my 2 cents;with rebuilt engines going for 1600 and up and the frame is ready to go,sounds like a fare price.

Rick,

I agree $2,200 is not bad if you want to buy a body and a rebuilt engine. (Although I would want to know rebuilt by who?!)

But that is not your goal. You seem intent on completing a nice MG TD reproduction.

Given that nice, running TD replicas can be had for $5,000 and often less, I think $2,200 is high and you should offer less.

I agree, it is likely a good deal. But I would still bid low.

Here are some (OK, many) thoughts on what you will be facing to complete the car. My background? I own a Classic Roadsters VW-based Duchess, which I built myself.

There is a chance MG Magic will be able to help with parts. But I believe most of what they have are for Migis and Fiberfabs. I’m willing to bet they will not have the interior, top or curtains to fit a Duchess. And no…they are not necessarily interchangeable between kits.

I suspect you are going to have to have seats built and an interior sewn from scratch, as well as a
roof and side curtains. I have no recent experience on which to base an estimate. But guess that will not be cheap.

Are the electric harnesses there? Classic Roadsters provided excellent front, rear, dash and main harnesses with their kits. If they are not there, you will be wiring from scratch. There are companies providing generic wiring harnesses, so you will have somewhere to start.

Gauges are pretty straight forward.

Hood hinges and latches are best sourced from a boat supplier. That will be inexpensive.

The bits to hold the roof supports together will also come from your boat supplier.

Mg Magic should be able to provide door handles, door latches and door hinges. Classic Roadsters used reproduction TD parts. So if MG Magic cannot help, Moss Motors has them.

Is the VW steering column there?

If the Classic Roadsters gas tank there? CR did NOT use the VW gas tank. There is no easy way to mount a VW tank in a Duchess. They provided a ten gallon tank which mounts on the right front floor pan, along with a filler tube that runs up and to the radiator cap.

If that body is assembled and off the chassis, I would want to know how it was assembled. If the car was purchased as a kit, the body is assembled piece by piece, on to the chassis. It is NOT assembled separately, then mounted as a complete unit. This ensured everything was aligned to the pan. Knowing how the kit got to its present state will be important.

There are lots of bits and pieces necessary to finish an unbuilt kit. Again (see a pattern?) it would be nice to know how much of the original kit’s bits and pieces are in the seller’s possession.

Bottom line…take the drive to see what the seller actually has. Take lots (LOTS) of pictures and put ’em up on flickr or some other site for us to see them all!

The more you and we know, the better the advice we can give.

I’ll ditto Paul. If building a car is your bliss, then by all means go for it. But realize that a half-finished kit will require a special kind of buyer. He won’t likely sell it too fast and won’t see bids above asking. For the money you’d be looking at here (say about $5,000 all said and done) I’d be trying to find a finished car. The Chevette BCW down in Jacksonville listed on ebay hasn’t seen any bids yet at $5500. If it doesn’t sell, my guess is it’ll get relisted in a week for $500 off.

My car spent months on Craigslist before I grabbed it for $1k less than its original listing.

If you start out with an all-done car, you can always take it apart and put it back together yourself while complaining on this forum about the P.O. Several of our members appear to have taken that route, and they’re having a ball. The best thing about it? you KNOW you had all the parts to begin with.

Rick,

I hope I didn’t scare you off.

On the other hand, I know a guy who has resurrected probably 20 kit cars.

I just you to go into this with your eyes open.

So…go see it and get us pictures. I agree with Ed. A partially built kit is not going to sell fast. You have time to work through the pros and cons.

Good luck Rick!

I’d like to see pics of that Harley too!

Rick,

If you are considering the Duchess, contact via the private messenger. I can provide copies of what should be in those boxes.

And if you buy it, and there is no assembly manual, I can copy mine for you.

 Rick, There is one in Medford Or. It’s on e-bay item# 170477797204, The current bid is at $2500 , buy it now $4200. It looks like a Fiber Fab ,same family for 25 years. The ad doesn’t say, but it doesn’t look like it’s IRS looking at the angle of the rear wheels.According to Mapquest ,it’s about six hours from you. I’m just passing the info,I have no connection with the seller.

Rick,

You can post more pics.

Or start a flickr account (or similar web-based photo storage site) and link to the picture you store there.

So far, it’s more important what we do not see. That is…are the rest of the parts there?

From what we do see, I don’t like how high the Duchess is riding in the rear. That’s a huge amount of space between rear tires and fenders.

Is the car on jack stands? I don’t see ’em but figured I’d ask.

It’s possible the rear sub-frame is not mounted level to the floor. that would raise the entire rear of the car.