Turnkey Vs Kits >>why?

[Hal Copple]

I studied the catalogues and magazine articles since the late '70's, although i only actually saw several replicas up close in all those years. Once, many years ago, read in one that the Contemporary was a bit more "real" than the ERA that was also tested, so i automatically (and foolisly) said someday i would get a Contemporary. How naive i was.

The replicas in the magazines and brochures were always so handsome, so finished, i assumed i could do as well. Then went to a car show, and saw a body sitting out for sale, not even the doors were cut out, which was a reality check for me. I then say one of the first SPF's in the country and decided if somehow i was ever able to get a replica, it would be an SPF, still had never actually seen an ERA/Contemporary/Shell/Unique, or any of the other brands.

Sort of like meeting your wife on a first date, and eventually marrying her, and never having any regrets i suppose.

But after i got my Turnkey, which i literally drove away, i began a relentless quest to modify and make mine unique, which continues four years later. Putting in a different Canton fuel filter next week. Aeroquip fuel lines, etc. I have learned that when it comes to my cars, i am so perfection-oriented, so compulsive, so meticulous, that I would never have been able to build my own, as every tiny thing i do to my car takes forever to due to my compulsation to be perfect. I would have had to build the car for decades. I did not realize it back then, though. Some years ago, when i was putting an electronic boost controller and fuel computer in my Turbo Eclipse, and spoke with one of the parts guys, he told me "Hal, nobody goes to as much effort and work as you do, they just wire them up and go." Not me.

So i could never have completed a "kit" myself. It would never have been actually complpeted, and i probably would have lost interest or something.

My hats off to those who do, for sure. There is something for everybody in this replica business.