Builds that Never Finish

Before I started on my second FFR build, I looked around at a lot of other companies. RCR, Superlite, DDR Motorsports, Ultima, etc. One thing I realized was that I rarely, if ever, see these cars on the road. During my investigative process, I also realized that the build community for these cars is very limited and some of the kits themselves are either poorly manufactured, have literally no revisions and are dependent upon the builder to fill in the gaps, which is why I came back to FFR.

That said, it got me wondering, out of all of the FFR kits sold, what percentage of those eventually find the road? I know the percentage is much higher than these other companies due to the quality of design and support network, but if you look through the build threads, there are many where the builder taps out or simply fades away and never heard from again in the middle of the build thread.

I'm going to guess 75% complete their dream?

I would bet it's 90%+ find the road. Maybe not with the original purchaser but odds are someone will finish it up.

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Originally Posted by Mike.Bray

I would bet it's 90%+ find the road. Maybe not with the original purchaser but odds are someone will finish it up.

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Agreed

Yeah, I'd guess it's more than 75%. I've been involved with 5 "orphaned" or "barn find" builds; 3 of them that came to me either only barely unpacked or as rollers which I completed all the way to painted turnkey and two others which were on their second or third owners and came running in gelcoat for body, paint and final assembly. Some of those had sat totally untouched for years by original owners who had lost interest/motivation, suffered from health issues or found themselves in beyond their skill set.

Jeff

This is a great question! The difficulty I see in trying to answer it is that builders that throw in the towel aren't advertising that fact. I look forward to insights from others here!

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Originally Posted by Jeff Kleiner

Yeah, I'd guess it's more than 75%. I've been involved with 5 "orphaned" or "barn find" builds; 3 of them that came to me either only barely unpacked or as rollers which I completed all the way to painted turnkey and two others which were on their second or third owners and came running in gelcoat for body, paint and final assembly. Some of those had sat totally untouched for years by original owners who had lost interest/motivation, suffered from health issues or found themselves in beyond their skill set.

Jeff

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X2 to what Jeff stated, 75%, maybe, might be even lower, in my small circle of influence these days, I personally know of at least 17 of them here on the east coast that are still unbuilt, mostly MK I to MK II.5's, but even an early MK IV that has yet to even be started 3 years after it was delivered, a failed father and sons project that may eventually see the light of day.

Bill S.

I think these build projects can take more time than most realize. Mine was a little over 2 years and I thought I could do it in 1. My point is, someone starts on their build and then life happens and priorities change. This is just what life is.

It's sad when that happens, as I'm sure it's someone's dream ending.

Even having a pretty good amount of automotive mechanical know-how after 30 years in the field, there were several challenges that I faced. The big factor for me in staying motivated when something frustrating occurred during my build, was the generous support garnered from the FFCars forum builders. (This forum didn't exist at the time) The FFR build manual back then was not much help, and I could understand if a person relied solely on it that it could lead to them never finishing their build.

My build is nearly complete, just seats left to bolt down. I did buy it as a partially complete build. The issue when taking over someone's project is how much do you trust what they have done? It's almost more work, although they can be had for much less than the costs of the kit.

I know of two separate gt40 builds locally that are not complete because of issues with the kits and little support.

This community helped me keep going and it would have taken much longer without it.

UMBA: Unmotivated Builders Anonymous

Local chapters with weekly meetings, sponsors: everything a builder needs to stay on track except money and marital advice.

LOL.

Earl

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Originally Posted by narly1

UMBA: Unmotivated Builders Anonymous

Local chapters with weekly meetings, sponsors: everything a builder needs to stay on track except money and marital advice.

LOL.

Earl

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Maybe that is what I need. LOL. But I get how it happens. In my case health issues in the family took priority. You see it sitting there for what seems like forever. When you do get time, the motivation is not there. I am sure this is where most sell the car. But I wanted to wait until I could get my hands on it again then make a decision. Now that I am trying to make time and effort the drive is making its way back. I knew this would be long term and could not get it done in a year like others when purchasing. So I would say to others try to get your hands on it before you make the decision to sell. Time will tell....

I thought I've have mine built in about 1.5 yrs...here I am 4.5 yrs later. Still struggling with a few items that I consider small, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel :) If I had to do it over again I would have waited until my kids went off to college...they have such busy lives, and my work is demanding, I rarely find the time to work on it.

Great post and even better replies.
MMMMM....... Just wondering what the 12 steps of UMBA would be? How about these?

#1 We admitted we were powerless over the build.
#2 Came to believe it could be done.
#3 Made a decision to turn over our lives over to the project.
#4 Made a searching and monetary invantory of ourselves and finances.
#5 Admitted to our wife, to ourselves and another FFR builder the exact nature of our shortcomings.
#6 We were entirely ready to ask the FFR Forum for help.
#7 Humbly asked our local members for assistance.
#8 Made a list of all unfinished projects and became willing to "git er done".
#9 Took direct concrete action to restart delayed projects.
#10 Continued to take personal invantory about our procrastinations.
#11 Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our FFR Forum postings and if we were ever wrong never admit it.
#12 Having had a mechanical awakening as a result of these steps, we attempted to help others finish their delayed projects.

Respectfully submmited
Bill W

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Originally Posted by Rebostar

Great post and even better replies....

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LOL, I respectively didn't want to poke fun at any serious 12-step program.

