Please help explain the differences of a McBurnie vs a Rowley or Carl Roberts car ?


Mvice8489

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    I had the opportunity this week to learn of a subtle difference of McBurnie vs a Rowley or a CR car.

 

  From what I understand the McB has more pronounced flares (wider "hips" if you will) than the other manufactures.  Hence a more aggressive stance which is the look I like.  The show car has always looked more aggressive to me than some of the cars that I've seen in person and online.....but until now I couldn't figure out why that was. 

 

   I'd be interested in hearing about more difference of the major Daytona replica manufacturers.

 

  Thanks!!

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Your correct in the assumption on the flares. I also like the flares and the stance that it gives.
I think the original Ferrari with the flat sides is not quite as good looking. (just my opinion)
The makers are all pretty much the same in many aspects as the moulds are similar. There are some real bad moulds out there such as the one with the solid rear deck. It has no trunklid only the moulded shape of the rear of the car. I saw two of these disgraces and they were absolute junk! The rear of the car even looked shorter for some reason. I never measured them as I walked away in disgust when I wasted my time looking at them.
From what I understand there were three major re-creators. McBurnie, Rowley and Mardikian. There were others too, but not noteworthy.

I dealt in kit kars for many years and built Cobra replica's as well as the "Daytona" Vetter from 62' mould. Years ago when I was in business with my partner I went to Florida and cleaned out an entire wrecking yard of all the corvette chassis and doors I could get. The Daytona replicas we built were made from these parts. The Cobra's were from a plush mould of excellent quality and we usually stuck small block Fords into them although we built two with SOHC wet-block remans on a custom made frame.
I also used to make "Excalibres" usually from older Cougars chassis that were cut to fit. These "boatails" were cool cars.

Since the Daytona 365GTB's were recreated they have been placed on C3 chassis and even a few on C4's, so they are mostly GM drivetrains, but I have even seen Triumph TR7's converted to Daytona's. They look really funny and the aspects and dimensions are all off but they are a neat toy. (not my cup of tea)Even the GM plaything from 84-87 called the Fiero has a kit available. You can even shoehorn a Cadillac engine into the rear for added performance...It fits!(with a few mods)

In essence there have been a lot of copies but they were halted by Enzo Ferrarri with a class action lawsuit back in the mid 80's, thus the change in season 3 of MV to a Testorossa.

Edited by Ferrariman
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The answer to your question isn't simple.  There are differences between early McBurnie's and late McBurnie's.  There are some differences in the Rowley's and I can't define if they are due to the assembler or production differences.  The Roberts cars were made in much smaller numbers and seem to be the same across the board.

 

The fender flares of the McBurnie are much wider than the Rowley, whic has a smoother look.  As to the Roberts, I would have to take a laser or a tape measure to know the difference.  Robert's original body was a copied McBurnie, but Carl made some modifications to the body.

 

The surest way to distinguish a Roberts car from a McBurnie is the floor panel behind the seats.  Roberts cars have (or in the case of my car, had) the fuel tank behind the seat to give room for a complete trunk and a well for a spare tire.

 

Far too many "upgrades" were made by McBurnie to catalog, but the most noticed are the switch from manual trunk release to electronic, the conversion to headlight doors rather than a Plexiglas panel, and then the conversion to a single headlight per side rather than a pair on each side.  Other body changes may have occurred in the dimensions, as later body molds included the name McBurnie on the underside of the hood and the rocker panels.

 

Hope that helps get you off to a good start on this thread.  But to a certain extent, none of the cars were exactly a-like, as they were completed by different people (even at McBurnie's shop)

 

Camera Daytona may be able to shed some additional light on this topic!

 

JN

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Maybe the rim back spacing has something to do with were the tire sets in the wheelweel. On my

McBurnie there is a one inch spacer for the passenger side rear rim. If you look at C3's the right rear tire is an inch in more than the other side. Something to do with cornering. IDK. I do know I took it out once. It looked silly. So back it went

I figure my rims size and back spacing and get it posted. Maybe other owners know and can post theirs. Might help

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Thanks for this info guys.  JN and Stinger are clearly the "noted experts" on these  cars so I always value their input!  A couple of follow-up questions:

 

 

Stinger, what is a Daytona Vetter?

