I've been kicking the idea around since I bought the die cast model of it several years ago. I think I know where there're a couple of basket case 442's in a junkyard that have floors and trunk gone, but fairly decent exterior sheet metal. Toranoda baskete cases seem to be fairly common, so outside of some basic fab work, why hasn't somebody done one?

I don't think I'd want to go the full blower route, but a pair of 425's or 455's fore and aft would make for a cool car show cruiser.

Opinions?

 

It has already been done. See below:

http://www.hurstolds.com/hairy/

 

I thought I had the urge once, but it turned out to be gas and passed. That's quite an expensive undertaking.

 

Everything pertaining to old cars is expensive. Try doing a big block Corvette or even Chevelle to current standards. I didn't read the entire link posted above yet but it looks more like a resto than a replica.

 

http://www.droldmobile.com/id13.html

 

I believe a restoration is taking a car back to the way it was originally manufactured. The Hurst Hairy Olds did not come off the showroom floor. This replica was built from scratch. I admire anybody doing an accurate restoration on any car but I don't see how that compares to actually building a replica of a very complicated car like the Hairy Olds.

 

I'm reading the link to the "Hairy Olds resurrection" above as being a resurrection or restoration of the original car or at least some of it rather than "building a replica" from scratch. I guess everyone knows that the original HHO didn't "come off the showroom floor", but I'm not seeing anything in the article saying it was a replica built from scratch rather than a resurrection of the original. Maybe, since I'm no Olds expert, either in terms of history or correctness the term resurrection has me confused but whether or not it's an accurate replica or a restoration of whatever was left of the original, it far exceeds the level of accuracy that I would attempt in building one if I do decide to go forward. For one, I wouldn't attempt to run two blown and mechanically injected engines.

It's not at all hard to spend $100K or more restoring a rare muscle car to original condition, especially rarer ones with expensive low volume pieces. My point was/is, that I believe a dual engine '66 442 somewhat resembling the HHO could be build for a lot less money, especially if dead accuracy wasn't the priority, but rather getting something relatively in the same ballpark with toronado power front and rear, 4 slicks and a gold and black paint scheme.

 

In the last race of the original car, one of the engines failed and the car was impossible to control and crashed and almost crashed into a crowd. The original car was then destroyed. The original car had twin blown Olds engines and was quite an engineering feat. I don't think there is any way you could duplicate the car for $100,000. No question you can blow through $100,000 on a muscle car restoration especially if you have to buy the car. All you have to do is price stuff like some of the rare air cleaners, distributors and other parts.