Beck Lister website?
 

What happened to the Beck Lister website? Is Chuck Beck still doing OK? Is the company still going?

If any of our esteemed CC members have new photos of their Lister build-ups, I'd love to see them!

Craig

750 hp Craig if you ever get to the U.S. and have the time, look him up. He is the fastest blind driver you will ever see. :D ( only kidding Chuck) If I had not gotting the cobra I would have gotten a Lister. They are light. great handling, and a fast car, not as pretty as a cobra, but just as mean. Chuchs 550 spider beat everyone at the Run & Gun at Maple Grove in 92 or 93. Larger bore motor with a turbo I think. Silver. Hope you are well. Got to go Rick Lake

You're right Rick, he certainly builds a weapon of a car. I just can't find much information on the internet about the car anymore....

Is it just me, or has his website disappeared?

Craig

Craig, here is a link:

http://www.kitcar.com/beck/home.html

Chuck has had two websites going, the above one through Cobra Country and a separate one which for some reason does not appear to be working. I haven't spoken to Chuck in a few months but last I heard he was happily building Listers. He is not much of a computer guy. which may explain why the link you tried is not working.

Bob

I just received my Lister from Chuck last weekend so I can fill you in on what has been going on with him and his now defunct website. Chuck has teamed up with Avanti Motors (of 1960's Studebaker fame) as the chief engineer of their Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) group, which will now build the Beck Lister and the Beck 904. He just had a bit too much business coming his way, especially after his success in the Car & Driver Supercar Challange, so this will allow him to continue to develop these cars and meet production demand. They are still in the transition stage of this new arrangement and Chuck is still essentially building the cars while he is training their staff. you can see more details at www.avantimotors.com under "New Avanti Cars."

Bob, glad to hear that your Lister is almost done. I may be contacting you for some advice as I beging to build mine.

Alan

Alan, feel free. I was fortunate to buy mine semi-finished, so a lot of blood, sweat, etc. were already expended, but I have learned a lot just in trying to get mine completed, and I'll be glad to assist if I can. I'd love to see photos of your car as it progresses. I'm glad to hear Chuck has found someone to assist him. He's a great guy who seems to love the development work that goes into scratchbuilding a replica, but does not strike me as being thrilled by the "daily grind" of turning out customer cars. He'd rather be out at a racetrack making a name for his kits...I hope this arrangement frees him to do so, as his presence at past Run N' Guns, the Car and Driver shootout, etc. seems to spice things up--

Bob

I wish he would build a replica of a Reventlow Scarab. The Lister is very close.

Lew, word has it that these guys will do a Scarab replica upon request. Not cheap--I've heard something like $150K--but I've seen their work and it's about as nice as they come:

http://www.finesportscar.com/

I spoke with Ashton Marshall (I think that is his name) at Fine Sports Cars a few years ago. Very nice and very knowledgeable. The office is in San Diego, but their cars are made in NZ. Not sure if they are affiliated with Tempero. They make replicas of just about everything (DBRs, Testa Rosas, GTOs, California Spyders, GT-40s, exotic Jaguars). I have not seen one of their cars in person nor heard much about them. He said that they could do a Scarab for about $100K (no donor car required), a DBR for about $150K (high donor car - DB4-6 - price). $100-150K is a lot to drop based only on the salesperson's representation that it will be an exact replica. He said that they built a Scarab or almost built a series of Scarabs (I cannot remember which) for Count Dickie, Lance Reventlow's brother. However, the Beck is so close to a Sacarab though, and Beck has a known reputation and is a little cheaper.

Has anyone seen anything from finesportscars.com?

Thanks,

Lew

Thanks for the info. I'm glad to see that things are going well for Chuck and his fabulous cars.

I'm looking forward to seeing some progress photos from you both!!!!! ;)

If they built the Scarab "continuation" car that was owned by Reventlow's half-brother and has been raced more recently by Tony Delorenzo, they do fine work indeed. The car has been at Road America the last two or three years for the Brian Redman historics, and appeared on track with the three original Scarab sports racers, which was a great sight. Anyhow, as I mentioned if this car was done by FSC it is exquisite.

I have also seen a Testa Rossa replica they did, with a mid-60's Ferrari drivetrain. The car is yellow with a blue cloth interiorand Borrani wires, and is absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous--

Snakeeyes,

Progress on my Lister is going fairly well so far with most hurdles resolved fairly simply. But I do have a couple of questions.