 

"I dealt in kit kars for many years and built Cobra replica's as well as the "Daytona" Vetter from 62' mould"  Did u build Daytona replicas?

 

 

 

JN-

 

  When u say you'd have to take a laser or tape measure to know the difference....do you mean that the Roberts flares are almost indistinguishable from a McB to the naked eye that you'd need a laser to calculate the difference?   (BTW, I think yours is a Carl Roberts car?)

 

"The fender flares of the McBurnie are much wider than the Rowley, whic has a smoother look.  As to the Roberts, I would have to take a laser or a tape measure to know the difference.  Robert's original body was a copied McBurnie, but Carl made some modifications to the body."

 

 

 

 

Big Sarg

 

Are u saying the rims are 1 inch bigger on one (rear) side than the other?

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Stinger, what is a Daytona Vetter?

In the early 60' the race car classic styles used in road racing were cars such as the Cobra by Shelby.

GM made a special corvette that had a short stubby windshield and looked very much like a "Maco Shark model" for road racing. That is what was then called a Daytona for GM and we used to make those copies as well as Cobra's.

When we built these cars we used a lot of older 60's Vetter floors and door post sectionsfrom the wreckers to hang the doors and use for basic builds.

To be honest we only built a few of them as the Cobra was the big seller and we had quite a production line for them The Cobras outsold the Vettes about 12 to one.

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JN-

 

  When u say you'd have to take a laser or tape measure to know the difference....do you mean that the Roberts flares are almost indistinguishable from a McB to the naked eye that you'd need a laser to calculate the difference?   (BTW, I think yours is a Carl Roberts car?)

 

"The fender flares of the McBurnie are much wider than the Rowley, whic has a smoother look.  As to the Roberts, I would have to take a laser or a tape measure to know the difference.  Robert's original body was a copied McBurnie, but Carl made some modifications to the body."

 

Yes, the fenders on the cars to me look indistinguishable.  But that could be me.  I think to know for sure you would have to put a tape to the car.  Differences in tires, wheels, and even color can change the perception.  I know for a fact that Carl copied the McBurnie body, and liked the wide flares that Tom had used.  It seems likely to me that the McBurnie body and the Roberts body are dimension-ally almost identical.  Yes, my car is a Roberts body.  But I have compared my body to Car 4, and again, I don't see a difference in the flares.  The nose areas are slightly different, but that was done by one of Carl's later employees.  The major difference in the two cars, as I have pointed out above, was the floor pan from the seats back.  Roberts copied so much of the McBurnie mold that it seems unlikely that he would have done much to the fender flares, particularly given the problems associate with a major change to the molds.  The changes Carl made to the front end of the car were added after the initial molding process, so were not a huge change to the mold of the car.

 

Rowley actually took the basics and tried to make the car more Ferrari like (which is so ironic since he was the only one Ferrari didn't sue, but the steam was starting to run out by the time they got to Rowley).  He took extra time to rework the body, and made several basic design improvements to the replicas he sold under his name.  They were by far the highest quality replicas, but didn't look like the MIAMI VICE car.  His seats were the best of the Ferrari clones, I have been told.  I was also told those seats are terrible to seat in for any period of time, whether in a Rowley or a real Ferrai.  When I started looking at cars, everyone said to stick with the cars that had the Corvette seats.

 

I hope this is helpful.  It seems like somewhere on this Forum some of this has been previously discussed, but not sure.  Again, much of this is subjective.  I don't know of a way to be sure about the Roberts v. McBurnie issues without a side-by-side comparison.  And even then, it could well depend on when the body was cast, who did the assembly, etc.

 

JN

 

PS-My Daytona wire wheels are wider on the rear than on the front.  Something I found out by accident when I bought the Pirelli tires.  So the inch BigSarge is talking about is probably a common thing.

Edited by jurassic narc
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No, my rims are the same on all 4 corners. My passenger rear has a 1" spacer on the hub. My understanding is that C3's passenger rear tire sits 1" further in, than the drivers side. I have looked at other corvettes and they have the same thing. But on a Daytona it really looked wired. I took it off and it was crazy dumb looking. I have watched the MV scenes so many times and that Daytona definitely must have a spacer. But all 4 rims are 15x8.

