Quote:
Originally Posted by patrickt
I will tell you it's a wonderful experience to have ERA build you a custom car that is exactly what you spec out down to the last bolt. But, unfortunately, and through no fault of ERA, doing that is way more painful than it was 20 years ago. The waiting time in the queue, the difficulty in finding and building 427/428 FEs and the overall costs and shortages have made it painful. I am told that the outboard rears are still not available due to the shortages of the aluminum cast uprights.
So, with that said, you're going to have dangle a "buyer's premium" out there to snag what you want. You're going to have to make it hard for the guy that is thinking about hanging up his driving shoes, but isn't quite sure, can't quite part with his love, but maybe a hundred grand would do the trick, even if he really doesn't want to sell. The proverbial "offer he can't refuse."
That would be how I approach it. When you're in your 40's you have all the time in the world. When you're in your 60's you start to have the nervous feeling that the grim reaper is on the backswing. If you think time is running out, then spend the dough now and get what you want. You can't take it with you and a $20k-$40K premium isn't all that much in the scheme of life.  |
@patrickt Thank you for the detailed information. I spoke to Peter P a couple months ago and learned about the ERA rear end still not being available, unfortunately. I did not realize it was difficult to source 427/428 FEs!
If I cannot find a used ERA that I want, and I end up building one with ERA from scratch, I am thinking of doing a tribute of this Shelby Cobra CSX 3040 which recently sold at auction:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zUqkJMNS2bA.