You lot have to much money spare!!

I thought he were broke ..!Who is Supplying the new modified chassis.

Moral of the story: don't sell your nice old car to buy a low mileage 'minter' of the same species before turning it into a project - that'd have saved £10K to start with.

Indeed you can't knock the guy for lack of perseverance, can you? Most would've chucked the lot in the bin by now and gone back to a nice, safe, warranteed Porker...

Must say some of the histrionics do cast a shadow over assumed ethics within specialist businesses. We all sort of feel the people we entrust projects to as fellow enthusiasts - otherwise they wouldn't be doing this kind of stuff, right - and deal with them accordingly. It´s a fine line for both parties - as a business, that shared enthusiasm can easily lead to not calculating your involvement through to the point where you actually get some sort of profit from it, while OTOH the risk (probability more like) of missed deadlines, parts not fitting, stuff going awry, results below expectation can really sour a ´customer´ (and I use the word loosely in this context) relationship regardless of intentions or reward.

But in this case, it looks like at least one person ´saw him coming´...

Exactly what Christian, (7 TVR) did exept he stuck in an LS.

Not much change out of a ten bob note!

If I wanted to build a basic small house I might have a go at project managing it myself, because that is the limit of my knowledge and I could probably get it done without too many issues. At that level I could deal with the tradesmen and not suffer too much BS because I would know enough to see it coming. In short, up to the job.
Now, if I wanted to build a large eco house with a glass structure, a solar panel roof and a roof garage I would get someone who knows what they are doing to project manage it. The reason would be that I simply don't know enough and it would be the clever thing to do. It would probably end up being cheaper and I would more than likely end up with a better built house by letting someone who knows what they are doing manage it for me.

If I were building a highly modified car like no other, I would start by refurbing/modifying/replacing the chassis, put the suspension/brakes/wheels/diff in it. Meanwhile the engine/box would be getting built and tested elsewhere. The car would get taken to the engine builder to get them do the installation and it would drive out of there. I would then run it around until all gremlins are sorted and then drive it fully functioning to the bodyshop/trimmer to get it painted/trimmed.

I guess that wouldn't have made much of a story though

^^^^^ This (EDIT I refer to Ribol's post above).

BUT I know from experience how easy it is to succumb to the 'now that I spent this much and waited so long, I'd as well go the whole hog and go for xxx bhp' after the first major setback, from which point on the goalposts keep on moving - endlessly...

I remember when our man started on this journey he had bought a low mileage 500 and because it wasn't as much quicker than his previous one as he thought it would be, he wanted to rectify that situation and gave a small number of engine builders a brief of 300+ bhp/ton. I am sure that if he was delivered just that on a reasonable timescale, within budget and without any major troubles, he'd have been very satisfied with the outcome. However, as he effectively needed to spend the money twice, that halfway sane level probably became harder to justify for the outlay... Enter mo'money, mo' problems - and as you say, with 20/20 hindsight the need for proper project management.

And sadly, plain sailing it won't ever be unless the TVR aftermarket enters a whole new level of professionalism and 'Germanic' engineering standards - given the small market and the price levels at which the cars are now and the forseeable future, that will probably remain a utopian vision. Not many 'chequebook' projects like this about in the TVR world...

9 out of 10 for going defensive

My chum responds as follows

The chassis was always believed to be good. Only with a good look from above and with the waxoyl scraped off the bottom did it become clear the outriggers were gone.

Cost of body off outriggers, then prime and p/coat whole chassis was quoted at £3750

cost of brand new strengthened chassis, wishbones, ball joints, seat subframes, brakes lines, bushes etc etc £5k - no brainer as regards vfm

Suspension, brakes, gearbox, diff, driveshafts have already been addressed.

Bit of a risk to paint before chassis, but company doing it have guaranteed against any paint damage.

Chilli

Probably, but I do appreciate it's all too easy to get carried away...