Voice your opinion: WHAT IS A KIT CAR?

"Kit car". We keep hearing the term, usually from people who are driving stock cars. For those of us with what I like to call "Frankenstein" type hotrods, this brings a question:

Who decided what the definition of a KIT CAR is? And WHAT is the definition of a kit car? I asked a few people and it seems each person had a different opinion / definition. So let's each give our own definition here and see what is the general consensus is.

Which of the cars below is , in your opinion a KIT CAR ? Let us explore a few scenarios in which a hotrod can be put together:

1. An original car gets an original body swap (ex: A sedan is turned into a roadster)

2. An original car gets a reproduction body (ex: its own body was too rotten to salvage)

3. Two original cars are dismentelled to build a third one (ex: both were rotten but complimented each other )

4. An original car is used to start a hotrod (ex: some parts of the original parts and mostly other misc circa correct or vintage parts are added to recreate the finished hotrod)

5. A hotrod is created from a zillion pieces from different cars, but all pieces are original (ex: original frame, hood, etc... but bought seperately)

6. A hotrod is built from pieces some of which original, some not

7. A hotrod is built from pieces most of which brand new with the exception of an original frame

8. A hotrod is built from all brand new pieces (OK THAT ONE FOR SURE IS A KIT CAR)

OK, so at which point do we draw the line and a real car is no longer considered "real" and becomes a "kit" car. Can ratrods be called KIT CARS? (for some reason 'kit car' is not what comes to my mind when I look at a ratrod...)

Boy oh boy, do I foresee some heated arguments on this thread?
Voice your opinions (and try to be NICE - if you can!)

 

aftermarket body+aftermarket frame+aftermarket suspension=Kit Car.

all others made from original cars=modified.

 

yup what he said!!!
If all the parts can be ordered new ie Body, frame, and bolt on parts its a kit car, If its a gl*** bodied car ie roadster, coupe or sedan its a replica!!

john

 

when i think of a kit car i think aftermarket body on a late model ch***is. i.e. fibergl*** fat fender ford body on a S10 ch***is. the company will sell the parts needed to do the conversion as a "kit".

 

my answer (when asked about my 'gl*** roadster) is," all the parts came from different places and there weren't any instructions (or glue) included, but, if you want to call it a kit car, go right ahead."

 

why does it need to be defined?

 

No popcorn today.

 

This is a dicey question, but I'll chime in. I think if it's after market parts bolted together with little or no fabrication necessary, then it's a kit car. I think most hot rodders thrive on fabrication, it's what makes it fun, and those who don't ever do it are really cheating themselves, it may be easier to just bolt parts together, hell, it may even be better in some cases, but it's just not as much fun. That's why I could never restore a car, I just don't want to do all that work to redo what's already been done before.

 

Kit cars come with instructions.

Hot rods are built with imagination.

Street rods are built with air conditioners.

 

A car that was on a TV show in the early 80's, protatyp gen three comaro called KITT....

No realy, when you get a wholl car in a box like the porce speedster or the mg td or the cobra, thoes are kit cars...Roach.

 

My idea of a kit car were the dune buggy bodies (and others) that you simply dropped on a VW ch***is and drove. I remember a guy in high school who had one done and driving in one weekend, we didn't call it a kit car. We called it a dune buggy.


My T is a collection of parts. Some new, some salvage yard, some swap meet stuff. It will depend on who you ask, if it's a kit. All I know is, when I was first introduced to hot rods, they were just hot rods. No matter how they came to be or what they were made of, they were hot rods. I still feel this way. If it pleases someone or is a tool for them to use to peg me into a sub group, then so be it. No matter what I say, they will have their own opinion. My plastic bodied, manufactured frame, junk yard engine and running gear collection is a hot rod to me and what anyone else thinks is okay. I have much more important things to think about.

That being said, if I was asked if it was a kit car by someone, my response to the question would be: A kit car? Sure, man. Anyone can build one. That's why there's a billion of them on the road and you saw two or three hundred on your way here today.

 

Kit Cars are to be potenially built with a credit card.
Most in fact are in the garage being used for quilt racks or to stack Xmas decorations on.

 

I think a kit car is like those volkswagon ch***is kinds of things... or fieros that look like a Ferrarri when you are done. "street beast" are kit cars.

a rod built from all new components from multiple manufacturers is not a kit car, even if no actual fabrication was done.

to me for something to be a kit it would require an order form where you check which parts you need and everything comes from one company. where the only thing outsourced might be paint and wheels.

 

The original question is inherently ********. There's no such thing as a kit car. Every car whether made from new or old parts needs to be built by somebody.

I understand the argument that a "kit car" is one that is built from a new body/frame/engine... but the rational is flawed. For example, take a rusted to death Model A body, which is hardly usable. By the time the body is fixed, there maybe 75% of it being new sheet metal. How is that different than someone who just buys a new body? Coolness/******** or talent factor aside, it's basically the same thing. Guys accepted here, a**** a population generally harder-core than your typical car enthusiast, build rods with new frames and crate engines all the time. Same with new dropped axles and suspensions, the list goes on. So if a person were to build a beautiful, traditional styled roadster out of a brookville body, aftermarket deuce rails, and tri-carbed SBC, decked out with all the right stuff, just new, would that be considered a kit car? No.

