Best kit plane

What is the best overall kit plane. I was looking at the RV12 or RV14. I know this may be a loaded question based an many variables, but wanted to know where to look first and thought the RVs were a good place to start.

Standard answer is that you must define your mission.

That aside, the major kit companies all make great kits. Complete, CNC cut, basically ready to cleco together and rivet. Again, your mission defines what you want. Speed? High vs low wing? STOL? Useful load?

Then there’s cost. RV12s are great. I have quite a few hours in them. Highly capable. On the slow side, but I think you could build one in about 150 hrs. Ok, I’m joking there but they’re about the easiest, no thinking required, kit out there. But you’re probably close to $100k when you’re done. I’m 99.8% done with my current build, a Zenith Cruzer. With glass panel and an O200 (rebuilt by me) I’m right around $55k.

What Carl said. You need to define your mission. The 12 and 14 are vastly different airplanes. The only thing they realistically have in common is they are both RVs.

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I know this may be a loaded question based an many variables,

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How high is up? As others indicate above, that has no answer without a lot of additional information, such as what are you going to do with it? What is your budget? Have you ever built an airplane? Do you fly taildraggers? Where are you located (a J-3 at 7,000 ft elevation isn't a lot of good for two people or on a hot day)? How many people do you want to take with you?

It might be more productive if you ask about specific aircraft, or better yet, provide those "many variable" as they apply to you and your intended use. After all, someone might say the best is a Lancair, but if you never travel any distance and want to fly into the back country and/or if your high performance piloting skills aren't up to snuff, or if it's way beyond your budget then it would be useless to you.