Outside the Cusp - The Kit Car industry

The explosion of the affordable supercar market has been driven by OEM's in their ability to package supercar levels of performance into cars with attainable prices. GTR, Corvette, Supra, and even Mustang, 370z, and WRX STI have provided a level of performance previously un attainable to the average person. As a result, the aftermarket automotive segment is thriving with large areas of that market tailored towards support of these performance vehicles.

Though once a platform for establishing legendary automotive OEM's like Lotus and Shelby, the kit car industry has since lapsed into a niche trade. As a result it sits just outside the cusp of main stream aftermarket equipment markets of recent decades. Novum Autoworks believes the chasm is caused by outdated design and manufacturing, a focus on aesthetics over performance, general poor quality and ownership experience, the need for extensive build and fabrication skills as a consumer, and a build time of 1000's of hours.

In order to move the industry forward, it has to be modernized. One area we see progress in already is in the design phase. Traditionally, kit cars are produced by hand sculpting a foam master that is used to pull molds off of. While the amount of skill needed to hand sculpt a car body can be appreciated, the result is not up to standards of an OEM. OEM's use a specialized modeling software to create a CAD model with a class A surface. This digital surface has perfect alignment and curvature, resulting in perfect reflections as light is reflected off that surface to an observer. In order to preserve that class A surface, the creation of the physical master mold needs to be created with CNC machining. 

Another concept that would move the industry forward is quality and buildability. Many kit cars on the market today take 1000's of hours to build, with a lot of that time spent filling poor quality fiberglass to an acceptable appearance.  Again with the use of computer aided design, body panels can be created with OEM like fit and attachment, which can significantly reduce the amount of expertise required to build a kit car, and even make it attainable by an average automotive enthusiast. Finally, the cost of modern composites materials and layup techniques is coming down as it trickles out of the aero industry, through automotive OEM's and finally to aftermarket parts manufacturers. The application of these next generation manufacturing processes not only provides a more reasonable level of quality, but also a level of performance not previously seen in the aftermarket space. 

At Novum Autoworks, we believe we have the right experience, expertise, and vision to address the issues holding back the kit car industry from mainstream.... and we fully intend to.

Exciting things are on the horizon, stay tuned!