and a lot of prior planning to get it right.

Mike

 

Hi Mike and Lapp, thanks for the reply. I have not built one, my partner is the mechanical brains behind this proposed venture. I am more the business end of the deal. As for the profit margin, it would be tight but we would try to make it up in volume. Which leads me to my next question - where would the best places be to advertise??

Ideally I would like to do 5-10 turnkeys per month. Is that asking too much?? If we spent the money necessary to get the word out, and built a quality product that deserved to get recommended, could we turn 5-10 per month??

 

I think the idea is solid. I agree if someone like that where around I would have been tempted to buy from them, but I think timing wise it is probably not a good time to open this type of new business. It is all about profit margin and yours would be very thin with not going after the high end, where there is always more mark up. Reputation would also be important...just my 2 cents

 

Just my opinion...but it would seem that to complete 5 to 10 of these cars a month you'd have to have a HUGE shop and an even bigger work force.

Even a basic build is a pretty good amount of work. More research on those numbers may be in order. Not trying to be negative, but that equates to many...many..many hours. Would it be possible to produce that volume and still provide a reasonably good finished product?

Would that include the bodywork and paint...that's even more work...and money in materials.

Just playing devil's advocate here. Having done some business ventures vaguely similar to this in the past...I found that things didn't come together quite as easily in the shop as they did on paper. But hey, that's why your hashing it out here first right?

Either way...Good Luck with it.
-Les

 

Thinking your estimate of someone building thier own for 19-20k is a bit low, even if going donor.
Search out some post on average cost to build.
Even your estimate of selling price of 25k I feel is on the low side of what one might do their own donor build for.
5-10 complete cars a month. Not sure it's possible to do body and paint in a month.
How many have you already built?
Whats your qualifications as a mechanic? Your profile has no info.
Not trying to discourage you. Just not sure your fully aware of what it takes to get one of these cars finished and out the door in your time frame and cost

 

I hate to give you bad news but there is no way to build any FFR that would be safe or that you didn't use a spray can to paint the car for 20 to 25K. I have seen some guys build for under 30K but they had to do all the donor clean up and rebuild all there own parts and do there own paint. That is a lot of Love for labor. I wish you all the best luck.

 

Buy a kit first and see whats involved then you will have a better idea of what it takes to build one of these, Where are you located?

 

I agree with '65Cobra - You really have no idea what you are into until you have built one. Do some seraches on here for Wayne Pressley - he is a vendor and builds some turnkey cars. He is quite experienced with FFRs and I think it takes him 20-25 days to build one and I am talking over 8 hr days- and that is with farming out the bodywork!!

Some other thoughts -

90% of the difference between budget and higher end cars is in the parts used - building a donor is not any faster than building a higher end car. And while using donor parts can be cheaper, in business you have to factor in labor for rebuilding donor parts.

I don't think you could turn out 10 cars in a month without 20 people - you would need 1 guy doing the mechanical and 1 guy doing nothing but body work for each car you turn out.

I don't think the market for turnkey donor cars is that big. If you look at the direction of the industry and even FFR - it is more toward new parts - Just look at FFRs recent release of Complete Kits.

If I can affort $25K, then I probably can go $30 and get one with new parts that will most likely give me less problems going forward.

What kind of warranty are you going to provide?

Am not shooting you down, just saying you have a lot of homework to do first. To me, the first logical step is to build one - document the build and catalog all the steps, parts, and costs. See if you can sell it. That should be step 1 in your business plan.

 

Thanks Rich, and thanks everyone who has contributed. I appreciate the thought you guys have put in for me, I took none of the negative stuff personally, its exactly what I needed to hear. I am going to build one, see what it costs me, see what I can sell it for, then see if its worth it. I just wanted to know from you guys if I should even go that far - I was not sure there was a market for a more discount car.

After I get my car built I will let you know where I am at. Thanks again everyone!!

 

13k for the kit. Depending on where you are (Stewart was $1500 2 years ago delivery to the west cost).

Lets say 15k total. Going to be tough to add all donor items, paint and labor for 4k.

 

I have over 400 hours (not inlcuding paint & body) in my non-donor build, which I would consider to be fairly typical. At only $25/hour that is $10,000. I don't see how you can do it for that price and make money.

 

5-10 a month

lets not forget those back ordered parts from FF, it might take two months to get all the parts in the kit you order..good luck with the timeing,,,2$

 

JT:

Not gonna be at Knotts but will be at HB. Find me and I'll be more than happy to give you the entire story...

Jon

 

My brother and I had considered this, but the profit margin was just too tight. The main reason to consider it is if you just had a passion for building cars. If your passion was strong enough and you could tough out the getting started phase, then you might make it.

 

Just as in any other business, you really won't know what price you can afford to sell your product at until you have a handle on what your costs will really be. Labor, overhead, donor parts, Insurance, etc... will need to be a guess until you get rolling and have employees you can take rates from. The learning curve and cost will be steep and you will find yourself adjusting pricing, costs, etc... until you can find a point where you actually turn a profit.
I don't think $25K is that point, IMHO.

Bob

 

My 2 cents -

Well, seems that Backdraft had somewhat that model only a little bit better - all new parts.

If I am buying a turn key how much am I going to be concerned if it's a FFR or a Backdraft? Wouldn't I be more concerned about the quality of parts uses (NEW v donor), the final build quality, reputation, and post-sale support provided?

Most buy an FFR because;

1) They want to build it themselves
2) Want to build it themselves and keep the costs down
3) Want to have customization flexibility you just can't get in a Superformance
4) Are just sold on the whole FFR experience and community

So, if your model is offer a complete car for less than 32k - engine and trans - it would seem that you are;

1) Undervaluing the cost of service being performed or underestimating the total amount of labor required
2) Are going to be building a very very basic donor car kits with limitied to no options to the base kit
3) Are going to be forced to cut corners in build quality to maintain your profit margin

I may be out of line, but I think those that have built the nice 'budget' FFRs have done so becuase they have put so much of themselves into the kit. They have offset the costs of labor. So while the actual dollars might be in the $20k range, the actual cost if thier labor was accurately priced would bring the total price much closer to the $30k+ mark.