donutairservices

Found another one...

https://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/c...566174810.html

mrmustang

I'm not seeing a 30K+ car as presented

donutairservices

Yeah... I'm still new to this stuff yet. I've been lurking for quite awhile and still figuring worth vs. work to determine if I want to start from scratch or buy something with most of the work done and clean up some problems.. I'm not familiar with John Smith. I take it he was one of the originals ?

antonego

Believe it or don't:

- Dave Hopps was the originator of the MM. Previous to the MM, Dave had a Cobra kit car company called Contemporary Cobra. Currently, Dave runs a company called Turin Motorsports (formerly La Forza) that imports SUV chassis from Italy and customizes them to order. Nick said that Dave had many investors and partners over the years that makes things confusing when trying to identify all the players in the MM history.

- Martin Wilson was an employee of Dave Hopps, working on MM conversions. Martin spun off his current Panache operation based on the original designs and manufacturing techniques used on the early production MMs.

- Nick Manning's company Manning Motorsports subcontracted doing complete production of the MMs when Dave Hopps "got tired" of doing the conversions in-house. When he took over production, Nick gradually upgraded Dave Hopps' and Martin Wilson's production techniques to have kit parts laser and water jet cut vs. the "old school" way that they had been doing. Nick says that he evolved the kit into what he calls "third generation" vs. Martin Wilson's still offering "first generation" kits. Nick says he still does conversions (also LS1 swaps) and he has in his possession the original molds from the MM body kit as well as the MM nose emblems. I asked him why he doesn't have a web presence promoting his services and he said there's not enough money in it, he makes his living doing other things. But he still does conversions if people "find him." (?!)

Source: https://forum.miata.net/vb/archive/i.../t-198445.html

mrmustang

Actually Peter Bayer started Contemporary Cobra, then sold it to Burtis, who ran a well running company into the ground and closed it. Then selling the body molds to FFR, who is still sitting on them doing nothing.

Peter still owns Nisonger instruments and can back up what I stated above.

Or a call to Dave Smith asking him about the body molds, which he has already stated time and time again, are not for sale.

Bill

PS: A little more on Contemporary
http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/cont...r-history.html

mrmustang

Like your edit, you did read the thread to the end, right


Bill

PS: Notice the dates