In reply to Austin296:
You should definitely come up. We are looking forward to meeting a few GRM members at the Autorama. There is also a guy on locostusa.com that is driving over from Ft. Worth. We got some shirts screen printed and plan to give some of them away to people from the forums who come by our booth.
To register the vehicle, we first had to tow the car out to the Tri-County Auto Theft Task Force about 30 minutes away. We parked in the parking lot of an abandoned office building. There were several other people there with trailers hauling cars in various states.
When it was our turn, the officer admitted she wasn't sure how to handle a car like ours so she requested guidance from a second officer. We explained that the car is home made and that we got the powertrain from a salvage Cobalt. Since we had the salvage title, they compared it to the partial VIN on the engine block, determined it wasn't stolen and decided our car would be registered with the original Cobalt VIN. We are applying to the state to be a kit car manufacturer and will supply a Manufacturer's Certificate of Origin with a VIN that you will use instead of the engine VIN. The officers filled out a form for us to show that nothing was stolen.
Next we got it inspected by an ASE Master Tech. The state has allowed us to register the car as a modern replica of a 1958 Lotus 7, so the inspection process only checked for basic safety equipment:
- Horn
- Mirror
- Steering
- Seat belts
- Brakes (parking brake not required)
- Beam indicator
- Tail Lamps
- Stop Lamps
- Rear red reflector
- Wheels
- Exhaust system
- License Plate Lamp
- Tires
- Turn signal lamps
- Head lamps
- Motor, serial or vehicle ID number
Next we took the car to a QT gas station to get a certified weight (1480 pounds now that we have fenders and everything else on the car).
Finally, we took the auto theft form, ASE inspection form, certified weight slip, application for Texas title, three photos of the car, one photo of a 1958 Lotus 7 and copies of receipts for materials bought for the car to the tax office. We also had to show that we had an up to date insurance policy (for any of our cars, not for the Goblin).
The guy at the tax office had recently filed another custom vehicle so the process wasn't too challenging. In the end, our car was titled and registered as a 2015 ASVE (this means assembled vehicle) Replica.
It all went way smoother than we had expected.
To insure the car, we first went to State Farm (our normal insurance provider). They couldn't insure the car. We contacted an insurance specialist and he got us insured through Progressive for $300 a year.