der Spieler
Member
That is a question I heard a lot after I built mine in the late 90s. Mine was a Speedway kit and a kit is wasnt. Before I purchased it I did some research. The only choices I considered at the time were Speedway and TP.
I remember an article or ad or something I had seen showing the girls building the TP at a car show. I had considered TP but after seeing that I envisioned an insert tab A into slot A type build and I didnt think it would give me the latitude to make the changes I might want to make. My intent here is not to disparage TP as they are a fine company (the gas tank and some other items I purchased for my build came from them) but that was my impression at the time.
Streetrodder did an article on building a budget T using a Speedway kit in (if my memory serves me) their September 1997 issue, an article that was very valuable to me, acting as an instruction manual during my build. They made some changes to the frame, which gave it the look I wanted. That pretty much sealed the deal when it came time to make my decision.
So I opted for Speedway and a kit it wasnt. Of course the chassis changes I had anticipated and they werent that difficult. When it came to mounting the body I had a heck of a time making the floor, cutting the hole for and making the transmission tunnel, making tabs and attaching the body to the frame, the list of engineering feats goes on. The Streetrodder article proved invaluable. When I got the car finished I was proud of my accomplishment. It was far from perfect but like a friend told me; No one will notice the flaws when youre driving down the interstate at 70mph."
I guess the point of my comments here is, is your T a kit car? When I was asked that question my response was, I bought it as a kit but I had to make several modifications to it to get what I wanted. Frankly, I felt insulted by the question, knowing what I had to go through to build the car. Why was I even asked that question? Of course the questioners didnt know that so I let my disgust boil up inside and smiled. How do you feel about your object of pride? Do you cringe when you get the kit car question? The term kit car, to my way of thinking, tends to diminish the efforts we put into building a car in the minds of the uninformed, and in the minds of some of the informed (the store bought, trailer queen crowd.) Maybe if the manufacturers would dispense with the kit term in their catalogs and advertising and refer to them as components or something like that maybe the implied stigma of going to the store and buying a great big model car kit would go away. Thats my $.02. What say you?
I remember an article or ad or something I had seen showing the girls building the TP at a car show. I had considered TP but after seeing that I envisioned an insert tab A into slot A type build and I didnt think it would give me the latitude to make the changes I might want to make. My intent here is not to disparage TP as they are a fine company (the gas tank and some other items I purchased for my build came from them) but that was my impression at the time.
Streetrodder did an article on building a budget T using a Speedway kit in (if my memory serves me) their September 1997 issue, an article that was very valuable to me, acting as an instruction manual during my build. They made some changes to the frame, which gave it the look I wanted. That pretty much sealed the deal when it came time to make my decision.
So I opted for Speedway and a kit it wasnt. Of course the chassis changes I had anticipated and they werent that difficult. When it came to mounting the body I had a heck of a time making the floor, cutting the hole for and making the transmission tunnel, making tabs and attaching the body to the frame, the list of engineering feats goes on. The Streetrodder article proved invaluable. When I got the car finished I was proud of my accomplishment. It was far from perfect but like a friend told me; No one will notice the flaws when youre driving down the interstate at 70mph."
I guess the point of my comments here is, is your T a kit car? When I was asked that question my response was, I bought it as a kit but I had to make several modifications to it to get what I wanted. Frankly, I felt insulted by the question, knowing what I had to go through to build the car. Why was I even asked that question? Of course the questioners didnt know that so I let my disgust boil up inside and smiled. How do you feel about your object of pride? Do you cringe when you get the kit car question? The term kit car, to my way of thinking, tends to diminish the efforts we put into building a car in the minds of the uninformed, and in the minds of some of the informed (the store bought, trailer queen crowd.) Maybe if the manufacturers would dispense with the kit term in their catalogs and advertising and refer to them as components or something like that maybe the implied stigma of going to the store and buying a great big model car kit would go away. Thats my $.02. What say you?
"BH"