I just dropped in the engine/transmission yesterday and discovered that the Hurst Indy shifter that I installed will be sitting much higher than I desire. I am using a Richmond Super T-10 and even though I believe that you are using a M-22, I was wondering what shifter you used and if you are happy with its height and locating in the car?

I was originally going to purchase a wiring harness from Chuck but after many months of waiting I finally decided to go with a Painless universal harness. What did you do for your wiring and are there any suggestions/recommendations that you could give me on the most effective cable routing, fuse block location, and any thing else that you learned in the process?

I am also about to run my fuel lines from the fuell cell to the engine bay and was wondering how you did this? Chuck told me that he drills holes in the 4" tube frame and runs the metal line inside the frame tube. My only concern with this is that the line will be laying on the bottom of the frame tube and may chafe over time due to vibration, eventually leaking fuel inside the frame rail. Did you do this or did you run it externally, and if so how did you route it under the car?

Well I am sure that I will have some additional questions soon but if you could help me out with these for now I would really appreciate it. By the way is your Lister on the road yet? Whether it is or not if you have any additional photos I would appreciate you posting them on this forum or emailing me directly (alan.blair@intel.com).

Thanks,
Alan

The group at Fine Sports Cars has built three Scarabs to date. They were shipped to Japan and, believe it or not, they do not have any pics of the cars. I talked to Ashton, as I was really interested in the possiblility of pursuing that course of action.

He said one of the big problems that they have in Japan, is that the owners never provide any feedback whatsoever on the cars after they take delivery. I wish they would have secured some pics. To me, that is sort of hard to believe.....anywhooo....

Snakeeyes needs to get more miles on that GTD-40. I understand the last idiot who owned it put on an average of 35 miles per year.

Cal:

Ashton also told me that they had made these amazing Scarabs, but had no pictures. I thought that he mentioned something about working for or with Count Dickie, Lance's brother. I really have to scratch my head on the "no pictures" part of the story. Otherwise, he sounds very credible. But I would have trouble parting with +/- $100k without pictures of the completed cars. Although the Scarabs are my absolute favorite (David Kirkham and Chuck Beck, are you listening), I originally approached Fine Sports Cars based on their ad in Autoweek about their repro Aston Martin DBR 2. However, the price of a donor DB 4-6 really put the cost of a repro DBR2 in the stratosphere. Then I asked about a Scarab and he said that they made those too. Wouldn't you know it that several issues later, the Autoweek ad also mentioned repro Scarabs.

Lew

Alan, I discovered the same thing when I installed my shifter. It is a Hurst Indy model. The stock shift lever put the knob in a very awkward location, so I bought a Hurst truck shift lever off of eBay for $10. It curves into a 45 degree angle, towards the dash. It was also about two feet long but I just cut it down and drilled new mounting holes. It now places the shift ball about three inches from the right side of the steering wheel. I drove the car for the first time yesterday (:3DSMILE: :3DSMILE: :3DSMILE: ) and I actually like the shifter location a lot more than I thought I would. It's kind of like the WRC cars you see on Speed; you barely have to move your hand from the wheel to grab a shift. I may heat the lever up and bend it away from the wheel a bit more, mainly to keep from banging my knuckles on the wheel when I engage reverse, but we'll see after I put a few miles on it.

I know what you mean about how the whole shifter assembly sticks up pretty far. I think it will be concealed beneath the shift boot but I haven't gotten to the point of installing my boot yet. I'm sure there's a way to redrill the mounting bracket to lower the assembly, but frankly after having this car taking up space in my garage for 2 1/2 years I just wanted to get it on the road. I'll let you know how it all comes together when I put the tranny tunnel and boot in it.

I ran my fuel line externally. I didn't want to drill big holes in the frame and wanted the fuel lines where I could see them. My fuel cell drains on the driver's side. I ran the line to the crossmember behind the passenger compartment, along it to the rear of the passenger side, then along the bottom of the floor pan to the first crossmember. At that point I made a 90 bend towards the passenger side of the car, tucked the line between the frame and floor, then made another 90 towards the front of the car at the main frame outrigger. I then followed that up to the front of the motor. I used several of those metal mounting straps with rubber grommets, held in with self-tapping screws. The line is out of harm's way, away from any heat sources, and where I can see it. I did end up drilling into the frame when I installed the self-taps but I used silicone around the screws to try and keep moisture out.

