Hello from Hexham

After mulling it over for 15 years or so while I had a family I’ve paid a small sum to be at the back of the queue for my kit.

I’ve messed around with cars, frequently old Alfas (and one Beta) most of my life and built a kit although that was a Caterham Roadsport and there are Lego sets that are more complex than that.

Having had so many Alfas I can’t bear rust although as I’m into motoring icons I am presently saving what was a phenomenally rusty and dead mx5 mk1 I call Lazerus - the welding - and there was a stupendous amount is done now so I’ll have that to mess about with as I wait.

I’m extremely anxious about engine for the Stratos (grief even writing the name gives me goosebumps) project and getting the right spec v6 for me so I’ll be asking you kind folks lots about engine spec as I try and amass the bits I’ll need.

Welcome Andrew joining the club is the right thing to do these guys have a wealth of knowledge which they gladly pass on , you have excess to all areas and when you read through old threads you will pick up alot. I'm sure advise will be along shortly from more knowledgeable people than me.

Hello.

I went to Hexam once !

Hi Andrew, welcome to the club and well done in getting your name down for a kit! Don't suppose your decision was affected in any way by the sight of half a dozen cars passing through Hexham early last August, on our Northern Run....? ;)

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Originally Posted by AndrewF

After mulling it over for 15 years or so while I had a family...

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Welcome.

Always wise to take your time with these big decisions and just crack on with the little decisions in the meantime :D

Hi Andrew welcome did you go for the hawk?

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Originally Posted by Martin0074

Hi Andrew welcome did you go for the hawk?

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Yes - I gather it’s supposed to be the closest to what Lancia made and that’s what I’m after.

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Originally Posted by Normb666

Hi Andrew, welcome to the club and well done in getting your name down for a kit! Don't suppose your decision was affected in any way by the sight of half a dozen cars passing through Hexham early last August, on our Northern Run....? ;)

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I didn’t know you had. I’d have been lining the road if I’d known. I presume you were on your way over hart side which is a regular route for me. If anyone is coming through Hexham with their car at the weekends do let me know.

Hi Andrew, welcome to the club, forgive me because I am biased but I can STRONGLY recommend the Busso 2.5, it loves to rev, goes plenty quick enough and is roughly £40,000.00 cheaper than a Dino... (and better!)

Try and pick up an old 156 asap with a half decent motor and crack on, to begin with there is enough to going on with the Hawk to keep you busy/happy.

Also use everything you can from the donor car, all brakes bolted straight onto my 2015 Hawk & so far they even appear to work!!!

Good luck,

Tim.

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Originally Posted by AndrewF

Yes - I gather it’s supposed to be the closest to what Lancia made and that’s what I’m after.

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So have you got your name down for the Hawk's latest creation with the Steel Tub ?

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Originally Posted by ducatiman

So have you got your name down for the Hawk's latest creation with the Steel Tub ?

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I doubt the steel is smelted for my frame it’s so far in the future so in a queue for something- I don’t mind what - if economics was the deciding factor I dare say we’d all have a supercharged S2 Elise - having had a caterham I quite like a space frame - it’s labour intensive but very rigid. Obviously for originality I gather a steel tub is grand. Obviously in the numbers hawk will produce in and the methods the cost is probably reversed so do I understand and can well believe the steel tub is dearer.

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Originally Posted by AndrewF

I doubt the steel is smelted for my frame it’s so far in the future so in a queue for something- I don’t mind what - if economics was the deciding factor I dare say we’d all have a supercharged S2 Elise - having had a caterham I quite like a space frame - it’s labour intensive but very rigid. Obviously for originality I gather a steel tub is grand. Obviously in the numbers hawk will produce in and the methods the cost is probably reversed so do I understand and can well believe the steel tub is dearer.

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when I was talking to Gerry during my visit he mentioned his steel tub replica would be indistinguishable from an original but would have a 200k+ price tag

Thanks - I’m an Alfa enthusiast and currently have among other things a hill climbing Alfasud sprint (with an air leak in the fuel pick up behind the facet somewhere) which I need to fix.

Anyway yes Busso. It’s very early days and I know from the AROC how things are. The other question is who builds the motor up - in the Alfa community it sometimes feels like you have to be invited to have your engine worked on which is why I have a ‘Sud. The best Alfa engineer i met doesn’t even advertise any more and just looks after a handful of special customers.

Who built your motor?

