So I have this get rich idea...

Or maybe just do something more interesting than what I am doing now. There are people making money "reimagining" cars, like Singer, Icon, etc.  I want to reimagine the kit car.  Think about it...most are based on VW floor pans, or the Fiero.

Dated and not too great to begin with.  Some, like the Factory 5 cars, are genuinely awesome but are more tube-frame erector sets. I want to make it even easier.  So, look at the KTM X-Bow.

Pretty stupid in 3-wheel form, the 4 wheeler is a dedicated track weapon and not street legal. What is has however, is a carbon-fiber tub with wheels attached.

What if I created two basic carbon tubs, one for front-engine and one for rear, to replace the aging VW pan and Fiero? Maybe keep all engine options to Ford (Coyote V8, Ecoboost 6, Ecoboost 4) that way I could offer a wiring harness that used Ford components  to run all lights, signals, etc. Or all Chevy; LS-8, Vortec V6, and EcoTech 4. Then you add parts from the catalog as you want, ranging from an exoskeleton track special to a fully-enclosed coupe. The body panels would bolt on, so you could even mix and match as you went.  I could offer turn-key cars like Icon, or a catalog of parts to build it yourself. Maybe even design hard points for some commonly used and easily accessible parts, like windshields, hoods, etc.  

Im going to work this all out, Ill let you know when I get financing.  (LOL)  

Sounds like a way to make a small fortune, assuming you started with a large one.

Seems like designing and selling kit cars is typically a way to make a big fortune into a smaller fortune. Not many who enter that business seem to stick around all that long, but some manage to. Hire some fresh out of college kid who designed the tub for their Formula SAE car or something.

I think you need a more updated platform - something 10-15 years old and worth low dollars.  Around here there are no cheap Beetles or Fieros.   

How about the 2005 Beetle, Neon, or Saturn?

As a beetle based kit car owner, kelmark gt,  I would love to have a cheap, well handling, braking, mid engine chassis to put a cool sporty looking 70s kit car body on. 

I don't know if there are enough like me to make even a small fortune.

I keep circling back to a ffr 818 chassis, it will need some mods to get a kelmark body on it, so will the kelmark body.  Then there is the more civilized route, a boxster and a sawsall. 

If you could come up with a kit that could be built for less than 10k including the doner that I could put my body on, I am pretty sure I would be in. 

I am not familiar with the KTM X-bow in either 3 or 4 wheel...cool.  

I think the real question is how to make the X-bow street legal.  The easy answer seem to be to drop an inexpensive, plentiful, VIn equipped /firewall/body/shell over it. 

The answer might be to build a kit which drops something cheap and plentiful like a Miata or Cobalt/Focus/etc vin equipped body onto the X-bow making it no longer an X-bow but rather a VIN legal Miata, etc.  

Considering the x-bow doner starts at just under $90K in the US, I don't think this is the economical kit car direction you guys are looking for.  It would be cheaper to start with an Alfa Romeo 4C and glue a new body on that...  and now that I typed that out loud...

T.J. said:

Seems like designing and selling kit cars is typically a way to make a big fortune into a smaller fortune. Not many who enter that business seem to stick around all that long, but some manage to. Hire some fresh out of college kid who designed the tub for their Formula SAE car or something.

So true - but then there's Factory Five. They walked into the completely oversaturated fake snake market and completely took it over. If I was looking to make serious inroads into the kit car world, I would learn as much as possible about how they pulled that off.

A note about turn-key cars - there's a big difference between building a kit from scratch to resell and modifying an existing car. Icon, Singer - those guys are technically restoration shops. Makes a huge difference if you want to register the car legally. Buying a new, completed kit car from another company makes things difficult. For example, there used to be an Atom in town. When it was wrecked, it became obvious that it was registered as some sort of old VW kit car to dodge all the hassles of trying to get it properly legal.

