With coming on board to helm KIT CAR a few months back, it was training day all over again. Being new to this hobby/industry, my learning curve has been strictly vertical and I suspect it will be for a while, as there is a lot to take in. But one of the best experiences I've had recently was attending KIT CAR's Run and Gun event in St. Louis. This magazine dropped the ball initially (mostly due to my inexperience) on promoting the 2004 event, but that won't happen again. I had such a good time at the event, meeting lots of hardcore replicar enthusiasts, and photographing the cars for the article printed in this issue.
I came away so enthused that, after meeting with track officials and the folks who run the event, Rich Pickels and Wayne Turpin, we decided to make some changes for the 2005 event, which already has its date set: August 25-27 (a Thursday through Saturday), with a rain date of August 28. One of the biggest changes in next year's program will be the addition of a Manufacturer's Cup for those who will be racing under corporate colors, and a nice, big trophy that will be able to hold all the bragging rights for the entire year! Look for more on the Run and Gun (both this year's and next year's shows) in upcoming issues of KIT CAR as well as on the Web at www.kitcarmag.com.
Enthusiasm for cars can manifest itself in many different ways. You should notice we've changed direction with KIT CAR Profiles, one of the monthly columns in the magazine, adding the artwork and thoughts of automotive illustrator Steve Stanford. Steve, a brilliant self-taught artist, is looked up to by nearly every automotive artist out there for his style and approach. I've always enjoyed my conversations with Stanford because, at the core, he's just a car guy-albeit a car guy who really knows how to push his pencil around a blank sheet of paper. He was struck by hot rod lightning at an early age, and he expresses that love of cars like no other. We're honored to have his work in KIT CAR, and believe some of his insights into car design could help shape the kit and replicar industry.
What Steve will be responsible for is putting pen to paper in the world of "What If?" What if you took a car design from the past, updated with today's technological advances (space frames, aluminum indy suspensions, efficient fuel injected powerplants) and created a whole new type of kit car? Not one entirely based on an authentic reproduction, but a vehicle that might look like they would have built if a designer in the '60s could have spent five minutes in the new millennium via a time machine. It would be just enough to capture what is good about the new but still retaining the charm and classic lines of the old. Lord knows the folks at Chrysler and Ford have sure thought about that kind of time machine with the products they've been recently building! So why not in this industry?
Where will the new ideas come from? There are companies out there right now who are making great platforms to work from. Who says a Diablo chassis has to have a Diablo body on it? What is a Saleen S7 if not a glorified, mid-engine kit car with super-slippery skin? Are there people out there would like to climb into their own, self-built, unique automobile that not only looks like a million bucks, but performs as well as some of those supercars? Sure, there will always be a place for kit builders who want to build a car on the cheap, but there has to be others out there willing to push the envelope of home car building.