Is that just the chassis or the whole car. I can well believe a Dino motor will be approaching 80 -100k when fit. If a two bed flat by the sea in Cornwall is 500k/700k, £200k when you can have so much pride in and fun with it feels like a bargain. Mind you you can have a lot of pride and fun with a Capri (30k), original XR2 (20k) or a Caterham (35k) which will set you hair on fire.

I once read about a bloke who spent years building up a R4 alpine - scoured Europe for years for the bits - amazing thing - cost low, highest effort and wow factor.

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Originally Posted by Martin0074

when I was talking to Gerry during my visit he mentioned his steel tub replica would be indistinguishable from an original but would have a 200k+ price tag

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£200k!!! Golly, you could almost get a proper LB for that if you cut back a bit and decided not to go for some of the carbon parts. :p

Genuine point swirling in my head tho. Surely the kits available now effectively allow people to build/own/order cars that are better than the originals so it seems like a case of reverse-engineering gone array to develop something less good than you can currently have, just because you can, when at the end of the day it will never be any more original than anything else that isn't, err, original. :confused:

Takes all sorts tho and I'm all for folk with more money than sense spreading it about a bit. :cool:

The £200k price Gerry quoted was an estimate of a completed car. Not just the steel tub. No matter what he does it'll always be possible to tell them from an original. Unless you use a Stratos as a donor car. Now don't laugh at that. If you go to Goodwood or Silverstone and watch the Cobras racing just how many of those do you think are the genuine article and how many are ally bodied replicas. A LOT more than you might think, wreck an original and it's a serious wallet dent but a replica. Well, still expensive but not to the same extent. So, there are people out there rallying their Stratos and a replacement steel tub makes a lot of sense...

And yes, I actually considered selling my car a couple of years ago as it would have funded a steel tub and Dino drivetrain. The sale of the second car, once completed, would have financed the remainder. But it's not going to happen.I'm going to need the cash from the second one for a house move....

Guy

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Originally Posted by renmure

£200k!!! Golly, you could almost get a proper LB for that if you cut back a bit and decided not to go for some of the carbon parts. :p

Genuine point swirling in my head tho. Surely the kits available now effectively allow people to build/own/order cars that are better than the originals so it seems like a case of reverse-engineering gone array to develop something less good than you can currently have, just because you can, when at the end of the day it will never be any more original than anything else that isn't, err, original. :confused:

Takes all sorts tho and I'm all for folk with more money than sense spreading it about a bit. :cool:

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You could say the same for the Lynx D type, a Montreal on carbs ( the non burning sort of Montreal) the Eagle e type. I saw a man with an F40 bring his car to a show, unload it, start it, load it up and that was it. Maybe just owning it made him happy. But I want to tinker and drive a car I have and you guys can do that with yours and you built em and you can fix em whether you spent 20k or 200k on it.

Jim, yes, you can have something now that's effectively a "modern, upgraded" Stratos, while staying true to the spirit of the original. And that's the reason that LB had to close the order book (for now) - rather a lot of people think the same way! I'm in that camp - I love the whole restomod idea. But, there are others for whom their Strat has to be as close to an original car as possible. Up till now that's still been a fair way short, but with Gerry's steel car you could actually build an exact copy. And in some ways, 200k is a bit of a bargain when you see the price of originals - you've got a brand new car for less than half price of a 50-year-old one. You couldn't call it a Lancia, although I bet almost all of them will end up with Lancia badging, but it's still a brand new old car, a bit like all these continuations that Jaguar and Aston are turning out.
All that matters really is that you build the car you want, and sod everyone else :)

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Originally Posted by Guy Mayers

The £200k price Gerry quoted was an estimate of a completed car. Not just the steel tub. No matter what he does it'll always be possible to tell them from an original. Unless you use a Stratos as a donor car. Now don't laugh at that. If you go to Goodwood or Silverstone and watch the Cobras racing just how many of those do you think are the genuine article and how many are ally bodied replicas. A LOT more than you might think, wreck an original and it's a serious wallet dent but a replica. Well, still expensive but not to the same extent. So, there are people out there rallying their Stratos and a replacement steel tub makes a lot of sense...

And yes, I actually considered selling my car a couple of years ago as it would have funded a steel tub and Dino drivetrain. The sale of the second car, once completed, would have financed the remainder. But it's not going to happen.I'm going to need the cash from the second one for a house move....

Guy

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It’s old adage “I’ve have this brush for 40 years and in all that time it’s only had five new heads and four handles”

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Originally Posted by Normb666

All that matters really is that you build the car you want, and sod everyone else :)

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That would be my philosophy right there.

