[Simon L]

Ah but if car was on a modified car policy with a specialist insurer (ie Flux), then you could have agreed value.

As to the costs of the kit, from the pics I can see wheel arches, maybe a bonnet scoop etc. Prob £500 at the most. Have a look around the kitcar products and see how body prices work out eg


GTR bodywork in GRP with Isophthalic high heat
distortion resin comprising front and rear sections, side pods,
cockpit, doors, dashboard, headlight and instrument pods.
All in coloured gelcoat.

£4165.00

Three grand for a bodykit is ridiculous

ATB

Simon

 

[Simon L]

Well, in my avatar pic you'll see toy car I built from scratch - including all the
bodywork. Total cost for (bodywork) materials (matting/resin/gelcoat/brushes/mixing pots/gloves etc etc) was approx £150 quid - if you were to buy trade quantities you could get materials for prob less than half what I paid.

Laying up (for eg on toy car) one wheel arch inc gel coat, matting and resin took under 30 mins, so I suggest if you had an experienced fibreglass man, who got all the mould lined up; did mould prep then gel coated, resin/matted production line style, then I think probably two days per set, inc demoulding, deburring etc so £2-300 labour/£100 materials so being pessimistic £500/set, treble it as you have to make a profit etc. If you were doing this commercially, you'd be spraying the gelcoat etc. Should be a very quick process.

Have a look at the Ultima bodywork and tell me your 22 piece kit amounts to anywhere near that amount of work. My £500 est might have been a bit lighthearted but I still think £3k of massively wide of the mark.

But then, if you've turned people down it's all a bit of a pointless debate.

ATB

Simon

 

[Simon L]

I cheated making the moulds for the wheelarches as I used 2 pieces of mdf with slots cut in them, into which I slotted ally sheet of the correct width(the scuttle was done in a similar fashion). Used plaster of paris to create contoured shapes on sides, though only one side required "shaping on the rear as other side was flat and bolted to chassis. The mould for the bonnet was slightly more convoluted as I to make the buck up too.

ATB

Simon

 

[Simon L]

Hmm, draw line on mdf to desired profile (5 mins including rubbing out a couple of times), drill hole for jigsaw blade (5 secs), cut with jigsaw (1 minute), repeat on other piece of wood (now up to just under 13 minutes. Cut profile for arch edge say 2 mins plus sanding. Lube wood (5 mins), insert pre lubed ally sheet. Mix plaster and allow to set a bit, then put into arch and scribe profile into plaster and allow to set (10 mins). Do quick check and refill any bits of plaster that look a bit ****. Say another 10 mins then lube that too.

You can add it up, I got bored typing it out.

Here's pic I did about 7 years ago to help explain - as they say: a picture speaks a thousand words..

BTW, we have just over three thousand moulds at work.

 

[Simon L]

I never said anything to the contrary; you asked me about my arches! The buck for your modified arches was essentially supplied to you in poor condition by MG-R on the ZT500 (the modified arches and everything else from the sounds of it (so no developments costs to recover on that front)), according to your orig comment. Finishing these off properly then moulding wouldn't take a great deal of effort (especially if one had a bodyshop to hand). A bit of filler, sanding, paint, polishing then waxing. If your mould was laid up with the wing fitted to the car, only a complete idiot would manage to make a mould that didn't produce copies that didn't fit a production car.

The time my moulds (and yours for that matter) took to make is mostly irrelevant to the cost of the final part. I would expect to get better than 50 copies from a mould but if eg a wing mould cost £300 quid to make and prepare, that's still only £6 per copy.

A decent mould once prepared and waxed will need little more than a couple further coats of wax after each use - hardly a massive undertaking.

ATB

Simon