Zack describes his Kelmark “80-90 percent complete” — judging by the pictures, he seems to me to be at the point where most old kit cars are called “100 percent complete”. He says it’s running well and that it’s currently registered in California (the car is in Roseville, CA). It’s on a VW pan with a chromed 1700cc engine, with an automated underglow kit with seven colors and ten functions, and he’s mounted real Ferrari badges on it. To be honest, I’d probably take some of them off, because I prefer the Kelmark to the 246 GT Dino that it’s inspired by, but at $6,500, this is one of the nicer Kelmark’s you’ll find for sale, let alone at that price. You can reach Zack at zquinn3@yahoo.com.
My friend Eric asked me to post this Kelmark for a friend of his, who writes,
I started to rebuild the car and when my wife bought me my dream car (1955 Chevy) so I moved it to my garage out back about 2 years ago and now I need the room and don’t have time to work on it. When I got the car out of Arizona it ran but I had to hot wire it, the wiring is a little missed up. (I did get the car running and put two new carbs on, it runs good). The engine and trans is out of a 1964 Corvair and had been rebuilt and is on a VW pan. The body is in good shape, I have all the parts seats, dash, door panel and just picket up a new wiring harness for it (not installed at this time . If you have any question’s just let me know.
I don’t think it would take much to get the car on the road.
The Car is sitting in my Heated Garage at this time and I did start working on it with my son but he his playing golf for the High school and has lost interest in it. I live in Derby Kansas Just 5 miles south of Wichita, KS. I would like to get $1,500.00 for it.
You can reach Brian at 316-788-8672.
The first picture is of the car when he got it.
Daniel in Lake Havasu City, Arizona has a nice clean Kelmark GT, visually a muscle-car meets Ferrari 246 Dino, for sale for $5,300. His is on a 1973 VW pan, built in 1991, and he says it runs great and is a previous show winner (purchased from Ed Kaltenbach in Albuquerque around 2002). Drop him a line at danielcook1@hotmail.com if you’re interested.
Kenny’s Kelmark hasn’t run for years, and is in desperate need of restoration, so he’s decided to put it up for sale. It’s on a 1966 VW pan (and titled as such), and has some upgrades including disc brakes at the front, power windows, and a dual carb/port engine. The Kelmark is one of the more refined looking kits out there (and doesn’t scream “kit car”), so even at his $2,500 asking price, it could be a great deal for someone. He’s located in Tucson, Arizona, and you can email him at weharayda@cox.net.
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.
I can’t tell you much about my old friend “R”’s Fiero-based replica of the Ferrari Dino (better known in kit form as the Kelmark GT) because he built it at the time that Ferrari was really sue-happy with people building clones of their supercars. Let’s start with some pictures of him hand-carving the buck, sitting in the chassis of the donor car, and the car in it’s first stage of construction (still rather rough):
Here’s the next stage of the car’s production — as you can see it’s massively improved!
To the best of my knowledge, this is the point at which development ended.
Joel DeVrieze’s 1976 Kelmark GT sits on a 2×3 tube frame. I’m not sure what the chassis history is exactly (mine is quite different) as he’s running McPhearson struts upfront, a Corvette cooling system, and an aluminum fuel cell under the trunk (which also has the battery in it).
Last I heard he had fixed windows, but had all the NOS door pieces to have roll down windows (normal in a Kelmark). It’s set up for a 350 Chevy V8, although that wasn’t installed when he sold the car for a bit under $15k.
And of course it has that gorgeous pearl white paint job!
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