Looks like a good forum so far, I like the setup!
Anyone who's been around the other forums for a while probably knows my user name / story already..
I don't personally own a replica of any kind, but I did finally get to work on the Canadian Customs V12 roadster over the past month. It was interesting working on one of these things! No room, thousands of little details... Way harder than a Fiero project!
Basically my story started in high school, after I bought an issue of Kit Car Illustrated or something like that. I wanted a replica SOO bad! When I bought my first car ('88 Dodge Omni..) there was an '86 Fiero sitting next to it, and I wanted it! I figured with all the Fiero kits in the magazine it was a good place to start.. Of course, that was too cool of a car for a kid in highschool to have, right?
Parents made me get the Omni, though the Fiero was probably way out of budget at the time.
A couple years later I bought my first Fiero and had some fun with it, a few years (and Fieros) later I was in College and went to the Carlisle show for the first time. I loved seeing all the replicas, but I was amazed how bad the interiors looked. (to me anyway..) It seemed they were all just rearranging GM parts, and the HVAC especially was a dead giveaway.
I never did scrape up the $$ (or more importantly, space) to buy / start building a replica. But about 5 years ago I happened to be on a forum where I saw people discussing how to use a Ford 3-knob heater controller to try and fake an F355 HVAC. It looked better than the Fiero one, but nowhere close to a 355 one. So I figured, how hard can it be to make a replica?
A few thousand $$ later I'd bought a CNC machine, made some circuit boards, and had some faceplates printed. I sold what seemed to me like a bunch of those 355 panels from my bedroom.. Making all the parts myself took many hours, but it was somewhat fun and I was at least breaking even or making a couple $ per panel. At some point a member on Kitcentral contacted me about building a replica Lambo panel. Once again "how hard can that be?"... Working from pictures and guesses, I came up with my first "fake" replica panel. Connected to the 355 panel circuit board all the buttons worked, but there were no lights or screen. I machined all the buttons for each panel, and filled all the graphics with paint. It was a hit, but it took me probably 15 hours to make each one! Over the next couple years, it slowly evolved into what it is today - I had real LCD screens made, then found a place that would make rubber buttons. It's still evolving, the next version will have color-changing LED backlighting so you can pick whatever color you want. I still don't make much $ on these, certainly not enough to buy a replica which was what I was hoping for.. Sometimes it's still fun, but it pretty much takes up whatever free time I get.
(there's a really long post over at kitcentral -
http://www.kitcentral.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=printview&t=3039&start=0 if you like boring reading and pictures!)
I still have a Fiero project, the 3800SC has been installed into a "newer" Fiero and work has (slowly) begun on that car now. I drove it around the block before wrapping it up for the winter, and I hope to have it on the road this summer. After working on that Roadster for a month though, I'm not sure if I still want to try building one on my Fiero.. I can't see how I'd ever find the time to do it right. The buddy who's letting me keep the Fiero at his house has an '05 Lotus Elise, and of course I REALLY want one of those now.
We'll see! In the mean time, I'll try and keep building cool Replica stuff...
- Bob Williams