The reason Factory 5 did so well is lots of rich seniors wanted to relive their glory years of lusting after a Cobra and could now get one with a modern V8 and reliablity. 

Most of those folks don't want a dedicated track weapon, even if its street legal. How many GTMs or Type 65s has Factory 5 sold? PRobably not as many as the Cobras. 

Another reason the Fiero and Beetle kit cars were extremely popular - they were cheap! In the 80's and 90's you could get a Beetle for a few hundred bucks. 

If you ask me, I think the real quandary here is why LSX swaps are so spendy. I'm surprised someone hasn't streamlined that process to where any Joe Blow can put an LSX in anything for a few hundred bucks - the modern equivalent of a carbed 302 swap. If someone sold a plug-and-play kit that was guaranteed to both simplify and reduce the cost of an LSX swap into a Miata, or Ranger, S10, or whatever for $1000, I'd probably start looking for the next candidate, but as it is - most swaps seems to take months and some pretty intensive knowledge of wiring.

If I wanted to  pay someone to do a K20 swap into my wife's Fit for example, I'd be looking at $10,000 or more for a motor that I could probably get for $1500 - the process for swaps in modern cars just isn't streamlined, even when they are relatively simple. 

Keith Tanner said:

T.J. said:

Seems like designing and selling kit cars is typically a way to make a big fortune into a smaller fortune. Not many who enter that business seem to stick around all that long, but some manage to. Hire some fresh out of college kid who designed the tub for their Formula SAE car or something.

So true - but then there's Factory Five. They walked into the completely oversaturated fake snake market and completely took it over. If I was looking to make serious inroads into the kit car world, I would learn as much as possible about how they pulled that off.

A note about turn-key cars - there's a big difference between building a kit from scratch to resell and modifying an existing car. Icon, Singer - those guys are technically restoration shops. Makes a huge difference if you want to register the car legally. Buying a new, completed kit car from another company makes things difficult. For example, there used to be an Atom in town. When it was wrecked, it became obvious that it was registered as some sort of old VW kit car to dodge all the hassles of trying to get it properly legal.

Whoa there Keith, keep your real-world experience and extensive practical knowledge away from my far-flung, impractical daydreams!    But yeah, turn key cars are almost impossible to offer unless you are modifying something existing and even then you have to be pretty darn talented. (Like oh I don't know, LS-powered Miatas!) 

pheller said:

The reason Factory 5 did so well is lots of rich seniors wanted to relive their glory years of lusting after a Cobra and could now get one with a modern V8 and reliablity. 

 

Most of those folks don't want a dedicated track weapon, even if its street legal. How many GTMs or Type 65s has Factory 5 sold? PRobably not as many as the Cobras. 

 

Another reason the Fiero and Beetle kit cars were extremely popular - they were cheap! In the 80's and 90's you could get a Beetle for a few hundred bucks. 

 

If you ask me, I think the real quandary here is why LSX swaps are so spendy. I'm surprised someone hasn't streamlined that process to where any Joe Blow can put an LSX in anything for a few hundred bucks - the modern equivalent of a carbed 302 swap. If someone sold a plug-and-play kit that was guaranteed to both simplify and reduce the cost of an LSX swap into a Miata, or Ranger, S10, or whatever for $1000, I'd probably start looking for the next candidate, but as it is - most swaps seems to take months and some pretty intensive knowledge of wiring.

If I wanted to  pay someone to do a K20 swap into my wife's Fit for example, I'd be looking at $10,000 or more for a motor that I could probably get for $1500 - the process for swaps in modern cars just isn't streamlined, even when they are relatively simple. 

Sort of... Factory 5 is successful because they saw that market and made kits that were easier to build because they use a single car donor.

GM Performance already sells a harness to fit an LS into just about anything your heart could desire in a reliable way. If anyone could make something better for less cost, they would have by now. 