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Stinger with the stock daytona its running on a very high tire percentage, 70% of 215 and I think 7 inch rims, hence why it seems abit stilt like

 

as the show car was 235, 60 on 8, much lower, although I must admit I prefer sonny burnett's car and look to the show car, which was 215, and 255 respectively

 

plus 245's on a mcburnie all around on 18's 40's look surprisngly nice, although maybe with less rim like a 17 and some brushed rims

 

http://corvette.canney.net/webvettes/customized/c0058/index.html

 

 

med_gallery_471_5_457726.jpg

 

 

In the early 60' the race car classic styles used in road racing were cars such as the Cobra by Shelby.
GM made a special corvette that had a short stubby windshield and looked very much like a "Maco Shark model" for road racing. That is what was then called a Daytona for GM and we used to make those copies as well as Cobra's.
When we built these cars we used a lot of older 60's Vetter floors and door post sectionsfrom the wreckers to hang the doors and use for basic builds.
To be honest we only built a few of them as the Cobra was the big seller and we had quite a production line for them The Cobras outsold the Vettes about 12 to one.

 

 

I wonder if you should go into business with one of those now given its use in the fast and furious movie

 

 

and so they called the grand sport replicas a daytona back in the day?

 

 

I think with the flares it just tapers more on the carl roberts one, hence why it looks like it has more area but it doesnt, its a perception trick honestly, and I think its mostly done to the fronts

 

 

 

No, my rims are the same on all 4 corners. My passenger rear has a 1" spacer on the hub. My understanding is that C3's passenger rear tire sits 1" further in, than the drivers side. I have looked at other corvettes and they have the same thing. But on a Daytona it really looked wired. I took it off and it was crazy dumb looking. I have watched the MV scenes so many times and that Daytona definitely must have a spacer. But all 4 rims are 15x8.

 

hmm there were changes in the models based on the tire sizes, some had optional tire kits from the factory that went up to 255 on some of them, some 235, 225.

 

its all over the place and hard to track

 

and maybe that's a remnant of it? like they left it on as they thought people might supersize the tires? as other than that the only thing I could think of is that it was done to maybe do bootleg turns better with the handbrake, that whole torque vectoring thing that they bashed on and on about with the new NSX that sounds like its a disaster waiting to happen.

 

 

as if something goes wrong with that software.......

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No I was in the bodyshop business for many years and am now retired. I built the boat-tail Excalibers back in the late 70's and early 80's and the Cobra/Daytonas in the 90's

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I was making a joke as everything with FnF is big now lol  but how close was the FnF car to what you built?

 

although that windshield has a huge design flaw on the movie car there, as when they cut it off the pillar ends are chrome, like they have a chrome plate over it

 

and all I can think of is A that is going to blind the crap out of the driver, and bug the crap out of the driver with how that was executed.

Edited by Kavinsky
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Carl did do turn-keys, but I really don't think he did many.  The man who ended up with the Camera Car got it because he paid Carl for a car and he couldn't deliver.  My car was built by Carl's shop.  But the fact is he probably only finished less than 10.  McBurnie did probably less than 50 complete cars.  Total I would guess there are around a hundred completed cars.

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Today i found a comment of Tom McBurnie in Facebook. He wrote: Tom McBurnie Thunder Ranch It's always been one of favorites. It representsFerraris last and greatest front engine V12. It took almost a year to sculpt the first one and then I was fortunate that Michael Mann likedmy car and chose it for the show. 92 complete cars were built and just over 300 kits were built. Tom McBurnie

Edited by Pritt
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Today i found a comment of Tom McBurnie in Facebook. He wrote: Tom McBurnie Thunder Ranch It's always been one of favorites. It representsFerraris last and greatest front engine V12. It took almost a year to sculpt the first one and then I was fortunate that Michael Mann likedmy car and chose it for the show. 92 complete cars were built and just over 300 kits were built. Tom McBurnie

Great find.  I don't know that Tom has ever given a figure for complete cars and kits.  I wonder if the number of kits includes the ones marketed by other builders on the West Coast?

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Good info!!!

