Bud Short is well known for having some of the nicest classic kit cars out there. Long ago (it’s been far too long since I talked to most of my kitcar friends) he sent me this letter and pictures,
“I refused to use any VW parts on the Avenger. Since the chassis is Corvair, I use all Corvair suspension, trans, engine and all the related stuff that is attached. The windshield wiper assembly, instrument cluster, dash switches, defroster, horns, engine compartment hinges, most of the headlight assembly, side window roll up mechanisms, door latches, door handles, and tail lights are Corvair, (of course the windshield and windshield chrome are Corvair). I used early 80’s GM rearview mirrors and Harley Davidson front turn signals, I looked long and hard at a lot of mirrors and front turn signals before I decided that this was the best way to do it.”
Original build pictures:
After that build:
Bud, if you see this, please update me as to what you’ve been working on the last few years!
Jim found this partial kit bured in a junkyard in Maryland, sitting on a VW chassis. Asking price was $500, so Jim wanted to know what it was… It seems to be a FiberFab Jamaican. Edit/Oops: No, it’s an Amante GT!
To put that a little more into context, here’s John’s very in-progress Jamaican. His was built around a Karman-Ghia chassis with a tube chassis laid over top of it. I actually think he’s sold it since, but in these photos he’s about $4000 into the project. I wish I had a better set of photos of a Jamaican to show you today — it’s a beautiful, classy and ahead-of-its time car.
In order to raise money for the The Haven of Rest in Michigan, a supporter donated this sweet (and very “stock” looking) FiberFab Aztec 7 kit car. Very cool… but I have to wonder if it’s the old (and sexist, given that I met my first wife through our mutual interest in kit cars) cliche of the wife forcing the sale, because I’m guessing some real time went into this.
Long ago Jim D. bought this first generation Aztec from a friend. This is a picture of it back in 1976. He’s asked me to try and help him find other pictures of Aztecs of this era, so if you have some email them to me, and I’ll try and dig some more of from my archives (I recently posted Eric’s Aztec GT).
I remember when I was in highschool and desperately wanted my first kit car, my father and I nearly bought one of these, although the owner had build a V8 chassis for it rather than a VW based one.
Long before FiberFab’s hit cars like the Avenger, there was the Aztec GT, and the car that would become the namesake of the Aztec 7 (due, they say, to its quality construction). It’s also probably one of the first kits to have gullwing doors.
Eric Martin, who runs (or ran; I’m not sure if the company still exists) the chassis manufacturer A&E — on whose custom chassis this originally VW kit is built — built up an aerokit for his Aztec GT, making it look far more produced and modern. It was done using urethane foam covered in fiberglass mat and cloth. I believe this was one of the first cars, if not the first car, that I ever posted to the site.
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