Marshall Brain's Blog

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Kits

One of my first posts on this blog mentioned complete motorcycle kits that you can buy. The kits contain everything you need to build your own Harley-like motorcycle -- frame, engine, transmission, fork, handlebars, brakes, etc. You simply follow the instructions, bolt everything together and you have a motorcycle.


Build this motorcycle from a kit.

There's something cool about the idea of building your own motorcycle from scratch like that. A couple of people commented on it, and the logical question became, "what else can you get in kit form these days?"

One obvious thing that comes to mind is houses, because Sears used to be very big into the complete house kit. See, for example, this scanned page from the catalog, and many other examples.


A page from the Sears catalog of complete home kits. Click to enlarge.

I've looked, and there does not seem to be this sort of complete "kit catalog" available today from any manufacturer. A couple things that come close are panelized homes, manufactured homes (which arrive on the site in large, pre-built sections that are craned into position and bolted together) (list of manufacturers), and log home kits.

If you are building your kit house by a lake, you can get a complete aluminum boat dock kit to go with it.

A dock needs a boat. You can build kit boats that are little or big.

There are lots of kit cars in all shapes and sizes.



In general, though, they are not complete like the motorcycle kits are. They all require a "donor vehicle" to provide the chassis.

You can get guitar kits, turbocharger kits, electronics kits... There are lots of other kit ideas on KitGuy.com.