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TR4/4A Building a new improved TR4.

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Tabcon

Tabcon

Jedi Warrior
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I was curious if anyone has actually ever built a TR4 from the ground up using primarily new and NOS parts.Almost every piece of this car is now available and what is not, can most usually be located.

I started thinking about this when I was reading the VTR news letter. In it, was an add for new and improved TR frames. They look great, and if the hype is true, they should be at the very least structually better, and most certainly, aestheticly better.

Starting with a new frame and working your way up from there using only high quality parts, a "new" TR4, 5 or 6 is certainly a possibility. It seems that in so many instances you're always limited with what you can do to the suspension, engine, transmission, etc. Just as in "The Six Million Dollar Man", you could make it better, stronger...faster.

If I had unlimited resources, this would be a fun project. On the other hand, I could just go out and buy a new 911.

Tab
 
1) - you'd have the most expensive TR ever built. In the good old days, someone, probably a partsman with too much time on his hands, added up the new prices of all of the parts in a Mini - in other words, the parts cost to assemble a brand new Mini from parts. It was something like $18,000, at a time when a brand new Mini cost about $2000.

2) - parts quality today is often worse than OEM, so you'd end up with a car with all sorts of parts issues. Why do you think people spend money refurbishing original chrome instead of buying crappy repros, or save old switches and gauges instead of buying new faulty ones?
 
This can be - has been - done with the venerable Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle too. Price: >$75,000 (I don't remember the exact figure, but it was huge amount of money for a motorcycle!)
 
I am almost doing that. not replacing every part but:
if i win the lotto, i won't have to do body work on my tr4 that i am building, i will order an aluminum tub,fenders,hood,trunk lid, and anything else that can be replaced with aluminum.
I'm already replacing and/or upgrading almost every single part in my car as it is that moves. I don't look at cost effectiveness because i love to do the build and engineering.
Almost every single part gets a going over or replaced with a higher performance part.
If you look at the race tr's, those are basically a ground up build.
I'm on the "pay as i go plan" so maybe i'll finish in 10 years. (i better not die first or "she who must be obeyed" will kill me!)
Rob
 
When I win the lotto, I am going to put together an aluminum Italia body with a 6 cylinder TR engine..... The bodies are available for a mere ÂŁ18,818.10 from Revington
Oh well enough dreaming for one day.....
 
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