new cimbria owner

[true]

Just got an old cimbria kit that was never put together... came with a vw pan and tran and vw engine... engine is seezed up... everything sat for years in a garage... thinking of puting a subaru in as areplacement... what think you all on that... also thinking of making a tube frame if anyone knows where i can get drawings or specs... i'd try to put up some pics but don't know how... i'm kinda new to the computer thing....rt oh by the way i saw a cimbria body for sale yesterday near Shelton Washington... if anyone is interested get back to me for more details rt

[Thanatos]

Welcome to The Samba and the world of vintage kit cars!

Firstly, I'd recommend buying the extra Cimbria body for spares in case you ever wreck the car (nothing in the way of fiberglass interchanges with the Sterling/Nova that it is related to, and the Sterling glass will require modification to the Cimbria body if you were to use it). And if you like your finished Cimbria well enough, building another car with that body might be a fun project.

The Subaru engine will increase performance, but will be very complicated to install, especially if you were to use a computerized late-model engine. Instead of making a tube frame that may be difficult or impossible to register with your motor-vehicle bureau, the tube frames offered by Sterling Sports cars
( http://www.sterlingsportscars.com/index/parts_price_details.html ) will be easy to get registered since they come with paperwork from the factory (called an MSO, short for Manufacturer's Statement of Origin), are already largely assembled and will work with almost any engine. A mid-engine Subie-powered Cimbria with the transmission laid out behind the engine like many Porsche 550 Spyder replicas would be cool, and a rear-engine frame is also an option.

Best of luck on your project, and as for posting pictures, there is a topic in the "Site" forum about posting pics, and if you still can't figure out how to post pics, PM-ing EverettB (the owner of this site), or this forum's moderator (Russ Wolfe) would be a good idea.

[Wolfgangdieter]

I too vote to buy the second one. Build the one you now have "as is" with the VW engine and get it on the road as soon as you can. I succumed to the trying to make it perfect with my CMC Speedster - 20 years later and I'm still getting it ready for the road! One powered by Subby would be great - its a lot of time consuming work though.
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CMC '57 Porsche Speedster Replica and Dolphin boat tailed full pan VW MOD-T Street Buggy