^^^^

Right, the real difference with Factory 5 was that the idea was to use a single donor, a Fox body 5.0, which were everywhere when the F5 debuted.  Before that, you were dealing with a hodgebodge of Pinto, Granada & Jag parts for your Cobra kit, or paying through the nose for new parts.

Now, pick a single donor thats common, reasonably cheap & reliable and go from there. I think the Exocet sort of fits that mold - how're they doing these days?

I have had a variation of this in the back of my mind for some time, only with a twist.

I was not really going to sell a defined kit car. What I was going to sell was a light, rigid carbon fiber pod/tub  that had inserts built in for a front and rear sub-frame attach.  The tub would be well enough defined such that it could be used as the standalone passenger compartment. Or further bodywork could be added of the owners design and construction.

The idea would be to let the customer use their imagination to fab up whatever they wanted around a CF tub and bolt that on to the front or rear of the structure using the provided attach points. If I could, I would make the pod versatile enough to handle front or rear engine variants.

Then you get into the sub business of selling accessories that attach to the tub. Of course, I woud have CAD data for pretty much anything that I forsee bolting on so that you can create the dream car even before you order stuff.

The challenge then becomes  designing a tub that is affordable using modern manufacturing methods. Think of what the Exocet team did with laser tube cutting, tabing and bending. All they needed was a business model that predicted enough sales to justify the set-up cost; that project ws never a onesy-twosies business model; you either forecast selling a lot of them or don't start.

Carbon manufacture does not lend itself to high volume manufacturing, but with the right pod design and laser cut and robotically applied carbon, it might be possible to do medium volume in the hundreds of parts per year.

Pete

What makes Factory Five interesting is not that they created the market. Far from it. They took it over. The rich "seniors" already existed and were buying cars. There wasn't anything new to do with Cobra knockoffs, and yet FF still managed to come in and dominate it. IIRC they sell more kit cars in the US now than every other vendor put together. The single-donor swap was probably a big factor. So was the race series. But if you're planning on taking on their market, learn EVERYTHING about them.

Exomotive has done pretty well. Kevin keeps supply and demand balanced and managed to get significant price increases in every year for a while there. I don't think there's a lot of R&D going on, they're just serving their customers. The introduction of the Exovette - a private project of Warren's, IIRC - is the first change in the company in years. One big advantage that Exomotive has is completely modern manufacturing, which keeps the cost of the kit low.

Plug and play kits to make LS swaps easier? They exist. The least expensive way to do it is to spend a few hours modifying a stock wiring harness, of course. I didn't have to buy any extra electronic bits for my MG swap other than what I got out of the donor car. But if you want someone to do all the labor for you, well, time and skill costs money and this will always be the case.

NOHOME said:

Carbon manufacture does not lend itself to high volume manufacturing, but with the right pod design and laser cut and robotically applied carbon, it might be possible to do medium volume in the hundreds of parts per year.

Pete

 

Has anyone done carbon layups with robots yet?  One of the reason carbon bicycle parts are still pretty expensive is everything is still essentially done by hand - and reasonably skilled ones at that.  And those parts are made by the thousands. Even in the Far East, skilled labor is getting more costly. 

I think FF was also the first kit car company to take quality seriously. Everything was CAD designed, and fit together without having to be modified or cobbled together by the guy in his home garage. That boosted their reputation and allowed for them to make more profit by charging more than the competition. Essentially they offered a higher quality product, and aimed it at the higher end of the market.

In reply to Ian F :

It would be interesting to know what can or cant be done. Bikes are made of small finicky parts, a vehicle tub is essentially a bathtub that your be built from vacuum formed pre-preg laid out at 45 degree bias between layers. I am thinking two thin bathtubs side-by-side as a general idea for the tub.

pheller said:

If you ask me, I think the real quandary here is why LSX swaps are so spendy. I'm surprised someone hasn't streamlined that process to where any Joe Blow can put an LSX in anything for a few hundred bucks - the modern equivalent of a carbed 302 swap. If someone sold a plug-and-play kit that was guaranteed to both simplify and reduce the cost of an LSX swap into a Miata, or Ranger, S10, or whatever for $1000, I'd probably start looking for the next candidate, but as it is - most swaps seems to take months and some pretty intensive knowledge of wiring.

