Beauiful car. Until I saw the interior. Ferrari met a grand prix at a car show, and made a baby!
Custom2M4,
Agreed...but everything is so win, win in a 4 step process!
Step One....Remove the interior/seats and place into another of my 88 Fiero with matching 3800-SC/5-Speed Step Two...Locate pair of Fiero seats...might as well find an earlier set with the head rest speakers. Step Three...Order new 355 interior from Rob Amida and matching seat covers from Mr. Mikes. Step Four...Install new 355 Interior and Seat covers
But I would have to agree with Bad Cornflakes...not worth what they are asking...cut it in half and we would be a lot closer to reality....will watch and wait!
I agree that the interior of this car is an absolute killer for me. I also do not like some of the touches such as the battery in what little trunk is available or the mechanical "stick" rear deck lid hold open device. The F355 may use this type of mechanical device but a set of Rodney's replacement component for the torsion bar would look much better IMHO. With $8k to $10k in interior and under hood improvements this would be a very nice vehicle but you likely would be very difficult to sell it to someone for the $45K plus cost.
I looked over this auction the other night and was impressed with the kit, interior,ect....Then I get to the 3800 install and it looks like **** ....Why spend all that money on looks to half ass the motor swap...This is not the first kit car I have seen this happen to...I don't understand spending all the time and money only to skimp on the install.
Certain aspects I really like (exterior body mainly), but then there are several others that just make you question why? Fuel cell in general is a question, but then you see the fill point is vertical. How does that work w/o putting fuel all over the front area. The car has the ABS module installed, but is running stock 88 front suspension w/o wheel sensors, so how's that work? Looks like they are running the 3800 car brake master cylinder... bust stock 88 Fiero front calipers... how does that change the bias? Its an 88 fiero, but they grafted the 3800 cradle/rear suspension to pieces of an 84-87 cradle to attach it to the chassis... what kind of bumpsteer issues will it now have? Does it just have rear ABS? They reused the restrictive U exhaust portion from the stock 3800 exhaust... Looks like there is a lot of crap that is traveling front/back through the gas tank tunnel... which its cap looks to lose about 1-2" of ground clearance.
If it was mine, I would keep the body and gut the front trunk area, interior, and engine swap and redo those areas.
Why would anyone put an 84/87 cradle in an 88? I wonder what type of stress those spacers put on the rear suspension? The components are not designed to take that type of load.
------------------ 88 GT 5 Speed Black with gray interior 3800 SCII Swap. Paint in Progress
IT RUNS!! IT'S QUICK!!
"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not."
The rectangular headlights are huge missed opportunity too. Seems like I remember one of the doors in the pics hanging extremely close to the rocker panel, but is probably an adjustment.
ETA: Some of the real 355s sell on ebay for less than the asking price of this kit.
[This message has been edited by mental floss (edited 12-25-2014).]
Why would anyone put an 84/87 cradle in an 88? I wonder what type of stress those spacers put on the rear suspension? The components are not designed to take that type of load.
it gets weirder, look at the control arms, they look like GP parts to me, definitely not fiero spec. looks like he welded fiero cradle mounts to the grand prix subframe....
I think i saw this thing fuel up in Augusta about a month ago off i-20. I was checking it out because i was thinking how good it looks. When the guy pulled away, the things rasps just like a Ferrari. I would've never guessed it had a 3.8 in it. Ron
I parked next to this car at the 2013 Indian Uprising. Beautiful car. The fuel cell was moved to make room for the grand prix interior.
That makes perfect sense now...was wondering how they got the middle console to sit at the correct height...hadn't been able to put my finger on it yet...they used a fuel cell to eliminate the stock gas tank and drop the center of the center console.
Somebody spent a metric azzload of money to build that car. Personally... I like it. Including the GP interior, since it appears to have been done right. (I really would like to have that interior in my car.) The only thing I really don't like is the engine cradle. As common as the 3800 swap is, it should have been easy to retain the 88 cradle. (Unless this is a very old swap. But still...) I thought that control arm looked familiar. My G6 also has control arms that look like that.
Regardless... Too rich for my blood. Even if I preferred the 355 body over the Fiero's. Which I don't.
Why would anyone put an 84/87 cradle in an 88? I wonder what type of stress those spacers put on the rear suspension? The components are not designed to take that type of load.
No doubt that's got to be Ashlock's car. I"ve been in it and watched it being built. He's very talented. I'm one of those who thinks the Grand Prix interior looks great and certainly has a nice feel when sitting in the car. The additonaly plus is matching gauges with the engine. As many of us know, when you calculate the time, $$$, and effort $37,000 is not unreasonable at all. It's been relisted with bidding up to $14,500 now
I know the car was out on the east coast. Then in the Chicago area and was for sale for a while (don't remember what he was asking then, think it was less then its currently going for). The owner in the Chicago area also had a Testarosa kit from the same builder. I have not seen that or know if he still has it.
The interior wasn't so bad, except for the doors. All that cloth/carpet. Not a fan.
I don't know how anyone could confuse this with the real thing. The interior screams GM. Not a bad thing, but not Ferarri. The exhaust hangs down oddly & looks rinky-dink. Don't even get me started on the headlights.
As for the fuel cell, not a fan of those for an off-track car. Certainly not liking it in this car.
Not a fan of all those ridiculous releases. I like the emergency options, but the rest was like an afterthought.
I'm sure the time/effort/money were excessive, but not to my taste.
The body doesn't look badly, but why does the car keep being sold?
[This message has been edited by tshark (edited 12-28-2014).]
Not to take away from the workmanship of this car because it does take skill to make it look that clean... but I never completely understood why people blow a gazillion dollars on an entire rebody kit to make it a wanna be. The natural beauty of the car is destroyed and till you are all said and done pumping that kind of money in it in the end it's still just a fiero. An accent here and there ok but personally I like the fiero the way it is not as something it is not.
