I’ve always thought of the Fiberfab Bonito as the “gentleman’s GT40″… a more elegant replica of the GT40 than spot-on replicas or the macho Avengers. Darren in Yorkshire, UK has his up for sale. He’s owned it for about twenty years, putting in £2000 last year to put in a 2L engine (it’s on a VW chassis with disc brakes all around). As far as I know he’s the second owner, with the original builder spending about £6500 to complete it. It needs to be painted, but other than that it’s a solid car.

If you’re interested, drop him a line at darren.r.collins@hotmail.co.uk. As well as straight sale he’s open to interesting car and motorcycle trades.

The Bonito was built in the seventies by Fiberfab Germany (so you’ll only usually find these in Europe), one of the few exotic kits of this type to fit four passengers. About a thousand were made until production ended in 1978, and probably only about fifty are currently complete and on the road. Windshield and lights were out of a Ford 12M P6, and the rear window came from a Opel Record C. The last few pictures here are from the assembly manual, which is still available care of FF Germany.

Speaking of the Nova, here’s one for sale in Neath Port Talbot, UK (#200233437106). It’s built to original specifications with no modifications, on a 1500cc 1969 VW Beetle chassis. Everything is new and it’s barely been driven, with less than 1700 miles recorded. A great car that’s perfect for someone looking to own one of the kit car industry’s classic designs in it’s original forms — the Nova/Sterling has been through at least a dozen iterations under a dozen corporations.

In the early eighties Tim Dutton (who now makes amphibious cars) brought the Cimbria kit car to the UK and rebranded it as the “Eagle SS” after making minor cosmetic changes like pop-up lights molded from a Porsche 928. Ironically, this was done to challenge the Nova’s reign as the exotic kit car of choice, and the Cimbria was based on the Sterling, the American version of the Nova! The first versions of the Eagle SS were built on a VW Beetle chassis like the Cimbria and Nova/Sterling, but later versions actually managed a front-engined setup on a Ford Cortina driveline — a remarkable achievement given the car’s extremely low profile!

This Eagle SS on eBay (#280240230047, currently at a scant no-reserve £100 with two days to go — wow) is one of the early VW versions, and while it’s running and relatively solid, needs attention from top to bottom to get it looking good. Be sure to check out the Eagle Owners Club website for more information if you’re interested.

They do say the last 5% is always the hardest, right?

Herman (junkmanherman@yahoo.com) has got this Invader GT up for sale in Millington, Michigan. He says it runs well and has good tires and a solid 1500cc VW chassis, but the windshield has been knocked out and will need to be replaced as well as a wide range of cosmetic and interior work being needed. I believe the windshield in these was from a Karman Ghia — later versions raked it back a little more which improved the look of the car quite a bit.

Asking price is only $500.

Tanya has posted a giant set of VW-related vehicles to her Flikr set, all for sale for her father Robert (click the link for his number). The set includes a Gazella, and MG, a Beetle with square-light widebody fenders, a dunebuggy, a Thing, and more, including this very very dirty first-gen Fiberfab Aztec 7… Given its state of cleanliness, at first glance it looks very recoverable and solid. It’s located in Florida if you’d like to go check it out.

Ok, so I wasn’t going to post, but then I saw this outrageously ugly “Lamborghini Countach style” kit car on eBay (#190231650810) and had to mention it. I’d say this easily out-uglies the simplified Countach, the Corbett Countach, and the recently posted British pseudo-Countach (and other oddballs like this DIY supercar). With an opening bid of $1,000 needed, my feeling is that the cost of getting this body shell looking decent is higher than it would cost to simply start from scratch. But who knows… to each their own.

Apparently it’s sitting on a tube chassis of some sort that hasn’t been completed, and may be set up for an Olds Toronado driveline. The seller bought it as is and it’s sat since — I guess they’ve come to their senses and are trying to dump the project, but I’d say it’s going to be a hard sell. The description says it was “molded from a Lamborghini”, but I don’t think there’s any chance of that. Pretty much every dimension is wrong.

Edit: This car has since been identified as a “Condor” kit car.

First of all, I’m away from the Internet for a week, so I won’t be able to update. But in that period, please do email me your car pictures and stories to snowrail@gmail.com and I’ll post them as soon as I return. Don’t think the site is going back into hibernation!!!

Years ago I saw this Kelmark GT parked in a used car lot in Toronto. It was built on a Mid-Engineering chassis with a V8 mated to a 4-speed Corvair transmission. The body had been modified with a flip-rear and a different brake setup at the front… I much prefer the Kelmark GT to the Ferrari it was based on — its muscular build really puts the effete Dino to shame. Not that the Dino isn’t a beautiful car, but it’s lacking in a certain “toughness”.

I drove this example a few times and it was truly terrifying — mountains of power for such a light car, and unbearably loud, coupled with the all-to-true homebuilt possibility that self-destruction was imminent due to some construction shortcoming. The second time I was pulled over within a two hundred feet of the driveway.