in florida you need to pass the visual inspection. rear view mirrow. I belive only one side mirror. two head lights, brake lights, mmmm then you get into the safety brakes all 4 wheels need to have brakes I belive.

I think this is how it goes then you can are allowed to apply for a title

 

and you got a good idea though. I had that idea once. but I need many things to start. tube bender, jake press, welding equipment (which you said you had) then you need to get into the design of the whole vehicle. one tip would be design the vehicle of triangles. because triangles would be the strongest layout of the bars. then you have to make sure the bars are the right degree you want them at. then that is just the chassis. then you get into the front end. you have to either purchase spindes or machining your own. then you get into steering and where everything is going to be. and don't forget the little things you run into like header location becuase you can't just buy them off the shelf the way you want it. then you get into the rear end. you have to make sure your axle is square. im done hah

that is just the many things you have to do.

good luck and if you are serious i'll be glad to help ya out

-garrett

 

and I don't get what you mean by using a 3 series shell. they aren't designed like that where you can just take one off of a preexisting bmw. you have to either get a fiberglass mold or maybe carbon fiber if you got the bucks. and there is people that do that.

 

Not to bust a bubble, but you say you cant afford a corvette chassis, but the build up you describe will run well over $30,000 if it was built properly.

How can you afford a custom tube chassis but not a corvette chassis?

 

yea first time I agree with your goofy ass



how CAN you afford that?

 

Sent you a PM on the welding stuff -

As far as making it legal - unless you go the kit car route - I would highly recommend you buying either a wrecked car - or a very cheap car and going that route.

It's one thing to title the car - it's a whole other ball game when it comes to insuring. Having a valid VIN # is a great first step.

I looked at possibly doing this before I got the Porsche. BMW's are still a premium over a domestic mustang -

If I wanted the BMW - I would go with the 318i shell, strip it, then stuff a big block motor in it and have a great sleeper. Should be able to go real light with the body, especially if you d a majority in fiberglass. You better have madd welding skilz - cause the fabrication is not for the faint of heart.

My next car I will probably do an early Porsche 911 - 1970-1973 - stick on some wide ass flares and a later flat 6 from a 90's 911. The early ones are easy to keep under 2000 lbs - the later flat 6's of the 90's cars get to 300 hp pretty easy.

 

Early warn, rambling causes this to wind up going over why I think the DOT is a stinker it is about importing cars, but maybe a way of getting around it.

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I was reading through some of this stuff and got kinda interested, looked at a few other documents as well. Couldn't one hypothetically buy whatever car abroad, dissasemble it to the point where it's "car parts" and not a "motor vehicle" to avoid all the nightmare of DOT/EPA regulations, and ship the pieces here to be reassembled and registered as an "assembled-from-parts" car?

The Florida title forms are a little confusing, boats and motor vehicles/mobile homes share the same form, and it expressly forbid registering a vessel that has been "rebuilt" as homemade. I think by that it means salvaged-and-refitted more than "taken apart and put together again", but it seems that "vessel" is referring to the boats only anyways.

http://www.actcfl.org/pdf/HSMV_87002.pdf

Obviously, the above doesn't mean shit if the gov'ment is finnicky about importing car parts (I don't know much about this and didn't see anything about it, but isn't there something about engines and emissions?), or if the DOT flips out over a non-US-compliant imported vehicle.

I don't really see why they should in the first place, the restrictions on a kit/assembled from parts car are really damn minimal, and if any of you have ever gotten curious and seen just how hard it is to import a GT-R or Peugot or whatever, you know how exhaustive the governments process is (crash testing, emissions, etc), not to mention those damn bonds. They seem to take the attitude that it's fine to take your chances in your own homebrew deathbox, but if you want a car made abroad (with actual safety standards, albeit foriegn), go fuck yourself or wade through a quagmire of paperwork and expensive modifications.

My best guess is that they figure homemade cars exist in such small numbers that they aren't a direct threat to mainstream automobilia (I don't think that's a word), but an influx of foriegn cars would deluge the DMV with all sorts of wild and crazy shit from other countries, making it damn near impossible to get any kind of standards for US vehicles. Since building a car takes more skill, time, and probably money than just ordering one on the internet or something and putting it on a boat, I can begin to see where they're coming from.

If you registered the reassembled foriegn car as homemade, it seems to me like you're willing to take all the liabilities that entails, while the DOT's process is more making it "official" and giving you the same basic gaurantees you'd get if you bought a car originally meant for the US market (i.e. the title being "HomeMadeGTRLookAlikePleaseDon'tBlowUp" versus "Nissan Skyline GTR, imported by Motorex and meeting all relevant US Saftey and Emissions Standards")

If Uncle Sam isn't willing to play ball with that, I suppose you could modify whatever it is you're importing enough to where it isn't enough like anything foriegn to raise any kind of suspicion. Make if faster, even.

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Anyhow, I've typed too much and I'll probably get flamed for this whole rambling affair. Other than what I was guessing, anyone else think of why this might not work?