Expensive recreation cars have come a long way from the days of botched, low-quality replicas. When I was 23, I learned something about car buying that stuck with me: If you’re going to buy a car that’s a conversation starter, a car where people will come up and ask you questions, you never want the answer to the first question they ask to be, “No.”
It’s pretty simple, really, and the fastest way to get to that “No” is to drive either a fake up-badged car, or a replica. If your car is the former, take those badges off right now. The only people who even know what they mean know they are fake, and no one else cares.
In my case, it was the latter. My business partner, Larry Kosilla, and I purchased a promotional vehicle for our business, a small detailing shop in Westchester County, N.Y. We wanted to have something cool we could take to Cars and Coffees and on local group drives. We were young and on something of a budget, but wanted something super fun to drive that would get a lot of attention at car shows.
View Price on AmazonWe settled on a Superformance MkIII, better known as a high-quality replica of a wide-body Shelby Cobra 427. The story of this car is a whole other tale, but suffice it to say we’re all familiar with replicas of Cobras, Daytona Coupes, and GT40s from this and a dozen other makers of similar recreations. In 2006, it was $50,000. It would be roughly double that today, inflation and all, but we’re still talking about somewhere between five and ten percent of what it would cost you to get a real 427 Cobra.
At 23, I had no idea what I was doing with such a thing. It wanted me dead, and had I kept it for even a minute longer, it may have succeeded at this mission. But I got rid of it within months, and put the money into modifying my then-stock C5 Corvette. Why? Because I was crushed by the word “no.” Not that most kids in their early 20s would have a real Cobra, but wherever I went, this was the line: “Awesome car! Is it real?”
You should have seen the joy drain out of people’s faces every time I said, “No.” I’d try to bring them back in by talking about how insane it was, or the wild color (Nissan 350Z Gold), or the license plate (MAKEUP00). No luck. I’d explain that not only was it built better than the originals, but many parts were also backwards compatible with the originals. I even popped the hood and showed the 353ci Ford Racing ex-Bill Elliot NASCAR practice engine that powered it.
Once it was a replica—a fake—that was that. The audience was lost. Fast forward 20 years, and my, how perceptions have changed. I’ve just spent some time in two very cool cars: first, I did six hours of canyon driving in a 1967 Shelby GT500 by Revology Cars. Then, I ran about twenty laps out at Willow Springs in the Boreham Motorworks Alan Mann 68 Edition Ford Escort Mk1.
Dynamically, both of these cars are superb in their own intended ways. But first off, understand that both of these cars are ground-up recreations without so much as a distant “Ship of Theseus” connection to an original car. Furthermore, both cost more than the cars on which they are based. One can easily find a genuine ’67 Shelby GT500 for under $380,000, and one of the just six genuine Alan Mann race Escorts sold at Bonhams for $246,000 just two years ago. This recreation is a hair under double that—$475k.
And the Bonhams one was raced by Graham Hill! Let’s start with Revology Mustangs. When you fire it up, and the modernized gauges do their startup dance, the LED screen scrolls, “We don’t build them like they used to.” For between $250,000 and $450,000, Revology Cars of Florida will build you a brand new classic Mustang. Any classic Mustang.
Source: roadandtrack.com
