917-___a12

This is a kit car that was available in the 70's and 80's. It takes many of its styling cues from the Porsche 917 which was the race car that gave Porsche a win in the 1970 24 hours of LeMans. I've wanted one of these cars since 1972 when I was still in college but had given up on it when the wife and kids came along. However, I did manage to grab an all aluminum 215 cubic inch V8 out of a '63 Olds F-85 in 1975 hoping to install it someday in a Laser 917. After waiting 28 years, with the kids now on their own and little hope of finding one of these kits, to my surprise, I was actually able to find one for sale - although it was a basket case. Perfect! Since the kit is based on a VW Beetle chassis and this one in particular was bolted to a '66 Beetle chassis that was pretty rotten, I realized there was a lot of work to do. The first order of business was to replace the rusted out floor pan with new. At the same time I reinforced the floor pan with 1" square steel tubing. I wanted to get rid of the old swing axle rear suspension and somehow find a way to swap out the drum brakes with 4 wheel discs. I managed to do that by finding an '88 Fiero donor car. The front axle module came off the Fiero and got welded to the front of the Beetle frame. Rear strut towers were then designed, cut out and formed to match the strut angles used on the Fiero rear suspension. The toe control and lateral links of the Fiero suspension weren't long enough so I had to make longer ones with round, heavy wall steel tubing. The rear knuckles were sand blasted, painted and installed with new rear struts and the new links to complete the rear suspension. The Fiero disc brakes were rebuilt and added. Bolted on the new wheels and tires and I finally had a rolling chassis. I rebuilt the little aluminum 215 V8 with a 0.020" overbore, Crower cam, Edelbrock carb and intake manifold and a set of specially made headers. I found a newer Beetle transaxle that was stronger than the original and was set up for a fully independent suspension rather than the swing axle style that was originally on the car. I bolted the engine to the transaxle using a Kennedy apdater, clutch and flywheel. Now I had a rolling chassis with a complete powertrain. The body work came next but there were several areas on the body that I wanted to change to give it a smoother appearance. Designed, made and installed hidden hinges for the gull wing doors, installed hidden quarter turn fasteners on the engine access panels and added rolled rocker panels and nose piece to give it more of a natural look and less of a kit car look. Side windows and headlight covers were acquired through contacts I had made through the now defunct Laser917 web site. Found C5 Corvette mirrors and modified them to fit the doors. The paint job was done by a friend of a friend and I must say I'm fairly happy with it. After spending over 8 years in the garage almost every night and with the help and support of family, friends and "specialists", I was finally able to drive it for the first time in August of 2011. It's been a long time coming and there were times when I thought I'd never get it done. But it was worth every minute when I finally got to drive that car out of the garage, realizing my initial dream from 1972 of building this car.