[tcrist]

I would guess that most of the replica owners on this site did not build their kits with donor vehicles and pretty darn sure most did not paint theirs themselves. So most have $50K or more in their kits (Not even concidering the high end replicas in that statement).

They are running 500+ HP and all sorts of racing equipment/parts. So their vehicles are more or less street legal race cars.

If the OP is looking for a clean smooth running street car and can paint it themselves then $18K-$25K is not unreasionable for a no frills donor built kit.

The thing is that this kit car industry was designed to be able to have a specialty vehicle and a budget cost. Most owners have changed that to building a full blown race car and now think that someone wanting to build a kit on a low in budget is either crazy or uninformed on what THEIR idea of what a kit car is about.

That being said, the OP also needs to realize that 95% of the time the build cost ends up being 30%-50% higher than the starting budget.

For the OP, do your research on what exactly comes with the kit and what you need to purchase later. Then see if your $18K budget still works.