Anyone in So. California...

[JBW3]

I am thinking about building a Ultima GTR but would like to see one in person. I live in Orange County Ca. and would love to talk to someone and see there project. If anyone has any info. could you please e-mail me.
Thank you in advance,
John

[fluxen]

I'm in the same boat as you, and also in OC. I had intended to call the US importer to see if they had a car on hand; they were located in Costa Mesa...but I just went to their site to check, and there's no mention of them anymore. Does anyone know what's going on with the US importer? Is there still one? TIA for any help!

[msv]

There is no longer a US importer, you deal directly with the factory in the UK. I am in Orange County and have a GTR on order. Tomorrow is 12 weeks since my order, but it doesn't appear that my car will be shipping on time. I hope for it to ship this month, and then hopefully take delivery 6 weeks thereafter.

[uncle_git]

I'm in So Cal - San Diego to be precise and am looking into perhaps embarking on a GTR build "some time in the future".

Apparenlty the Mrs to be says I have to buy a house for us first - despite my protests that we could live in the GTR she doesn't seem to want to budge on this one...

Once that little detail is out of the way ( hey it gives me a change to get a nice comfortable place to build the thing right ?) I'll be looking into it in more detail.

Anyone got any good pointers for info reguarding registration and engine optioins for us in the People's Republic of Kalifornia ?

Congrats on your kit purchase BTW.

[fluxen]

AFAIK you need to go with a motor / cat (and theoretically trans, but apparently that's not noticed) combination that passes smog in a domestic market car. For you and me, that makes an LS1 / LS6 the likely candidates. A crate LS6 can be had for about $5500 I hear, not too bad.

[msv]

You can get around the emissions entirely now in CA. A bill passed a couple years ago which allows the first 500 "specially constructed vehicles", read: kit cars, to base the emissions regulations on the chassis model year, or the "year the engine most closely resembles". What it boils down to is that the emissions regulations end up being based on the 1960 model year, which means you are completely exempt.

Mark

[JBW3]

msv,
I would like to talk with you some more after you get it. So do you have to go pick it up in Long Beach/San Pedro? How much of the kit did you buy? I am mainly interested in the body work, I've built several offraod machines and 5 watercooled VW's and think this may be the next project. I am really not to concerned about frame, suspension, motor but laminated body work has not been my friend in the past. Let me know when you get it, I will buy you a beer if I can check it out.

Thanks everyone for your posts,
John

[fluxen]

msv said:

You can get around the emissions entirely now in CA. A bill passed a couple years ago which allows the first 500 "specially constructed vehicles", read: kit cars, to base the emissions regulations on the chassis model year, or the "year the engine most closely resembles". What it boils down to is that the emissions regulations end up being based on the 1960 model year, which means you are completely exempt. Mark

That's *very* interesting. Do you know what regulation covers this new law?

[msv]

Check out these links:

www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d01/vc580.htm

www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/spcns.htm

www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/spcnsreg.htm

Mark

[fluxen]

Thanks very much, Mark. It'll be interesting to see what they say about the motor in the car I'm considering; it's Fuel Injected, so the argument could be that it resembles a post 1974 car. We'll see.

Thanks again.