looking for a 2 door, MK2 Escort shell for a rally car. Will consider everything, LHD etc..
Cheers
looking for a 2 door, MK2 Escort shell for a rally car. Will consider everything, LHD etc..
Cheers
New repro shells are available - could save a shed load of repairs before modifying for intended use!
Is there any feedback on the quality. Motorsport Tools are selling them on eBay but there's a lot of disclaimers that make me wonder if they're not up to much?
I think a lot of people were / are expecting an immaculate new Ford shell pressed with Ford dies and accept all the Ford parts without issues. They are not and as far as i'm aware they've never been sold as such - they are a reproduction, primarily for rallying to try and avoid what Graham eluded to - using a tatty / very 2nd hand shell!
This is one of the new shells after prep:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F273312662997
I've bought 6 or 7 cars over the last 10 years from Europe and £7k will get you something very nice over there. I've read the post about the Chinese shells and they sound too hit and miss for £7k, at £4-5k I'd maybe consider one. Motorsport Tools had a road rally spec shell for sale a couple of months back for £16K!!
I'm fancying building a road rally car from scratch but in my opinion £16k for a prepped shell is for people with more money than sense.
http://www.historicrallysport.co.uk/...listair-ginley
This was built using one of my cars from Sweden. That whole car cost £1750 plus £1500 shipping .
Is it really? Shell 7k + parts (suspenders, links, glazing) say 2k + Reasonable paint from bare shell 2k = 11k. Now this is a business so a) has to pay someone to do this and make a profit and with 5k left there might be £1500 profit in it ie. less than 10%. If the shell comes wholesale the profit might be 15% - not much for a business! Doing it DIY - price up your time / labour and see how it compares?
Here's the spec, remember you've got prep and paint on top ..
https://www.motorsport-tools.com/bra...in-primer.html
Someone who's never done one before is going to have a lot of thinking time but once you've done a couple and got the templates/jigs it's a piece of cake. They're using a bolt in cage, no big tubs etc..
There's 100 hours max in that shell which is giving a man 2.5 weeks full time, at £25 hour that's £2.5K. We've got to the stage that we're paying people the hourly rate needed to pay a £500k mortgage instead what the job's worth.
Look at this one
https://www.motorsport-tools.com/new...ted-shell.html
I’ve done a couple, and it’s not a piece of cake.
No offense meant to you at all, but you’re dreaming, there is no way you could do a full grp 4 shell to a high standard in 100 hours.
Its a highly skilled job, requiring years of training, plus the cost to setup and maintain a workshop, you’ve taken none of that into account.
BUT.... if you're doing grp4 conversions for £2500, put my name on the list for one!
If you've only done two then it won't be but if your day job is shell prep it's bread and butter. The lads that know what they're doing will tell you that remedial work to the shell is harder than the prep work which is why they all want mint donors. Remember the £16k shell is unpainted, un-arched, un-tubbed and bolt-in cage.
No offence taken or meant, we can agree to disagree and what I will concede is there's less people with the skills to do the job but I can't agree that it's highly skilled job, hard job maybe if you're scared of hard work. It sounds like you believe these companies who claim there's 250 hours in a shell, that's over six weeks full time!
I know you can't find lads to do it for £2500 and that's partly because you're on here telling everyone what a tough job it :P Joking aside, it's not too many years ago that you could get a shell done for that but it's about supply and demand and there's less people who like getting their hands dirty these days and then there's the tough part which is finding someone who' actually good at their job.
Last edited by 365; 26-06-2018 at 17:53.
I may part with this little Gem for the right offer
8k miles from new All original panels , never welded & does not need any!!!!
All underseal removed
Is it RHD or LHD?
I built mine some a rotten shell, all the front end is new panels and a lot of work welding and repairing other parts, took months of. It’s and weekends,
If you think the cost of a grp4 shell is to much, why not buy a standard shell (new) and modify it your self,
I’m self employed and time is money, if I was to build another I think I would buy a new prept shell and go from there, just rember all the little bits add up to a lot when building a car.
That shell is mint is it for sale ?
Hi
Yes it's a real gem of a shell , Sale wise sensible offers invited ,
How much do you need for it?
You can pm me
The new shells are junk. Only really any good for building into a rally car, the panels from China are weird, the roofs have the C pillar at an odd angle, totally different to an real Escort. The Chinese panels don’t fit real Escorts and magnum panels don’t fit the Chinese shells. Check out Car Cave online, they are importing really nice cars from SA at reasonable prices
Deposit now taken ,
Sold, Now with its new owner a member on here ,
HonkyWhiteTrash your inbox is full & can't reply
I have an rs2000 with v5 proper job not a ringer etc. Would make a good grp4 shell or a lovely road car depending on your budget
Yes. The complete shells are rough, Fine for a grp4 build where you would chop most of it up but I wouldn’t pay £7k for one, not when you can pick up a good complete SA car for that. I also know that the Chinese panels these cars are built from do not fit genuine shells, I saw a roof panel being trial fitted and the c pillar was nowhere close, it was approx 3deg out. I know someone who has some very clean rot free SA cars from 3-£11k
Thanks, is that the guy at car cave? I spoke to him about some of his cars - they seem expensive compared to the likes of MSC but wrong end of the country from me - i worry about an old car at 10k that might need lots of work vs a new shell at 7k...but if the new shells are that bad then maybe it's fair
Yes Car Cave, his cars are all very well described, his 10k cars need no work and are very solid, anythign requiring welding is much cheaper, when you think of the cost of a £7k shell, by the time you've painted it and sorted all the poor panel fit issues, you'll be at £10k anyway, and thats without any registration docs etc, a genuine mint 1600 sport for £10k vs a poor Chinese bare shell that needs work is a no brainer for me.
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