Quote:
Originally Posted by peterpjb
Tony, much appreciate your answer, but I am already aware of the points you mentioned,
for me there is still some actual confusion, you described the facts everyone knows but these facts doesn't correlate completely with the actual perception of things
who is assembling the Alu Cars NOW?
what is McCluskys part NOW (he assembled the actual Sebring Tribute Cars)
who is responsible for the development of the Tribute Cars (HiTech as Ross mentioned or Shelby as obvious assumption)?
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Kirkham currently makes Shelby CSX alloy cars. This has been discussed many times here.
Is your assertion of McClusky's involvement first hand knowledge? It's not published widely who is involved in the processes. Shelby is the official source, who they use as subcontractors for final assembly isn't published (David's post on the CSX3xxx foundation cars was considered a no-no and the flow went quiet very suddenly. Those cars were from DenBeste and I heard from a usually reliable source that he wasn't pleased with the disclosure. There was two sources and who built any particular one wasn't a major consideration in the manufacturing, although I certainly would have had a preference had I bought one.) It was stated during the CSX3xxx "resumption" car period that McClusky had sold his interest to Serb so his involvement was thought to be more of a consulting role than an actual participant. Maybe you know more.
HiTech is a manufacturer. They will build anything for a profit (they manufacture vehicles for others besides Shelby and Superformance). Without Shelby saying specifically, it doesn't make any business sense for anyone to have initiated the Shelby Bondurant Tribute cars except for Shelby American and this would be right on schedule for them. They have initiated all of the previous tributes and are sold under their brand. In otherwords, it was a Pull rather than a Push. Things do sometimes seem to get fuzzy because of the hydra-headed involvement of Hillbank. Did Lance nudge Gary Patterson that it was time? Who knows. Gary's pretty on top of things though so I doubt it.
I do know that HiTech will build alloy cars, but they are considered special one-offs. I "missed it by that much" (like Maxwell Smart used to say) in getting the first new CSX9000 alloy car. It was built in SA totally by hand for a customer that backed out and surrendered a sizeable deposit and Lance offered it to me finished with engine for 200K. I asked him at SEMA if they would still do one and the answer was affirmative for 500K plus or minus. He did say they had done two (the one I almost got and one other.) Instead I got the Ford GT as the boss didn't like the coupe - just thought it was Cobra with a hard top.