Brand New in the Box! Gazelle Roadster Kit Car
This is one of the crazier finds I can recall seeing: an entire Gazelle kit car literally still brand new in the crate! We’ve seen motorcycles over the years still sitting in their shipping crates but this is the first time I can recall seeing a whole vehicle. While the seller offers no guarantees about completeness, the photos appear to show a kit that has lots of hard-to-find- bits in mint condition. Find the Gazelle here on craigslist Santa Ana, California.
The number $250 is included as a price, but I have no sense as to whether they are literally asking just under $300 or if they forgot a zero. How do you put a price on a brand new kit car that was decidedly average when it was produced? I’m not sure, but if you’re one of the tens of Gazelle enthusiasts still living and breathing, it might be worth a four-figure investment to own the most virgin example likely in existence.
The shiny bits still look brand new and the seller confirms in photos that even typically fragile items like the glass is all intact. The listing also indicates the seller doesn’t know much about the car or how it’s built, which requires a donor car to provide the drivetrain. When these were new, the popular choice was to use either a Pinto or Chevette engine and transmission, but I’ve also seen variants built with air-cooled Volkswagen mechanicals. I’m sure there is a way to tell which variant of the Gazelle this is, and whether it’d be GM or Beetle-powered, so let us know in the comments which you think it should be.
The nuttiest thing to me about these Gazelle kit cars is that some owners went to far as to have their cars titled as 1929 Mercedes-Benzes. This was intended to be a tribute of sorts to the stunning SSK roadster, and to me, that takes a level of self-inflicted delusion that is nothing short of remarkable. However, here at Barn Finds, we love discoveries like this no matter how obscure the car in question is. We hope to see this Gazelle kit car back on the road soon as a finished product and fooling someone every once in a while into believing it’s a million-dollar Benz.
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Comments
Many of these kit cars were popular in the 80’s, and at the time, there were hundreds of thousands of Chevette’s (and Pint’s for that matter) out there to underpin your kit car. That is not the case anymore. Finding a Chevette is no longer an easy task.
There will always be the people that chime in and say how awful the Chevette was, they likely never actually owned one. Or if they did, they bought a 15 year old, 125k mile Chevette that had been thrashed it’s entire life, and then complain that it leaked some oil….smh.
They were actually very durable drivetrains, that with even mnimum maintenance, would go 150k plus. I know, I’ve had a few of them, and they are hard to kill.
The good news… it’s a brand-new Gazelle kit car.
The bad news… it’s a brand-new Gazelle kit car.
It may be just a Gazelle, but if the price is correct I think it would be worth the effort to finish it. At least it would be road worthy (well maybe not worthy) and not just a collection of parts getting moved around a warehouse, or stuck in a garage attic somewhere and forgotten again.
As Donald Rumsfeld said one time there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns either way there are way too many
I remembered the Name but couldn’t recall what they looked like so I had to involve Google. I think this would be a fun rig to build with today’s technology and more powerful engines and other suspension systems you can build one really fast ride.
Reminds me of that old joke, when someone walks by a woodie at car show and says “It will be a pretty nice car once they get it out of the crate.”
Well at $250 somebody should go do something with it!
Put a LS in it & have everyone wanting it as it becomes the burn out king in your neighborhood!
Okay … what’s an “LS”?
Looks like it’s going to be sold at an auction in Cali. Going to take someone special for this one. I’m just not that one. GLWTS
Short bus special?
I remember the kit cars and my neighbor still has a Bradley kit car in his garage from 1980. He has the whole unfinished kit and a vw beetle in there with it. As I recall he just lost interest in it and although I’ve been tempted to ask him to see it I’m half afraid as he seems to have went mad over the years. He hangs no trespassing signs all around his property and sits outside on a lawn chair with a Bowie knife on his lap. Shame
…”he seems to have gone mad…”
Put a 4cyl. Eco boost in it. Would be a blast with good suspension!
The $250 is to grab your attention.
States that it’s to be sold at auction.
The ad says will be sold at auction Sept, 20th. I don’t know if that means you must be at Sana Anna or if you you can bid on line. You must figure in shipping costs to wherever you are located. It could be a fun project though for someone, just not me.
God Bless America
Apart from the chrome radiator surround it doesn’t look too bad, a bit like a grown up MG TD from the front and side, from the back not so much like anything I can think of.
The fiberglass floor pans look as though they would fit a VW floor pan and the next to the last photo in the ad looks like it shows a cutout for a VW engine.
WOW!! What an incredible, absolutely golden opportunity! You can park this right between your VW powered La Dawri and your VW powered Bradley GT! YOU’LL BE THE ENVY OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD!!
The actual selling price of many completed Gazelle kit cars seems to be right around $2500 for a running example, so paying $2500 for a kit is lunacy. But lunacy apparently has it’s place in the car hobby.
I can remember there being a Gazelle displayed inside LaGuardia airport in New York when I was very young. My father would take me to the outside observation deck (long closed) to watch the planes take off and land. I was as excited to see the Gazelle as I was to watch the airplanes. This had to be either the late 70’s or very early 80’s.
I think they look much better inside the box than out. Please don’t unpack it!
It’s only un-packed once.
I wonder if the fact it has no paperwork will present as a problem? I love Cobra kit cars and in Massachusetts you have to document where every single component came from according to what I heard and depending how it’s registered could present emissions issues. I think after 2014 if you have a post 1972 engine you have to be emissions compliant I think. Lots of other hoops to jump through as well. All of these regulations have made me lose hope of getting a Cobra one day.
Would like to see this kit with a Tesla drivetrain though.
Hard trying to find out about it. The Craigslist listing shows that it will be going for auction on 9-20. Searching for the auction group, my computer keeps showing me a notification from my anti-virus that the connection is terminated because the site is infected with something called ‘blacklist’ so can’t find out about it.
I’m guessing the listed price of $250 is just to put something in there as it will be an auction. Or will it? Since I can’t learn anything more about it.
Also, looking at the pix of the bottom of the body, it is distinctly formed to fit on a VW chassis, and the cut-out in bottom of the rear is definitely there too fit around a VW engine.
This one is definitely built around a VW Beetle floorpan & drivetrain, Too bad as now the needed Beetle donor car would be worth more than the Kit