About four years ago I was looking online and someone was selling the moulds for the kit out of Vegas but the only thing wrong with that was there was only the moulds and no bumpers, lenses or anything else!!!

I was contemplating buying the moulds as the guy sent me many emails almost begging me to take them as the price dropped every time we corresponded. I told him I was retired from kit car building on large scale and really didn't want them (I only wanted to build one car for myself)if I could not reproduce the rest of the stuff needed to complete the car. The lenses are ridiculous as they were asking 1999.00 for a pair on Ebay!!!! TWO THOUSAND BUCKS FOR TWO PIECES OF PLASTIC! ARE YOU KIDDING?

Bumpers...good luck on finding them. I was thinking of having my buddy make them out of billet aluminum on his CNC, but that was expensive too. I also did not have my chopping machine any more for fiberglass spraying, so I had no way to do moulds except hand lay the glass, and that is tedious at best.

I passed on the moulds and have no idea where they ended up?

Edited by Stinger390X
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That's the kit we used to make in Niagara. We only built three of those. We were big into the Cobras and had usually three or four on the go at any time in the shop that held ten cars. The Cobras were very popular. The Vettes did not sell as well.

By the way... driving through Portalnd Oregon last week I had to take a double take as I saw what I thought was a Testorossa but turned out to be a Fiero with the side kit add-ons. It looked pretty good at highway speed but up close...YUK!

only had a v6 in it anyway...................

Edited by Stinger390X
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Good info!!!

About four years ago I was looking online and someone was selling the moulds for the kit out of Vegas but the only thing wrong with that was there was only the moulds and no bumpers, lenses or anything else!!!

I was contemplating buying the moulds as the guy sent me many emails almost begging me to take them as the price dropped every time we corresponded. I told him I was retired from kit car building on large scale and really didn't want them (I only wanted to build one car for myself)if I could not reproduce the rest of the stuff needed to complete the car. The lenses are ridiculous as they were asking 1999.00 for a pair on Ebay!!!! TWO THOUSAND BUCKS FOR TWO PIECES OF PLASTIC! ARE YOU KIDDING?

Bumpers...good luck on finding them. I was thinking of having my buddy make them out of billet aluminum on his CNC, but that was expensive too. I also did not have my chopping machine any more for fiberglass spraying, so I had no way to do moulds except hand lay the glass, and that is tedious at best.

I passed on the moulds and have no idea where they ended up?

That's the problem with the remaining kits, or the "missing pieces" cars. A bargain car might seem like a good idea at $15-20,000. Then you start filling in the missing parts, or you replace any body part that is Ferrari and that bargain price can go through the roof. I have had many contacts regarding the tag light on the trunk lid. That part is routinely over $300, and there is no substitute. SO many cars are sold without that "little part". Lenses for the car, if you replace them all, can run you as much as $5,000 with the stainless rings for the taillights.

The only saving grace is the interior (if you don't go faux Ferrari), which is largely Corvette and there are plenty of aftermarket vendors for the parts (unless your wiper switch goes bad-you would think GM got those from Ferrari!).

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That's the problem with the remaining kits, or the "missing pieces" cars. A bargain car might seem like a good idea at $15-20,000. Then you start filling in the missing parts, or you replace any body part that is Ferrari and that bargain price can go through the roof. I have had many contacts regarding the tag light on the trunk lid. That part is routinely over $300, and there is no substitute. SO many cars are sold without that "little part". Lenses for the car, if you replace them all, can run you as much as $5,000 with the stainless rings for the taillights.

The only saving grace is the interior (if you don't go faux Ferrari), which is largely Corvette and there are plenty of aftermarket vendors for the parts (unless your wiper switch goes bad-you would think GM got those from Ferrari!).

Yeah, I'm finding out over my lengthy search that most of these car's need something big done/added to them at a very high dollar cost. Plus the stressful time and energy dealing with mechanics/coachworks guys to fix said issues. I probably will just be sticking with my triple black '72 Vette convertible and my new Viper Green Porsche 911 C4S as a result. At least I know what I've got and can get parts cheaply if need be. Plus the resale value on those cars obviously hold up much better than these replicas ever will.

Speaking of sales, JN congratulations on the sale of your car this past week. Somebody's going to get a good car.

