While Porsche never sold a six-cylinder 356, today’s Nice Price or No Dice Speedster proves such a combo is possible. Let’s see if this Corvair turbo-powered chimera can bring some serious cash as a result.
It’s hard to say just how much sport there might be in the 2001 Jeep Cherokee Sport we looked at yesterday. It was only two-wheel drive, which for many of you wasn’t all that big a deal. The more relevant showstopper was the Jeep’s $3,800 price tag. With over 200,000 miles of service under the Cherokee’s wheels that seemed an excessive ask, causing it to fall in a narrow 56 percent No Dice loss.
The Cherokee Nation has recently asked Jeep to stop using the Cherokee name, a spokesperson saying that its continued application as a model identifier “does not honor us.” This isn’t the first time that an automotive name has come under criticism. There was controversy when Volkswagen introduced the Touareg as some people claimed the Touareg peoples of Saharan Africa were known as slave traders. Pile onto that the fact that Touareg is pretty damn hard to correctly spell and pronounce.
The best way to avoid such unwanted controversies is to name your car after yourself or, failing that, to make use of a totally made-up name.
Today’s Porsche Speedster — actually a component car with a Corvair turbo flat-six — handily does both. Obviously, it’s not a real Porsche, as it is a homebrew build, but it still looks like one of Ferry Porsche’s cars right down to the crest on the nose. The Corvair six under the engine lid comes from a car that took its name from the mix of Corvette and Bel Air. That name was original and completely made up, so it carried little to no baggage.
This crazy mashup Speedster will carry little to no baggage as well. There’s extremely limited space in the front compartment for anything more than the car’s Volkswagen gas tank and the battery. The cabin is roomy enough for two, but that’s about it.
According to the ad, the car is one of Classic Motor Carriage replicas. CMC was for a time one of the biggest kit-car manufacturers in the U.S., and its wide-body Speedster C was the company’s calling card. This one was built on a 1970 VW pan and originally had a VW engine. The seller claims that a previous owner found that too anemic and attempted to cure its lack of acceptable performance by having the 165-horsepower turbo 2.7-liter pancake six installed in its place. The ad says this was professionally accomplished at a cost of $10,000. A standard four-speed VW transmission fronts the air-cooled Chevy six.
The seller says the Speedster “runs, stops, turns as it should, with zero issues.” It has a component-car registration and is licensable for the street. Other plusses here include Wilwood disc brakes on all four corners, Motegi alloy wheels and Michelin Sport Pilots that still have that new tire smell.
A fun feature is the quick-disconnect Momo steering wheel that has a radio frequency (RF) switch for the horn in the hub. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen one of those. The car is painted Ferrari Red and has a black suede interior with a carbon-fiber dash. The paint looks good, although some of the details — like overspray on the trunk weather strip — indicate that the undertaking could have been done better. A top and and a set of side curtains are included with the car.
The whole package looks to be turn-key and comes with an asking price of $35,500. The seller also has the car listed on an auction site, but the $6,000 bidding there hasn’t even passed the reserve.
What do you think, is this amazing, and amazingly odd, Corvair-powered Speedster worth that $35,500 asking? Or, is that a price that makes this Corvarsche a mash-up that misses the mark?
You decide!
San Francisco Bay Area Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to RevUnlimiter for the hookup!
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