Turn that old Beetle into a Porsche, that Fiero into a Ferarri or even a Lamborghini. Why? Because some dreams are weaved from fiberglass mesh.

This image alone practically says it all

If even for a nanosecond, at some point, we’ve all considered doing the absurd.

This is an exploration into the absurdity that is the KIT CAR.

The ads were in the back of magazines like Road & Track or Autoweek. There it would be just inside the back cover, like crack to feeble minds with wild imaginations. If you were 8, there were ads for X-Ray specs and Sea Monkeys. If you were 15, it was Fiberfab Kit Cars.

Fiberfab kit car ad

Here is the inferred promise of these vehicles...

...owning something that looks this exotic will get you all kinds of ... (see above)

But, for many, this is the sad, harsh, ugly reality.

How does this happen? Why do so many dreams end up in a shattered pile of undrivable fiberglass?

Simply this, kit cars take more time, money, ingenuity, and drive than anyone can comprehend. That is not to mention the cost of things that cannot be measured: strain on relationships with family and friends, the high cost of not developing yourself as a well rounded person, and the sad irony that the quality of life you have while working on a kit car is diametrically opposed to the very quality of life you are striving for.

So, to those of you who have successfully completed a project of this magnitude, my hat goes off to you. Enjoy that car, and never be ashamed to tell people that you built it. In fact, the following image says it better than any words I could ever conjure up…

So then, lets relish in the many pitfalls one will surely encounter when working on a kit car…

Go get yourself an $800 Fiero donor car and start tearing stuff off.

Cut and extend the frame with some square tubing.

Extend the wheelbase. Don’t worry about cornering or suspension. That stuff isn’t as important in European supercars.

Now throw the fiberglass shell on top. Wow! It's almost ready for paint!

This is about the point where you miss 3 days from work cause you're rewiring the turn signals.

Rolling it out into the driveway makes you feel victorious.(and it will help you forget that your girlfriend just left you)

Now you start looking at the interior...

...what do the instructions say about the interior...

...Wait, there are no instructions for the interior...

...Where should you put the Pioneer 6x9 speakers you just bought?

Where do you put the switches labeled 'oil slick' 'smoke screen' and 'turbo boost'?

Where are all the sweet honeys gonna sit?

Okay, so you'll only give girls a ride when it's dark out.

Don't forget the step about stretching the frame.

Sometimes the kit manufacturers can't get their hands on the real vehicle they're trying to replicate. So they just kinda wing it from memory.

Just throw a couple lawn chairs in it and call it a day.

Just throw this body right ontop of your riding mower. It's probably the most dignified option remaining.

Look at the side windows on this thing. They're not even the same shape as the doors. Have fun placing your Taco Bell order through that mail slot.

This just looks like it's made from drywall.

Or maybe HVAC ductwork.

WOW!

Pheww...

I'm speechless.

Look at the sad little robot face on this poor thing. Like it just wet the bed or something.

Snap together - no glue required!

They came up with this design by carving a bar of soap.

There is no way to look cool stepping out of this. The doors are just flaps of plastic.

The fastest golf cart on the planet.

So ridiculous it's cool

If TRON was a pimp, this is how he'd roll.

I got to drive this at Six Flags - when I was tall enough.

Someone stole a 'Whack-a-mole' game and put gullwing doors on it.

Purple spandex on wheels.

I can garantee whatever car this started out as looked better than this.

Okay, so that covers the absurd, but what about those kits that are sincere copies of the original. The ones that fool most people. Some of these ‘kitters’ go so far as to order OEM headlights, rims, etc…

Vehicles of this caliber present a new problem:

The Kit Car UNCANNY VALLEY.

Simply stated: When making a copy of something, the closer you get to making an exact copy, the more people are repulsed by it.

This scientific principal is usually applied to the appearance of androids. Now there is some line graph that I’ll insert here that illustrates this.

Maybe it shouldn’t be Michael Jackson down there in the valley. It should be a realistic android whose creator was sincerely trying to copy the original.

Would you let her babysit your kids?

Applying this principal to automobile replicas we get a similar human response. Sometimes a kit car is really convincing. Sometimes you need to do a double take. But when actually walking around one, examining it from a few feet away, it may be very pleasing to the eye. but what’s that feeling in your gut? Suddenly you want to scream “FAKE! THIS THING IS A KIT CAR! I’M NOT RIDING IN THAT THING!” …And thus, you assuredly won’t be getting a ride in that thing.

But that’s okay. Because when the welds snap on that suspension at 88mph, guess who wont be getting decapitated by a sheet of fiberglass coated plywood. Yeah. Rest assured, you’ve been spared by your mammalian counterfeit-rejection reflex.

I don't know the details on this, but that is a kit car. Maybe it got wrapped around that tree at 110 mph, or maybe it couln't handle that crack in the pavement at 15 mph.

Pretty good kit, but the fiberglass is a little warped like when you put your Lamborghini Countach model in your sisters Easy Bake Oven.

Why does it look like this car isn't made of individual components, like It was made from one giant mold? Ah yes, because it was.

This guy has that feeling in his gut.

Why are these guys laughing at my car? Because they can see each other through the wheel wells.

For a toilet, this is the most convincing replica I've seen.

I think I found the car driven by the boyfriend of the girl in the Fiero/Ferarri bikini.