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Originally Posted by AndrewF

You could say the same for the Lynx D type, a Montreal on carbs ( the non burning sort of Montreal) the Eagle e type.

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I could if I really knew what they were. :)

I wasn't having a dig at anything or anyone. I'm just looking at it from a simplistic viewpoint that upwards of £200k is a lot of money to spend on something that's "indistinguishable from the original" without being original when the entry point for buying an original is "only" 2 or 3 times that amount and if you've got upwards of £200k to spend on a replica then you've likely got enough loose change to get an original original. The only guy I know who fits into that camp owns an LB. Make of that what you will.

Mind you, as Guy says, maybe owners of originals will buy replicas of their cars in the same way that I bought a 1/18th scale model of mine. Well, actually I bought a 1/1 replica of my 1/18 scale model so that blows sense out of the water I guess. Anyhow, as I say, it takes all sorts.

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Originally Posted by AndrewF

I saw a man with an F40 bring his car to a show, unload it, start it, load it up and that was it. Maybe just owning it made him happy. But I want to tinker and drive a car I have and you guys can do that with yours and you built em and you can fix em whether you spent 20k or 200k on it.

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He possibly only went along to the show in an unselfish manner to give pleasure to the dozens of folk attending who'd never seen an F40 and started it up for the 100s of folk who'd never heard one. I'm sure he'd rather be out driving it.

Anyhow...... Busso engine gets my vote as well :D

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Originally Posted by AndrewF

You could say the same for the Lynx D type, a Montreal on carbs ( the non burning sort of Montreal) the Eagle e type. I saw a man with an F40 bring his car to a show, unload it, start it, load it up and that was it. Maybe just owning it made him happy. But I want to tinker and drive a car I have and you guys can do that with yours and you built em and you can fix em whether you spent 20k or 200k on it.

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watched a YouTube video the other day of the guy who bought the Chardonnay blue Listerbell , it was parked next to a concourse Lamborghini Muira next to that was a porsche 918 plus others yet he stated out of all of them if he had to choose it would be the LB He said the LB cost less that the engine rebuild on the muira! At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what it is if it floats your boat and lights a fire what else can you ask for! These things are meant to be enjoyed otherwise what’s the point

What is original though. My ‘sud is an 88 33 motor on a 1983 shell with a early sud ti close ratio box circa 72. There are MX5s the length of the country with Meiser R suspension, Wilwood brakes, recaros, adjustable control arms, bracing all over and a turbo. There are even mx5s with corvette engines. I suppose these cars still have a chassis number from their manufacture. But that’s it really and they drive nothing like the cars that left the factory.

It shouldnt be that much of a debate over what is original - it's what it came out of the manufacturers factory with. Restomods and replicas are a different kettle of fish - some equally as nice to own as a thoroughbred original - and as commented with the Chardonnay blue Stratos replica (good choice of colour incidentally) - sometimes more fun !

For what it's worth, my opinion has always been that the 'Original' Stratos was a 'Kit Car'. It just happened to be assembled by 'Lancia'.

What he says ^^

They even managed to put it together slightly slapdash, just to stay true to the kit car ethos of the 70s. Top blokes.

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Originally Posted by Longtimefan

For what it's worth, my opinion has always been that the 'Original' Stratos was a 'Kit Car'. It just happened to be assembled by 'Lancia'.

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I agree with that as well. It's one of the things that, in my opinion, make Stratos replicas really ideal kit cars. All the idiosyncrasies like cheapo drop down side windows, less than ideal window sealing and weather proofing, simple external catches for securing bodywork, simple scoops and holes in the roof for ventilation, fiberglass bodywork, etc. Infact all the sort of rough compromises that come with a traditional kit car are. with the Stratos, replicating (or improving on) the original rough compromises that came with the original cars.

It does make you wonder if Lancia had not imploded in on it self if the stratos would have been resurrected along the line of the current stratos recreation

Makes sense to me. I at the start of this journey but Gerry sent me the manual to be going on with and I’ve set about buying bits - there isn’t a lot to buy is there. I feel like the apprentice sent of to Fiat with a barrow to get 500 off of lock sets and latches to add to one body and one engine gearbox set.

Hi Andrew - also in Hexham and at exactly the same stage!

Well that’s news. It’ll turn out we know or know of each other. Have you got your kit or are you waiting?

Can you imagine two Stratos on the Wentworth - that will blow minds.