Restomod Fans?

[NiftyNiblick]

We’ve got a beautiful 1955 BelAir restomod on a Roadster Shop chassis with a custom made version of the GM RamJet 350 crate engine. It’s painted the burgundy color of the fortieth anniversary edition 1993 Corvette and has a black leather interior. Every piece of chrome trim was repaired and re-dipped.

As far as specs go, the RamJet 350 met all our requirements for a street rod, but it was assembled from very mediocre components—2-bolt mains, cast crank, iron heads, stamped rocker arms, just a lot of junk in general. There was too much into the car to go with an engine like that so we had the same essential motor done right—Brodix block, Wiseco rotating assembly, Edelbrock heads, Comp Cams valvetrain, etc.

One nice touch is the intake rig itself. GM put the throttle body on the front of the plenum, this substantially reducing the similarity in appearance to the original Rochester RamJet from the fifties. An outfit in Arizona makes essentially the same rig, but with the throttle body on the driver’s side, just as on the original. It looks much more retro.

Another unusual thing, perhaps, was our choice to restomod a four-door pillared sedan. I personally don’t like coupes unless they’re two-seaters. To me, if it’s going to be a four-seater, than every seat must have a door. We went with four individual seats instead of the original two benches, but they’re made to look period correct with their upholstery pattern and the absence of head restraints. Other nice touches include Vintage Air, electric windows and locks with modern remote control keyless entry, Classic Instruments gauges in the original style instrument pod, a reproduction of the original steering wheel scaled down to a more modern fifteen inches, and more practically speaking, a 3.70:1 Detroit Locker in back.

The car does not have an elaborate audio system, however. It’s got a period correct looking radio with just the one speaker on the passenger side of the dashboard. I never listen to music when I drive, but my wife mildly disagreed with this decision. I’d already agreed to a 4L65E instead of a Tremec 5-speed, however, so I held my ground against a lot of watts of noise.

We’ve got six figures into the car, but it would not have that value on the collector market. If we were looking to flip the car to a collector, then an accurate, concours restoration would have been in order. People won’t pay big bucks for a restomod, because for big bucks, they can commission a restomod build done with their own ideas. One commissions a restomod to enjoy it oneself.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

If I had the coin I would totally get a singer 911.

http://singervehicledesign.com/

[NiftyNiblick]

911s are lovely machines. no question. They came out when I was in college. Boston was lousy with 356s at the time. They were everywhere, and they were nice machines in their own right.