The guy I bought my car from obtained a harness from Haywire. It is similar to the ones Painless sells. Each wire is labeled every 12" with the wire's purpose, i.e., "L Front Headlight", etc. The car was partially wired when I bought it so I didn't have much input in things like fuse panel location, although I don't have a problem with the way things were done. He mounted the fuse panel on the vertical surface inside the front of the passenger footwell. It is pretty accessible there and out of the way of things. A long-legged passenger could contact it but it has a rugged cover panel that goes over it so I'm not worried about that. In my quest for lightness I debated and debated and finally mounted my battery on the passenger floor. It is one of those dry-cell Dynabatts that weighs all of 12 pounds or so. The dimensions are only about 8" H x 8" W x 3" D so it hardly takes up any space at all. I ran the ground cable right through the side of the tranny tunnel and connected it to the Muncie, and the positive cable does the same thing and hits the starter, so each cable is only about 12 - 18" long. Between the battery and the short cables the weight savings over a conventional trunk-mounted setup is pretty significant. We'll see how it works over the long run, but so far the Dynabatt has held up well in repeated cranking while getting the motor fired up and tuned.

I just took some pictures yesterday and will post them after getting them developed (my digital camera is ancient so I went the conventional film route for these)--

Keep us posted on your build!

Bob

Lew:

We must have been separated at birth. My first interest was the Aston DBR 2. $200K+ was the rough price quoted to me. When I inquired about the Scarab--I was interested in a turnkey minus-- as I the Chev stuff is pretty cheap and I have plenty of it. That price was around $140K. Not bad. Would like to see one, though. Hard to believe no pictures, but at least his story is consistent.

Lot of $$ for a replica but if the car looks as good as the original, that would be a nice one to own. Why don't you go ahead and have one built so I can look and decide if it is, in fact, the car for me.....................

Sure, why not. I wonder if Fine Sports Cars is a dealer for Tempero. Ashton said that FSC's cars are made in NZ. Tempero offers many of the FSC cars. I can't believe that there could be that many NZ companies recreating such exotica.

Bob,

I believe that I may have discovered a solution that will help with the high shifter placement in our cars. I had an email conversation with the Hurst techline and they say that it is possible to use the competition-plus shifter mounting bracket for our Indy shifters to lower the height. The part that they specified is #195-7773. I have just ordered this from Jeg's (#530-195-7773) for $11.99 and once I get it and try it out, will let you know if it is worth doing. By the way your car looks great! Is that a brushed or engine-turned aluminium dash? Did you make it or have it made? And lastly, I was wondering if you could tell me where you got your seats? The source that Chuck used passed away last year so I need to find another source for these.

thanks,
Alan

Alan, that sounds great on the shifter bracket. I was going to try to make a boot out of a sheet of vinyl or leather but maybe now I can even use the stock piece from Hurst.

The dash is a solid piece of engine-turned aluminum. It is another nice aspect of the car for which I can take no credit. The original owner made a template of the dash and sent it to a company in Oklahoma, I believe. They fabricated it, cut out the gauge holes, and did the engine-turned finish. All I've done was to clear coat it and try not to scratch it when installing it and the gauges.

I have the name and address of the company at home if you would like it. Just let me know. I recall the seller said they charged something like $400-500 for it.

I have no idea where Chuck was getting his seats. I guess I thought he made them like most everything else on the car. I would suggest contacting Glenn Garrett, who now builds and sells the Beck 550 Spyders. I think they use the same seat so Glenn can probably help you out. I'm going to post this and if I can dig up his number I'll edit the post with it.

Bob

Edit: The number I have for Glenn is 866-842-2325--

Bob,

Go ahead and give me the info on that company for the dash panel. I have already done mine a little differently with a smaller engine-turned panel that I got from a street-rod shop but I think a full-width panel is really the way to go. I considered making a full-width brushed aluminium panel but could not find an appropriate panel with that finish already on it and after a little experimentation with some scrap aluminium I decided that I could not really replicate the brushed finish myself. I don't even want to think about trying to do a engine-turned panel myself, I may go blind!!!

Thanks,
Alan