I've seen many examples of your work Bill, very nice, sometimes 'over the top', but always interesting.
But were talking used car prices here. No question you can spend 60+ building a custom replica of anything when new, and heck thats just using 'off the shelf' components. Difficult recovering the money one usually spends on his 'hot rod'.
But I know this: You CANNOT buy a used car, any car, and get it exactly the way you want it. The ONLY way to do that is to build it yourself or work with a custom shop, such as Bill E.
...now hard at work making my ERA 'exactly' the way I want it, yeah, I'm buried in the expense.