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Yeah, I'm finding out over my lengthy search that most of these car's need something big done/added to them at a very high dollar cost. Plus the stressful time and energy dealing with mechanics/coachworks guys to fix said issues. I probably will just be sticking with my triple black '72 Vette convertible and my new Viper Green Porsche 911 C4S as a result. At least I know what I've got and can get parts cheaply if need be. Plus the resale value on those cars obviously hold up much better than these replicas ever will.

Speaking of sales, JN congratulations on the sale of your car this past week. Somebody's going to get a good car.

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  • 1 year later...
On ‎12‎/‎27‎/‎2015 at 4:23 AM, Pritt said:

Today i found a comment of Tom McBurnie in Facebook. He wrote: Tom McBurnie Thunder Ranch It's always been one of favorites. It representsFerraris last and greatest front engine V12. It took almost a year to sculpt the first one and then I was fortunate that Michael Mann likedmy car and chose it for the show. 92 complete cars were built and just over 300 kits were built. Tom McBurnie

Interesting info. Somewhat more that we had been tossing around in here for some time. I wonder though  if McB may have been exaggerating.

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On ‎12‎/‎31‎/‎2015 at 1:44 PM, jurassic narc said:

 I have had many contacts regarding the tag light on the trunk lid. That part is routinely over $300, and there is no substitute. SO many cars are sold without that "little part". Lenses for the car, if you replace them all, can run you as much as $5,000 with the stainless rings for the taillights.

The only saving grace is the interior (if you don't go faux Ferrari), which is largely Corvette and there are plenty of aftermarket vendors for the parts (unless your wiper switch goes bad-you would think GM got those from Ferrari!).

I know about the Chrome tag light as it took me many months to find one that was below $600. They are very rare on Ebay, as are the lenses, especially the large ambers in the front turn signal assembly.  And since my interior is faux Ferrari I have to get seats redone through a custom shop as well as some other leather components.

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  • 1 year later...
On 12/19/2015 at 5:29 PM, jurassic narc said:

The answer to your question isn't simple.  There are differences between early McBurnie's and late McBurnie's.  There are some differences in the Rowley's and I can't define if they are due to the assembler or production differences.  The Roberts cars were made in much smaller numbers and seem to be the same across the board.

 

The fender flares of the McBurnie are much wider than the Rowley, whic has a smoother look.  As to the Roberts, I would have to take a laser or a tape measure to know the difference.  Robert's original body was a copied McBurnie, but Carl made some modifications to the body.

 

The surest way to distinguish a Roberts car from a McBurnie is the floor panel behind the seats.  Roberts cars have (or in the case of my car, had) the fuel tank behind the seat to give room for a complete trunk and a well for a spare tire.

 

Far too many "upgrades" were made by McBurnie to catalog, but the most noticed are the switch from manual trunk release to electronic, the conversion to headlight doors rather than a Plexiglas panel, and then the conversion to a single headlight per side rather than a pair on each side.  Other body changes may have occurred in the dimensions, as later body molds included the name McBurnie on the underside of the hood and the rocker panels.

 

Hope that helps get you off to a good start on this thread.  But to a certain extent, none of the cars were exactly a-like, as they were completed by different people (even at McBurnie's shop)

 

Camera Daytona may be able to shed some additional light on this topic!

 

JN

Nicely put, JN. 

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On 12/20/2015 at 9:51 PM, Bigsarg said:

No, my rims are the same on all 4 corners. My passenger rear has a 1" spacer on the hub. My understanding is that C3's passenger rear tire sits 1" further in, than the drivers side. I have looked at other corvettes and they have the same thing. But on a Daytona it really looked wired. I took it off and it was crazy dumb looking. I have watched the MV scenes so many times and that Daytona definitely must have a spacer. But all 4 rims are 15x8.

This may be the solution to my issue with tire sizing. I haven't had my rear wheels off so there may be that spacer, or perhaps wider rims as JN found with his car. If the rims are wider on the rears, I may have an issue downsizing my rear tires. If the rims are all the same, I should be able to add a spacer to accommodate a smaller tire on the rear axles and still create a nice flush fit with the fender flares. (I have 255s on the rear and I am thinking of going to 225s). 

Edited by Sonny-Burnett
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