That being said you're kidding yourself if you think you can complete a project like these without any help whatsoever.

Somewhere along the line you have to convince somebody else to buy in to your madness LOL.

Earl

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Originally Posted by narly1

LOL, I respectively didn't want to poke fun at any serious 12-step program.

That being said you're kidding yourself if you think you can complete a project like these without any help whatsoever.

Somewhere along the line you have to convince somebody else to buy in to your madness LOL.

Earl

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I can apprieciate not wanting to poke fun at a 12 step program, thank you for that. Being clean and sober in a 12 step program for 43 years I feel I've earned the right for a bit of toung and cheek humor. No offence intended.
Happy Trails.

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Originally Posted by Rebostar

I can apprieciate not wanting to poke fun at a 12 step program, thank you for that. Being clean and sober in a 12 step program for 43 years I feel I've earned the right for a bit of toung and cheek humor. No offence intended.
Happy Trails.

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Well all I will say is I'm glad that you're still here today and a part of the FFR community.

Earl

Speaking of build updates. Has the sales of the 33 really fallen off? I rarely see updates these days. When I first started on mine there was a least one a day. I have always watched the forum even when not actively working on the car. I have seen a steady decline in posting on the 33 forum.

A guy just posted on FB this morning, he’s in northern Indiana and has an unfinished MK2, 351w/TKO, no paint.
His father passed away and he needs to either find someone to finish the kit or he needs to sell as-is. Unfortunate.

I've pretty much switched over to FB as far as updates to my build go.

Earl

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Originally Posted by Jeff33Ford

Speaking of build updates. Has the sales of the 33 really fallen off? I rarely see updates these days. When I first started on mine there was a least one a day. I have always watched the forum even when not actively working on the car. I have seen a steady decline in posting on the 33 forum.

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Can't speak to numbers but when we were at the SEMA the 33 was all but invisible with very little interest. The 35 pickup, which was in a less prominent spot in the booth, was generating a tremendous amount of traffic, interest and questions. Jim mentioned that they had seen an uptick in 35 sales over the preceding few months...enough so that consideration was being given to offering IRS on it.

Jeff

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Originally Posted by Jeff Kleiner

Can't speak to numbers but when we were at the SEMA the 33 was all but invisible with very little interest. The 35 pickup, which was in a less prominent spot in the booth, was generating a tremendous amount of traffic, interest and questions. Jim mentioned that they had seen an uptick in 35 sales over the preceding few months...enough so that consideration was being given to offering IRS on it.

Jeff

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That doesn’t surprise me too much. The 35 truck seems to be a very versatile platform for all sorts of creativity. IRS would be a great add.

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Originally Posted by narly1

I've pretty much switched over to FB as far as updates to my build go.

Earl

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I have tried FB on some stuff, not a fan. When I was racing, we had a cool forum with tons of technical stuff, easy to search, categorize and the topics easy to follow. Since moving to FB a number of years ago, IMHO it is a mess. Can't find anything from the past, lost a lot of valuable stuff, no easy way to follow post or even find what you are looking for. FB does not always post answers in true time line fashion, access to to many people that post stuff that is not helpful. I am on slot car group open to the world and there are so many post a day that no way to keep up and most of time don't even know what you missed. Then FB determines what comments are important and...Sorry, back to regularly scheduled form comments!!!

A good friend of mine wanted a cobra kit in the worst way but didn't have the funds for a FFR kit. He found an ERA that was started but the guy died and his wife was selling it. We looked at it and she wanted $15 k thinking it was worth way more. I guess her husband told her all this to justify what he was doing. Anyway, we walked away and a year later he called her and she still had it. He made her an offer for it at 10K and she took it. Now a year and a half later he has stopped work on it because he is too overwhelmed with all that needs to be done. He saw mine go together in 3 months and thought he would sail through his. Let me tell you there's a whole lot of difference in an ERA and a FFR car. Especially when there is no manual that came with his car and all the fiberglass work he had to do. He also found out how many things he didn't have to finish it. He will sit on it for another year or so then pass it on to some young kid who has Cobra eyes and won't be able to help himself and has to have it. I am so glad I did some research on different Cobra kit cars and made the decision to go with FFR. I had Cobra eyes too but saw the light in Wareham Mass.:cool:

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Originally Posted by F500guy

I have tried FB on some stuff, not a fan...

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No disagreement here that FB is inferior to forums in terms of being able to recall or find info.

I do find that it's better to just Google a subject and let the bots find the relevant FB threads.

Earl

Like many here, I thought I could get mine done fairly fast. It was my second build after all and I had been planning many of the upgrades for a while. I started off stripping down a partial built Mark IV that I had bought. It was barely a roller, but as has been said, getting everything back to a good starting point can take longer than anticipated. Then Life imposed on my sanctuary during Covid. 2 home remodels, 1 home prep for sale, taking care of and moving my 90 YO mother all injected time into my build time. I remember being so mad and angry at everything. I had gotten rid of my first car to finance the 2nd one and I really wanted to be driving. I finally came tot he conclusion that it was out of my hands and just to roll with it. Things took a better turn after that. I even added more upgrades since I wasn't driving myself toward an arbitrary date and I was enjoying myself again. I ended up getting it done in like 3 years. I still love my car now, but I also now miss the build, so maybe one more in me :rolleyes: