So, what do you think it costs to build a one of a kind buggy/bouncer?

crawlin85cj · Mar 3, 2015

Food for thought...the axles and motor in WFO were $50k by themselves. Good parts add up crazy fast.

2010 Jim's Garage 4429
2012 Jim's Garage YJ
2013 Wide Open Design WFO

ATX780 · Mar 3, 2015

crawlin85cj said:
Food for thought...the axles and motor in WFO were $50k by themselves. Good parts add up crazy fast.

I couldn't agree more... good parts add up VERY fast.

patooyee · Mar 3, 2015

Craig_c said:
There's only one bouncer in my eyes that's proven enough to warrant a super high price tag.

To me any rig that is as proven as you say it takes in your eyes has been patched and repaired so many times that they are worth even less to me, not more. Some rigs out there, while accomplished, I wouldn't pay a dime for.

If you were used car shopping and found a nice looking car that you liked, and then the owner showed you 20 videos of where he was racing it, revving the piss out of it, wrecking it, repairing it, and abusing the ever loving **** out of it, is that car worth more or less to you?

bjeep · Mar 3, 2015

patooyee said:
To me any rig that is as proven as you say it takes in your eyes has been patched and repaired so many times that they are worth even less to me, not more. Some rigs out there, while accomplished, I wouldn't pay a dime for.

If you were used car shopping and found a nice looking car that you liked, and then the owner showed you 20 videos of where he was racing it, revving the piss out of it, wrecking it, repairing it, and abusing the ever loving **** out of it, is that car worth more or less to you?

X2

Never understood that.

pholmann · Mar 3, 2015

patooyee said:
To me any rig that is as proven as you say it takes in your eyes has been patched and repaired so many times that they are worth even less to me, not more. Some rigs out there, while accomplished, I wouldn't pay a dime for.

If you were used car shopping and found a nice looking car that you liked, and then the owner showed you 20 videos of where he was racing it, revving the piss out of it, wrecking it, repairing it, and abusing the ever loving **** out of it, is that car worth more or less to you?

This ^^^^^ FTW!!!!!

TRCXP · Mar 3, 2015

crawlin85cj said:
Food for thought...the axles and motor in WFO were $50k by themselves. Good parts add up crazy fast.

2010 Jim's Garage 4429
2012 Jim's Garage YJ
2013 Wide Open Design WFO

Do you know how many hours labor WOD had in it?

Craig_c · Mar 3, 2015

patooyee said:
To me any rig that is as proven as you say it takes in your eyes has been patched and repaired so many times that they are worth even less to me, not more. Some rigs out there, while accomplished, I wouldn't pay a dime for.

If you were used car shopping and found a nice looking car that you liked, and then the owner showed you 20 videos of where he was racing it, revving the piss out of it, wrecking it, repairing it, and abusing the ever loving **** out of it, is that car worth more or less to you?

I would never pay the money they are asking for someone's hand me down. I bought an Ultra4 buggy and haven't had it a year and I'm building a new chassis. I knew I didn't like the chassis, but the parts bolted on to it made it worth it to me.

However, let's say I got 100k to spend on a buggy, and I want a used one. I want one that's proven. One that's had the bugs worked out. If the chassis has been "patched", big deal. It's just steel. I doubt anything else on one of these units has been "patched" or rigged.

Then comes the facts of what those buggys have shown they can do. I'm not close to the same level of driver of any of those guys. And not knocking the buggy, but Ultra Bouncer never impressed me. It's got huge power, very expensive parts, but from what I have seen it didn't perform.

Screaming Blue however is proven. I'm sure it's been patched many times. Id doubt they are redneck hack jobs. I would doubt there were ever any corners cut in repairs of it. So in that aspect, Screaming Blue is worth more to me than Ultra Bouncer, regardless of the cost of parts they both have in them to build them.

Comparing buying bouncers to cars is like comparing a Peterbuilt to a moped. I'm a go fast guy. Erik Miller, Shannon Campbell and Bill Bairds cars have all been crashed and repaired and revved and raced, but it just forces them to fix the weak links and make the unit better. We all seen what happens when an untested rig goes out west to race.

John Galbreath Jr. · Mar 3, 2015

Let's keep this thread to the cost of building a buggy. Not the value of those for sale.

JohnG

patooyee · Mar 3, 2015

There's only so many times you can properly repair a chassis. And then some repairs, done right or not, make potential future repairs more difficult, impossible, or unfeasible. We've all been in that spot where it becomes more logical to build new than fix old. A chassis that has been repaired multiple times will get there sooner.

Then again, some people only require one year out of a buggy. I'm not in that boat.

patooyee · Mar 3, 2015

I'm trying to think ... has there EVER been a case where someone bought a legendary buggy and then could do what the original owner did with it? If so, I can't think of it. I think most of these rigs that reach legendary status got there because of what the driver could do with the rig, not because of the rig alone. I bet you could put Bobby Tanner in a stock Samurai and he would beat most of us in our big bad buggies.

I remember one time at GR someone was driving an ex-TC buggy on one of the bunny slopes, got totally denied, ended up backing down and giving up. The whole crowd left and shortly after a stock Jeep Rubicon pulled up with some BFG MT's. We were thinking, "Oh boy, let's go back and watch a Jeep get destroyed!" He walked it, went all the way up and over, barely broke idle.

Lil ugly · Mar 3, 2015

to get back on topic, I thought that I would get away with about a 25K budget starting with some good axles and other miscellaneous parts that I already had. I am past that budget now and buggy is getting to the point that I starting to work on the small (smaller) details and I would bet that I still spend another 15K on it. A good part of that will be building the motor (LQ9) into what I want. While I could probably have built it for a lot less and could get away with not doing a lot of what I have done. This is a once in a lifetime kind of project that I wanted to go all in on.