Reproduction of Ferrari 179844 Gear selector/shift gate?

Hello all. I'm wondering if there would be any interest in this part. I have lots of experience with castings and was wondering: If I were to make a reproduction of this part, would there be a market?

I recently acquired a gated car, after giving a lot of thought to buying an F1 car and converting it. This part seemed to be the real sticking point, with insane prices asked... which was what ultimately led me to buying a factory gated car.

However, now that I have one, it doesn't seem that insurmountable a task to remove the part from my car in order to make a pattern. I still have some homework to do, but my previous experience tells me that I could reproduce this part as a casting, as the original is, with the correct fit and finish.

In order to do so and make it cost-effective, I would need to make at least 10 of them. So, this is just a preliminary inquiry to see if there would be any interest. I'm guessing at price right now, but probably around $1000 per piece, significantly less than what is being asked elsewhere from what I have seen.

I'd appreciate any feedback, positive or negative. Thanks in advance.

--Bob

 

jg360, I saw a thread a while back about CNCing one.. was that you? To do this would be difficult.. at least, beyond what I have in terms of access to machine tools. The original is a casting.. I think that's a better way to go. In any case, thanks for your input... as I said, price would be largely dependent on number of parts made, which of course depends on demand... might be able to get the price down if the demand is there. With castings, a great deal of the sunk cost is in patterns.. after that , only materials and finishing costs (no small task). But it would absolutely make sense if I could sell 50... and absolutely not make sense if I could sell only one.

 

Good stuff.. but the finish will be wrong if it's CNCd. I don't see any way out of that without blasting it to get rid of the tool marks, and then refinishing by hand.. which makes it more difficult than just finishing a casting as per OEM. Thoughts?

 

Thanks for the responses. I guess I now have one more project to add to the list!