A street beast is about the closest you could get to a "kit car". They look HORRIBLE

 

That Drunk guy....you know, David H***elhoff had one.

 

So, form of payment for parts would make a car a kit car? How does that work?

 

Don't H***le the Hoff

 

...... our own definition ..........


Isn't this an oxy*****. If I would have been able to do this is school, I sure would have made better grades.
Definition=black and white
Opinion= grey area

There is a kit car industry and their definition would be something like a kit (almost everything you need from one source) to ***emble a car or rebody a car.

 

That about sums it up for me.

 

This is a kit car:





Oh, but wait a minute, I didn't pay for it with a credit card. I wrote a check. Several of them as a matter of fact!

But it didn't come with any instructions so I had to kinda figger some things out on my own:







And there was some fabrication I had to do, albeit relatively minor stuff. But I was able to turn it into this:




So, is it a kit car? Absolutely. Is it a hot rod? We think so.

 

I always think of some kind of VW Manx or a Lambo kit built on a Fiero ch***is when I hear "Kit Car". Not Hot Rod.

See: http://www.kitcarmagazine.com

- Joe

EDIT: Isn't there a company that advertizes in Rod and Custom that makes Shoebox body panels that bolt (glue?) onto an early 90's T-Bird?

 

I built a gl*** 32 3 window back in 98. Many people, mostly those who never built anything, refered to it as a 'kit'.
No doubt it was a gl*** body on a new rails..
But the work that went in to it in building it was no different than building a genuine Henry 32..save for the rust repair.
I too would use the term before i actually built one..
It dosn't take long to understand it's not a 'kit' once you get involved.
I've had my hand in many original steel builds as well, and the process is pretty much the same..
A "kit" to me would be something that was exactly that. A vehicle that was designed solely with the intent of using a donor car as it's supply of parts, NOT something that still required imagination, fabrication and to ME, good old fashioned part's scrounging to aquire what was needed to build it.

There's a company out there producing Cobra's that use fox body mustang's as donor car's. from what i've been told, pretty much everything needed to ***emble (key word, ***emble) thier car come's from the donor..
That's more of a "kit" to me than a gl*** bodied hot rod.
Buy the Cobra, buy the mustang, mix them together and you have a car..NO, not that simple, hopefully you get what i mean.

SURE they pretty much ALL will need new part's as well so i don't even bother with that whole debate. I could care less if a guy write's a check, uses his credit card or cashes in his great grandfather's coil collection.. Again, to me It's NOT how you pay for the part's, it's what's done with them that matters.

Building my 3 window was nice because i didn't have to repair the tin as i will have to on the Henry 5 window i have.. But the differences otherwise will be few.

This is strickly my opinion and therefor dosn't mean anything

Tony

 

It's hard to call a Hotrod a "kit car". But there are those ones that come with all the parts but the engine and tires. Those are kitcars to me. Always hated that term.

 

So do I!

 

I think the answer to that lays in the word "kit"
From Webster:
1dialect British : a wooden tub2 a (1): a collection of articles usually for personal use <a travel kit> (2): a set of tools or implements <a carpenter's kit> (3): a set of parts to be ***embled or worked up <a model-airplane kit> (4): a packaged collection of related material <a convention kit> (5)chiefly British : gear <run over to my billet and get some overnight kit — Lionel Shapiro> b: a container for any of such sets or collections3: a group of persons or things —usually used in the phrase the whole kit and caboodle

So, I would say a kit car is a car ***embled from a group of parts that all or most came as a group from a single source who engineered them to fit and function together.

 

Well i have a gl*** 32 coupe. Now with that said i have done more body rework to this car then i did building my old 56 Chevy Bel Air. I Moved the trans hump down 5 inchs, Made the windshild swing in and out like a Henry 32 Rewoeked the trunk to get the car to sit lower. Reworked the window molding to fit beter (longer on one and taller on the other) Made the header plael above the windshild to look close to stock. Moved the eng forward 2 inc so i could run a big dissy. And just for you to shoot me down put Heat and A/C and defrost in it and a heated seat for my bad back. Had to make my door gl*** paterns and left and right are not the same . I had to think up how and what to do to get what i wanted. So if you want to call it a kit so be it but it has a ton of sleep less nights of think how i can do this or that in it. So call it what you will but to me it has more soul the my other builds

 

If you want call it a hot rod and use a Full fibergl*** body that is cheating in my book plus Fibergl*** makes me itch so I guess im allergic to kit cars too&#8230;..

 

Aftermarket bodies and parts catalogs= kit cars!

 

well...... I guess that depends on your state (that you live in, not your state of mind).

nebraska say's, ( my paraphrasing) a vehicle that significantly differs from factory ***embled components that were not originally available for that year of manufacture. how ever that does not seem to include engine ****** frame swap, they go by the vin plate.

but a hot rod can be anything.

-------
the old man