History The Kellison

[Ryan]

Kit cars have always been a scam of sorts. You know, you see an ad in the back of Hot Rod or Car Craft promising a super exotic car with untouchable performance numbers for an impossibly cheap price. Some folks fell for it and dropped their dough onl...

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[Little Wing]

They made quite a few, even for a Lotus

[36-3window]

a girl i dated in the 70s had a neighbor with a Kellison , i believe it was mounted on a Corvette chassis...i know it had a SBC. it was painted gold and was just beautiful , he was very proud of it and loved to show it to you if you wandered over there when the garage door was open. i could never convince him to give me a ride in it. at the time i was driving a `70 Corvette and he probably figured i was some dumb kid..and i probably was

the girl is long gone from my life , but i wonder what ever happened to the car? i will have to check into that

[krylon32]

As a teenager before deuces that was another of my dream cars. Dam hard to buy one with the money my dad paid for milking cows.

[butch27]

Loved these cars as a kid and they are still beautiful today.

[DocWatson]

90% of kit cars should still be avoided however there are two I know are the goods.
Robnell. Made by Robert Darnell, a mate of my fathers who builds the BEST AC Cobra kits there are. Pricey though, Kevlar bodies on the top dollar cars.
The others are the Superformance Daytona Coupe, even more expensive but you get what you paid for. Peter Brock himself had a lot to do with these so you know he wasn't going to let his own legacy down!
That Kellison is a super sweet looking car!
Doc.

[Racewriter]

Anything built by Factory Five is a damn nice piece. Heard/seen good things about StreetBeasts, too.

[scootermcrad]

Rad!

[tommy]

I think the biggest scam and probably the reason for their demise was the implied claim that it was an easy build. I had one back then. I got it cheap because it was a very challenging project. I was not the only one to throw in the towel. All I could see was the shape of the body and dream of driving it. One of the prettiest cars ever designed. I was 20-21 with great ambitions but not enough experience to get it on the road. The fiberglass car industry was very young and there was not a lot of information available. I think there were more failures than successes from the original buyers. The fiberglass kit car got much more viable when they realized that they needed to supply more than just a shell. Building a race car is one thing but putting one on the street was not an easy task. I wish I could afford one today. A 270HP 283 with a modern 5spd and a low set of gears would be so much fun that it probably would be outlawed.

[Tman]

Lusted after those for most of my 39 years. Someday I will own one.

[theHIGHLANDER]

Sexy bitch, no doubt. I'd do one. In fact I know where one sits or at least used to. It was for sale but I never asked a price. I guess I could find out but the last thing I need is another project.

[JeffreyJames]

I would have been sold on a kit car hook line & sinker. I still today always say that a 356 will find it's home someday at my house.

The Kellison looks a lot like the Bosely which is a pretty sexy car but I'm pretty sure it was 1 of only 1. It ran a 331 hemi and was built in '52? I seen it in a Rodder's Journal and I was in aww. I really like the look of the Kellison and would be inclined to scoop one up if I saw one and had the body.

I wonder what Jeffries would do if he ever go ahold of one?

[Racewriter]

http://www.kellisoncars.com/

[blackout]

After dreaming about these cars for years as many of you also did, I found this one in Redondo Beach, original frame, untouched. The guy I bought it from also had a J-6 Panther on a 60 Vette chassis, complete car but needing attention. This car is now finished and is in Germany. The body/frame layout on the car was a "miss". The body sat on top of the rails, highboy style. It has to be channeled to look right.

[49ratfink]

I knew a girl back around 1978 who had one in the family garage that belonged to her brother who passed away. wonder if it is still there.

[plodge55aqua]

I seen a complete Body Shell up here of one of those, .. Are the Jamacans the same style as the Kellison??

[Cris]

Ryan, the author Rich Taylor (wrote an Indy history, a book about the Hershey AACA meet, and about a million magazine articles) might have the kind of info you are looking for on Kellison. He raced one (along with a real Devin SS that he owned) for years in vintage races.

He puts on vintage rallies now. You can get in touch with him here:

http://vintagerallies.com/index.html

Cris

[Mr48chev]

I lusted after one of those since I was a kid looking at the adds in the back of the magazines.
I did find a shell that was too far gone from sitting out in the sun for 30 years to have anyone even attempt to work on it.

I had a Devin body that was (and is) still in the raw fiberglass and sold it to a friend who has it hanging in his garage where it has been for 25 years. I've been wanting to see if he will sell that one back as I've picked up a bit of fiberglass repair skill working on my boat and could probably tackle it now.
I'd have to go dig an old Hot Rod out to find a Kellison Add to get the price but I believe they were around 500 in 1960 something dollars for the body. The Devin body which was a bare shell with nose, main section, hood and doors and nothing else was around 400 at the time.

[O.Hove]

Still have a Kellison catalog ,from back in the day

[turdytoo]

If I remember right Kellison got into lots of fiberglass stuff back in the late 60's including t-bucket bodies and frames and some kind of connection with Fresno Speed Center and Chuck Tanko.