If I wanted to  pay someone to do a K20 swap into my wife's Fit for example, I'd be looking at $10,000 or more for a motor that I could probably get for $1500 - the process for swaps in modern cars just isn't streamlined, even when they are relatively simple. 

That's because motor swaps in modern cars typically aren't relatively simple. And what it takes to put an engine in one car, isn't going to be at all the same to put the same engine into a different chassis. Even just the wiring. Do you want your factory gauges to work? Speed? Etc. This is why FM charges so much, because it's like OEM when it's done. Or why it took me 8 months (also money) to do the S52 swap in my E30. When it was done, under the hood looked stock. There weren't nasty torn up harnesses all over the engine bay, the factory guage cluster all worked with no issues, etc. 

It's not like E30/E36 stuff, where you can literally bolt the newer parts onto the older car. Even use the newer engine harness and computer, just takes a small adapter between the engine harness and chassis hookup. You can easily make it one or buy one. But even just the adapter is, or at least was, like $450. So I'm not sure how you're coming up with "should be able to do it for a few hundred bucks in any car"

The majority of swaps I've ever seen, people half ass the crap out of them.

I dunno PinchValve, unless you come up with the perfect car, at the correct price at the exact time society needs it - like the Myers Manx, I wouldn't cash in any retirement bonds just yet.

I know a guy that builds kit cars.  His Cobra kit is correct with Halibrands and everything.  His "Marlene", a big Mercedes roadster 'vert from the 30s is beautiful, workmanship is top shelf.  How many people want one?  Well, he can earn a living, but it's more seasonal than an ice cream stand and very economy driven.  When the market's down, no one splurges on extravagances.

I applaud your enthusiasm but would talk to a marketing guru.

First, I am a marketing guru. Second, what's a retirement bond?  LOL

There are interesting things going on with carbon fiber impregnated resins that allow you to mold/stamp a large tub.  They are molded around a sub-structure now, but that may go away soon. This speeds manufacturing and lowers manual/robotic labor. This would be my way to keep costs low.

The downside is that repairs to the structure are almost impossible, a wreck would mean a new tub.  But as the manufacturer, I'm not sure how much I care. 

STM317 said:

I think FF was also the first kit car company to take quality seriously. Everything was CAD designed, and fit together without having to be modified or cobbled together by the guy in his home garage. That boosted their reputation and allowed for them to make more profit by charging more than the competition. Essentially they offered a higher quality product, and aimed it at the higher end of the market.

I'd call Kirkham, Backdraft or Superformance the higher end of the market. Not FF.

I wonder if you could reverse engineer a VW chassis and make a “replacement” out of modern whatnot. Something to place under all those rusted out Kelmarks and Bradleys and Manxs (that are currently returning to the earth). Is that what you are proposing?

This seems easier.... $1 grilled cheese

I know you are a lot more involved in swaps, but I'm a 35 year journeyman thats pretty darn comfortable around modern cars, and modifying a van harness to go in my 67 Camaro was a whole lot more than a few hours. Like, 40 or so...

Keith Tanner said:

The least expensive way to do it is to spend a few hours modifying a stock wiring harness, of course. I didn't have to buy any extra electronic bits for my MG swap other than what I got out of the donor car. But if you want someone to do all the labor for you, well, time and skill costs money and this will always be the case.

 

To modify a stock LS engine harness? It was pretty darn easy and well documented. It was nothing near 40 hours, it really was just a few. Nothing compared to what it takes to strip a Miata harness down. Just take it one wire at a time!

Worth noting. The guy who makes the charger and VW bug UTE conversions is the gentleman who started FF.