Not long after I began working as the new editor of KIT CAR, I received a voice mail message from an automotive industry market researcher. He was gathering information to report back about the health of the kit car hobby. The gentleman contacted me in the hopes of getting KIT CAR's view of the replicar arena.
If he'd gone to any of the events that we recently covered-the London Cobra Show, the NCKCC show, the 10th Annual Coronado Speed Festival, or the Run 'N' Gun 2006 in Illinois-he'd have a positive view of the kit car hobby.
Consider the fact that more participants, cars, vendors, record number attendance, and the most money ever raised for Cystic Fibrosis research all occurred at the London Cobra Show in 2006. Recognize the fact that despite cloudy skies and cold temperatures on show Saturday, the two-day Northern California Kit Car Club-produced show in San Leandro, California, had as many vehicles and participants as it had in '05. Count the vehicles on display at the 10th Annual Coronado Speed Festival, a vintage racing event held at the Naval Air Station in California, and you'd learn that many of the vintage sports cars on hand were replicas. Go to the Run 'N' Gun 2006 at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Illinois, and you'd see and hear almost twice as many replicas roaring 'round the road track, on the autocross, and down the dragstrip than last year.
Further evidence of sound kit car hobby health could be found in recent articles written by Eric Geisert and Harold Pace regarding industry leaders Factory Five Racing and Shell Valley. Each year, these companies' annual open house celebrations rival the participation and attendance at longstanding replica-themed shows that are nationwide events.
In this very issue there's an article about the second annual Western States Cobra Bash, a show that's 2 for 2 in growth-both in terms of more cars and vendors. What's more, there are already more registrants for the '07 event, and it's months away.
We haven't even broached the more controversial aspect of the kit car hobby. Automotive aftermarket companies like Downs Manufacturing, Dynacorn, Cars Inc., Legend Motors Worldwide, Hot Rods & Horsepower, Kirkham Motorsports, Superformance, 1G Racing, Total Performance, etc. are coming out with all-new kits and cars at an astonishing rate. Some of the vehicles are comprised of fiberglass, some in steel, aluminum, and Kevlar/carbon fiber. Automotive enthusiasts, who pigeonhole themselves as street rodders, are offended when a fellow hobbyist calls their '32 highboy Dearborn Deuce roadster a kit car or a replicar. Gearheads who call themselves musclecar owners feel their manhood is in question when another motorhead labels their '69 Dynacorn Camaro a kit car.
Automotive hobbyists, wake up. Leave your inflated egos at the curb. The replicas of today are a far cry from the vehicles built in the kit car industry's infancy. Feel honored when another hobbyist calls your well-engineered, beautiful musclecar, sports car, hot rod, street rod, dune buggy, classic car, 4x4, or what have you a kit. Take it as a compliment.
If you really think about it, the portions of the old car hobby that are shrinking are the customization of original cars and the restoration of genuine vehicles. As time passes, originals are becoming scarcer, while the kit car/replica hobby is growing strong.
You know that automotive researcher I mentioned earlier? I never did speak to the guy. Perhaps it's just as well. He couldn't have been a KIT CAR reader. If he were, he'd already have given this aspect of the enthusiast automotive arena a clean bill of health-a conclusion KIT CAR's astute readers made a long time ago.