JackW

A friend of mine had both an Intermeccania Speedster and a Beck 550 Spyder and he much preferred the 550 Spyder replica. He built both cars from the raw kit and said the 550 was much easier to build and drove much better. The Spyder comes with its own frame - the Speedster requires a shortened VW chassis. The Spyder body fit much better - the Speedster body had a tendency to warp. He said it took him over a year to build the Speedster - he put the Spyder kit together in a few months.

I'd go with the Spyder - its prettier and more fun to drive - plus Chuck Beck is a really neat guy - he's a regular at our monthly car show in Alpharetta, GA.

niche

Someone should make 550 replicas out of 914 s... better than vw pan, I think .

Mike_A

^^^ There are a few around with 914 motors and transaxles. None of the good builders use a "VW pan" that I know of, they just use front and rear VW suspensions because they can get them in volume and they look more like the real thing ... 550s used trailing arm front suspensions not McPherson struts. If you want to take a ride on that slippery slope of modifications, why not go with A-arms and coil overs like a real modern race car? Space frame or monocoque? and you are up to maybe $150-200,000....Beck's go for $20k

GoMan

When the 914 came out, Porsche "purists" said it wasn't a Porsche, it was a VW. As a Porsche owner ('71 911S) and a guy that's been around them since 1960 when my father bought a Convertible D (a "Normal") followed by a 912 in 1966-back when Porsches had NO snob appeal and were just considered funny little cars-I feel that the Beck cars are an outstanding contribution to the Porsche legacy. Chuck Beck probably knows more about Porsches than almost anyone-who better to build replicas? And the comments about having an original-geez, I worry about my relatively common 911S when I'm out driving it. I can only imagine how I'd feel driving an original S90 Speedster in great condition, let alone a 550 or a 904. And I would NEVER feel like I could drive an original hard, like r. Porsche intended. So the Beck is the answer, IMHO.

In fact, that 904 has got me thinking long and hard...have you seen the Youtube videos of the Beck 904 on the track? Especially the one where it's being followed by a Lotus Elise camera car that can't keep up? Yikes. And except for a very, very few, who would have the resources to take a Porsche 904 to the track and flog the beegeezus out of it-especially if it had the twin cam flat 4? Personally, I like to drive fast; I don't much care about snob value. Oh-and by the way-there are many similarities between Porsches and aircooled VW's.

And this is not something of which to be ashamed. I think it's pretty cool, actually. My first car was a '67 Bug and I loved it. I especially liked spanking TR6's with it!