New Kit Car for jetta w/ TDI

[mcrews]

eco bill,
uhhhhh, no, you are not paying 'that much' for 10 more mpg.
the mpg is not the point nor the main objective.

[NachtRitter]

You're definitely a lot more skilled than I am if you can build a comfortable (Air conditioned and heated... wife friendly!), reliable, safe, and good looking daily driver (meaning every day including snow days, freezing cold, pouring rain, humid hot, and so on) from scratch. That would be awesome, and I would love to see what you come up with. Post your progress here if you do it.

For me, I like the idea of "building my own car" even if it is technically not from scratch, and I do like the way the G3F is coming together. It's more than slapping a body kit on an existing car, but less than starting from a pile of metal and a welder.

[EcoBill]

ok well then I meant to say that for 10g, I could put that towards something more useful and still drive around my $3000 Jetta TDI and be happy.

Unless you get the motor rebuilt...you have a $13,000 car w/ 200k+ miles on it. And in the end, its not going to be worth close to that. Do you tell insurance after you do this to revalue the car? bc if you get in an accident and its totaled, its still a TDI. How safe is this fiberglass body?

[NachtRitter]

It's definitely not for everyone. Taking liberty with some numbers I'd seen elsewhere, there is probably 1 person out of 3000 that would see any sense in building a kit car. And then there is probably 1 person out of the 500 that see sense in it that would actually do it.

From my perspective, I would not do this with a goal of making money on it. In fact, I expect it to be worth less. Heck, any new car and many used car purchasers suffer from the same fate. Not a big deal. There's more to it than the monetary value of the built car anyway. For me, there would be the satisfaction of building something relatively unique. As well, it is being able to involve family (my son, in particular) and friends in the creation of the vehicle. It's different than simply handing over a pile of cash to someone for a complete vehicle and then driving off in it.

So this is the only kit I've seen that is (for me) affordable, achievable, and eco-minded. Granted the definitions of affordable, achievable, and eco-minded are different for different people, and I'm fine if your definitions are different than mine.

The insurance would need to be special insurance for a component car; the guys that build Cobras, GTMs, t-buckets, etc from kits need to deal with that as well... no different here.

Safety wise, the front structure is the same as the stock Jetta, the side doors are reinforced with an extra side impact beam, and the rear structure is a new square tube frame. The stock seat belt mounting points are maintained and I can use a 5-point seat belt instead if I want. Driver and passenger airbags can be maintained, as can the side impact bags. Just like the stock body panels, the fiberglass panels will provide some impact absorption but are not really designed to stop the impact... that is what the sub-structure is designed to do.

[mcrews]

Eco bill,
need to read the site before making comments like 'how safe.....".

nachtritter,
took the words right uot of my mouth.....and added about 200 more!

[alohaspirit]

I like the idea


but id like to see a small commuter on a tdi platform

[COcyclist]

Originally Posted by alohaspirit

I like the idea but id like to see a small commuter on a tdi platform

Aloha, I'm a little confused, isn't that what this is? The kit car should be lower and lighter than the Jetta. Or do you mean really small like the diesel SmartCar other parts of the world get?

[alohaspirit]

Originally Posted by COcyclist

Aloha, I'm a little confused, isn't that what this is? The kit car should be lower and lighter than the Jetta. Or do you mean really small like the diesel SmartCar other parts of the world get?

to me, this is perfomance driven with eco perks
(which is great dont get me wrong)

id like to see something built for mpg on a 4 seat tdi platform
(smaller than a jetta)

[mcrews]

I would not be surprised if Smyth doesn't go off on that direction after the success of the sports car.

[beatr911]

BULLS EYE!!!
I've wanted to build a Cobra kit car for 30 years but it seems so wasteful nowadays. This fills my desires perfectly and can even be driven in the rain and cold.

My new dream build.