Well, I did learn a lot of things out of this:

1.  Don’t trust a mechanic unless you know what questions to ask and get references from real people who’ve used him to do the same work.  What goes on in dealerships and most repair facilities is “parts replacement.”  The older vehicles require a true mechanic, and those are hard to find.  You can’t trust Yelp or Angie’s List for things of this nature.  What you’re getting are reviews by people who got an oil change or parts replacement, which have no bearing on the kind of work needed on a TDR.  My first mechanic — the incompetent asshole who cheated me so much — has good reviews on Yelp.  If all I needed was an oil change, he’d probably be okay.  The second mechanic I used was pretty good, but my friend in Missouri who’s a mechanic himself found the guy for me — because he knew what questions to ask.
2. Know yourself.  I didn’t.  I imagined myself as Walter Mitty, the brilliant mechanic who was going to restore a prize-winning car.  In reality I am a retired lawyer with no mechanical training.  My real expertise today is in reading s*** on the internet.  Realistically that is all I have time for anyway, since my hands are full with a wife’s honey-do list of home improvement projects, a house filled with electronics and equipment that seems to break every time I turn around, and three other modern cars to maintain.
3. Don’t expect perfection.  I am a perfectionist.  A perfectionist should NEVER own a TDR.  Ever.  These cars cannot be made perfect no matter what you do.  My experience with the doors and hood on my replica proves that.  I could work on them a hundred times and spend $10K in repaints and those doors and the hood would never fit right — because FiberFab didn’t make them right in the first place.
4. Buy your TDR for love, not money.  Not only do TDRs not “appreciate” in value, you can easily spend just as much restoring one as you could buying a 99 point “real TD” off Hemmings.  I’m losing several shirts and a couple of pairs of pants selling my car now because I ignored my personality and exaggerated my abilities.  It might have been different if I could have done the work myself.  Having someone else do the work for you when you don’t know what you’re doing leaves you at the mercy of unscrupulous persons every step of the way.  Also, having tools in your shop does not mean you have the time or expertise to use them.
5. Restoring a built car is the height of stupidity.   I was saddled from the beginning with the mistakes of the DPO (“Dreaded Previous Owner”).  The DPO is a joke that is no joke.  This guy that originally built my car in 1999 obviously had some skill but he also slopped through a number of areas that conflicted with the perfectionist in me (see #3).  I actually think I have enough skill to have assembled the body myself from a kit and done a better job; instead I spent hours and hours trying to fix his mistakes.  Mechanically speaking, I would have been FAR better off to have bought one of those completely rebuilt VW pans you can buy on the internet, together with a completely rebuilt high-performance engine and high-performance transmission.  In hindsight, I could have done all that and had my second mechanic put it all together.  I would have had a better car for half the money.  Of course, hindsight is always 20-20.
6. Safety of the TDR is questionable.  I built seats with built-in headrests and put in seat belts.  I was not able to find anything solid enough to mount shoulder belts.  Without shoulder belts, I would slam into the dashboard in a head-on collision and probably be killed even with the lap belt.  Then there’s the gas tank that’s almost directly above your lap and separated by a smidgen of highly flammable fiberglass, and the lack of side rails if hit from the side.  My second mechanic kept referring to my car as a deathtrap and I really think he’s not far off.  I thought it would be safer than a motorcycle but the more I think about it, the more I think that’s wrong.  Modern motorcycles have ABS and stability control to avoid accidents, and you’re presumably wearing a helmet, boots, and armor in your jacket in case you get in one anyway.  Back when I had my 1930 Ford Model A in high school, I figured it was safe because it sat up so high and went so slow that nobody could miss seeing it.  That’s not true with a TDR.
7. If you’re 6′-4″, you might fit in a TDR but you’ll look like a clown.  It’s difficult to accept, but I’m just not designed to fit in really small cars.  I spent all that time lowering my TDR seat and cranking it back, and I still can barely get in.  Then, when I looked at my pictures of me in it, I thought, “Man, I am way too big for this car.”  I suggest the following rule of thumb for big guys who want a TDR:  If you can’t fit in a Miata, you can’t fit in a TDR.  I can’t fit in a Miata.  I don’t know why I ever thought I’d fit in a TDR.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by John Simion.
• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by John Simion.