niekamp inspired?

im working on building a car to sell and im sort of using the niekamp car as inspiration...im starting with a 28 sport coupe body, moving the rear section around adding new body lines basically making it not look like a coupe any more...
now in the end i am not at all building a copy of the niekamp car but it will be pretty low...shortened a few inches...stretched wheel base full track nose, hood and belly pan...im planning to paint it differently also

im sort of stuck right now on wether or not to weld the drivers door shut..the car doesnt have doors that open and close right now...i will have to make everything...so im thinking it might be sort of neat to have that whole side of the car smoothed out...

but will this greatly cut into my final sale value, i am only building the car to sell in the end...but i want it to be something different then the every day off the street car

its getting quarter eliptic springs...and all old parts aside from the 302 motor and c-4 ******

thanks
zach

 

Hey,

It looks like you're at that age old question all designers must ask.....

"Who is my client, and what am i trying to say to him?"

If you buildin with an eye toward unique....serious body mods with no
fidelity to any existing car, and there in lies its virtue, no doors seems
a no brainer. If, on the other hand, your serious intent is just retail, ya
doors would be an easier sell, but is that your true target?

I love shaping metal myself, but few people actually have any idea just
how much work it is to change the line of a metal body, to say nothin of
buildin a complete car. It could get tough to get all of your time in $ back
out come sale time.

 

If you are building this for resale (and clean up the spair parts laying around the shop) don't go any were past primer and a running roller. That will make you some money, and time spent on details is time and money lost.

 

Good point... i used to build houses back in Wisconsin, and a custom house built on "spec" dont sell for as much as one built per order... unless you get someone on the hook for this car before you get to the point of paint and details, and you have half his cash in your pocket, get rid of it at the "drive it away and finish it yourself" stage

 

I agree with 37Kid. I have good friend who builds top notch cars, on the
turnkey jobs he never can bill for all his time. The details will kill you.

 

thanks everyone,
im not going for "PERFECT"
more or less just a shiny paint hot rod with almost nothing invested in parts and a few months work

i guess people are buying t-buckets with no doors at all so i should be alright with just one door..plus its going to be a real steel body so that should attract some attention in my favor

i guess i will get the rest of the body done...then build the p***engers door and see how that goes....if evertyhing goes smooth...then i'll do a 2nd door...if not...then i'll go smooth

i already cut and stretched (but not finished) the rear quarters so that the interior is shorter like in the pictures i posted....the back edge is moved 4 inches front...and i already added the body lines to the bottom of them also...
the door will get a body line on the bottom like a 30/31...not a step plate like a 28/29...

the cowl im unsure of right now as the coupe upper body line is about 1-3/4 hhigher then the roadster...so i cant just use roadster posts
i channeled the whole body 4 inches over the frame so i want to leave it be the bit taller then a roadster as to not stickout of the car quite as far...but i dont know if the bigger step in the coupe cowl will look alright

thats a minor detail though when the time comes

anyways, thanks alot everyone
zach

 

If you make the interior smaller you are cutting out the possibality of selling the car to a tall guy. Same thing with paint, if it is a color a future buyer doesn't like he'll walk by it. I'd pick a number you think you'd want for the finished car, keep track of your time and you'll have an idea if there is any profit in it.

 

You got that right. You might even stop at "a nicely detailed roller" & leave the paint , drivetrain & interior to the dreamer.

You'll never come out finishing one, unless you can hang a well known builders name on it, Brizio, Boyd, etc.

Also, make sure it fits big guys, wider audience and all that. It seems nowadays the guys who can write the fat checks also have fat guts. (no offense, I do too )

My motto is "sell the dream".

 

I have the issues of Rod and Custom from when Jake Jacobs restored the Niekamp roadster. The cl***ic lines of this car are unique. One of the reasons is that Jake reported that the doors were shortened 2-1/2 inches. That is a lot to take out of the ****pit of a '29 roadster. The37kid is right about making the ****pit smaller and thus potentially losing taller buyers. Even with the taller coupe body, the channeling will reduce the already small '29 ****pit.

 

yeah i guess i should do both doors so as to fit bigger people in easier, also with the body shortened 3 inches in the doors and 4 inches in the rear of the interior its still longer then my roadster and the doors are still 2.5 inches longer...so it will be easier to get in then a stock roadster

the more i think about it...i think it will be easier to make a working door then it will be to make a whole side of a car "PERFECT" so you dont see wavy paint

im basically building what i like and going to see what i get out of it..im not going to have much invested at all and i want the finished project to be somewhat of an advertising device to hopefully draw more work to me to where i can collect checks for my actual time

its alot of a learning venture to see if i can build a car to sell and see if people like my style of building a car...but i do want to make some money off of it

thanks
zach