LA Exotics History

[jeff g]

I just bought an LA Exotics Cobra. can anyone give me some info on the company?does anyone have an old kit car magazine with a road test on the kit?I know that B&B is the new name of the company.Buy how did it rate aganst the others?Does anyone have center caps for the halibrand replicas?They are 2and3/8'' across the hub hole-bigger than most.Mine was built in 96 Thanks for any help Jeff

[Eddy K]

I have a spare set for my Trigos but I am not sure that I want to sell them right now.
I would think that any of the replica dealers would have them or could get them for you.
I am sure that you can get them at Dynamic Motorsports in Ross, Ohio. They are a Superformance dealer. 1-800-29SNAKE

[CRZN427]

Jeff,

My first kit was an LAExotics. I bought it late in '93 and had it ready to drive by around April of '94. I believe that it was an easy car to build.

The kit used 4"x 2" structural tubes for the main frame members, a 1/4" steel plate floor welded to the bottom of the tubes making for excellent leg and foot room. It had all fiberglass inner panels.

I drove it for seven years and over 40K miles with no problems that were a result of the build or manufacture of the car.

I put a '64 T-Bird 390 with the Cruis-O-Matic transmission and was quite happy with the combinaion. I would have liked a manual, and my new kit will have one, but we took several long trips and the auto made it an easy car to spend eight to ten hours a day in on long trips.

My kit had the then standard LAE Mustang II front end and Lincoln Versalles 9" rear, with Mustang 4-bar rear suspension welded on, which gave stock Ford disc brakes all around and stock suspension and running gear parts if somethng was needed on a trip. I did have to replace a rear wheel bearing on one long outing.

The performance of the car would be largely based on how you choose to set it up during the build. Big Block, Small Block, Stroker Kit, Supercharger, Transmission, Tires and Wheels all have an effect on the performance.

I think that the biggest difference with the B & B cars is that they now offer a single 5.0 donor car option so the suspension and running gear may be different than the LAE standard.

One of the things I really liked about the LAE was the "No Paint Option" when ordering the kit. Mine came with red GelCoat, there were something like 64 choices of color. All I had to do was sand down the mold seam marks and buff the body. During the seven years I drove the car I re-finished the front end, with very fine sandpaper and compund, to remove the rock and bug chips that were starting to become obvious. That took all of one afternoon and I was back on the road having fun.

The only thing about the LAE that I didn't like was the reproduction wheels that they made. The look was good and the ease of use was too but the wheel itself was my problem.

LAE had a contractor take a chrome wheel, just the outer, and weld in the center piece. The center was made from 1/2" steel plate which made for a rather heavy wheel. The lug holes were drilled and the halibrand adaptors were mounted with tapped holes, which was good for the purpose. The problem was in how the center hole and the six slots were cut in the plate.

That process was done with a torch, possibly an automatic machine, but the end result was not uniform and the wheel was inheriently out of balance. I was running in excess of 4 oz. on both sides of the rear wheels.

The next problem associated with the wheel, which isn't quite so common now, was that the non centered center hole prevented the wheel form being mounted on a standard wheel balancer.

Not many had the adaptor (at least not available) to mount the wheel by the lug holes so it cold spin true on center. I ended up making one out of an old Ford front hub.

The next problem was that one of my wheels had the center plate slghtly out of true in that it would "wabble" when the wheel ran true. With the center plate mounted on the hub, the wheel would then wabble while driving causing a slight shake in the steering that was noticible at around 40 MPH. It would sort of go away at about 55 MPH, so I tolerated it.

The rest of the car was of very good construction and the body was stiff enough that it never showed any signs of shake or flexibility, even over some rough roads.

The only reason I sold my LAE was to support my Folding Soft Top hobby. It seams that the parties ready to by my top were predominantly FFR owners. Since I need one of the cars in my garage to do the fit up (and the LAE body and the FFR body are different where my main frame attaches) I sold it and bought and FFR.