Who’d have thought that I’d be posted another one of these ultra rare kits so soon? After posting the shots of Bruce’s car, I received the following email and pictures:
Hi! I’m Dodger, from Virginia. I’ve owned this car since the early ’90s and was never able to identify the kit; that is, until this morning, when I stumbled upon this “Price of His Toys” site. I now know that it’s a “March Hare” designed by Jim Edwards and John Marshall, head of Brigham Young University design school. Other than this one that I own, the only others that I’ve ever seen are the three previously posted on this site. Apparently this is a pretty rare kit. It needs restoration and I would love to find more information about this car.
As you can see, there are some build differences between Bruce and Dodger’s cars — the door and window treatments most obviously but also minor touches like the fender flares and scoops and trim.
I posted a teaser image of Bruce’s award winning March Hare kit, and I wanted to follow that up with a few more shots of his beautiful example of this rare classic that pre-dates more successful vehicles in the same class like the Manx SR.
I got the following letter from a reader in Iceland:
I like to ask if you can help me out. I have 356 speedster replica and for few days ther was a guy how called me and aske if I had intrest on his kit car and he told me this are some kid of lotus. can you tell me if this are lotus or what?
It doesn’t look to me like a Lotus… More like a Clan Crusader but the doors aren’t right. Anyone recognize it?
Update/solved: This is a GP Talon, a British kit car that debuted in 1980 on a VW chassis. Thanks Grzegorz!
Check out this Brubaker box, sent in by Aeromecca@aol.com, who’s got 1779cc with weber progressive 2bbl in it — listen to the engine in the video below. The paint looks faded below because he’s currently redoing the paint job. Definitely one of my favorite VW-based kits, and one of the more innovative designs out there.
Oh, it’s not mythical after all!
And it’s for sale… but I’ll get to that in a future entry with some more photos. This was built by Bruce Kirk in St. Louis, MO in 1988 with his teenage son. It’s one of only seven believed to have been molded by Jim Edwards. It’s had numerous adventures, including being driven down to a car show in Indianapolis where they got to drive it around the 500 race track for fun. It’s currently sitting in his garage waiting for a little attention, or a buyer. Anyway, it’s great to see such a rare car finished.
The picture is nice and big — click to zoom in.
Brian (tuna_641@hotmail.com) is selling this very clean looking Mini 18 VW Beetle pickup conversion. It’s a very rare kit, and I suspect there are less than a dozen of them on the road (and not many more ever made). Brian’s has the original paint (does that matter in a kit?) and he says it runs and drives great. Appropriately it has an 8-track player and a vintage CB radio. Up until recently this car was a daily driver.
It’s on a ‘73 Super Beetle chassis, with many new parts (including carb, gas tank, distributer, plugs, plug wires, air cleaner, voltage regulator, belt, master cylinder, wheel cylinders, seat covers, and carpet). Truck is located in St. Ansgar, Iowa.
Fred bought his Kyote in the early seventies for $1,600, and he’s probably bringing it out of many, many years of storage soon to be sacrificed on eBay. He write, “it needs some work but it is a jewel from the hands of Jefferies — some of my most fun car memories are of cruising the beaches of SE Texas in my Kyote.” I think my favorite thing about it is the station wagon treatment.
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