Hi Ron and Hershal,
I’m in the dark. Could you please fill me in about Burning Lady thread and Daytona. Judging by your obvious irritation there’ s someone out there not playing the game with the website.
Other comments……
It’s Bondurant not Bonurant.
Yes, correct as someone reported, CAV is the company that builds the cars in Cape Town and the dealers in the US have their stateside name in front of AV.
As mentioned in ‘CAV – the true story’ the CAV space frame car was a direct copy in every respect from the imported GTD body/chassis kit. The subsequent CAV monocoque is quite a different car.
I’ve seen many good build manuals in the past, in particular from the British kit car industry, but they all fell short in various ways. I wrote a 65 page build manual and set out to make it the most accurate and complete manual ever written. I didn’t even look at the GTD manual but started with a clean sheet.
I divided my build manual into chapters and for each build stage I put the tools, the exact number of nuts, bolts, rivets and washers, etc, and glues, silicone, cleaning materials, whatever, for each particular stage, ‘on the bench’. I wrote it so that anyone with minimal mechanical knowledge could build a space (tube) frame CAV GT40 provided that he stuck to the sequence and didn’t get clever by taking short cuts. It was also written for new assemblers who would be joining CAV as the company grew.
For example, the drilling and riveting of the floor pan sections required 130 3,2mm
stainless steel blind rivets and a 3,3mm drill bit. It’s easy be casual and to say 3mm rivets and 3mm drill bit. Doesn’t work that way, one must be precise.
In fact, that’s why the American, British and South African kit car industries, in the eyes of many, do not enjoy the best of reputations. Many companies don’t even issue build manuals and the result is utter frustration, incomplete cars, divorce, nervous breakdowns,etc. My CAV/GTD manual took two working months to write and my argument is that if your’e going to set up a kit car manufacturing business a detailed build manual should be part of your investment. You’ll end up by having happy customers and a successful business.
Someone asked about US GT40 Inc. Three partners in Greenwich approached Ray Christopher to ask him if he would be prepared to supply GT40s in substantial numbers. It was just after we entered into an under-license deal with Ray, Graham and GTD when the request was made. CAV was going to be a tiny outfit supplying GTD with only two body/chassis per month. We agreed to the bigger picture and a deal was struck with US GT40 Inc. For whatever reason the deal was cancelled after I left CAV but I believe that US GT40 was the moving spirit that turned CAV into a much bigger company than originally intended.
.
Onwards and Forwards (or as they say in the RAF Onwards and Upwards!)
Andre 40
I’m in the dark. Could you please fill me in about Burning Lady thread and Daytona. Judging by your obvious irritation there’ s someone out there not playing the game with the website.
Other comments……
It’s Bondurant not Bonurant.
Yes, correct as someone reported, CAV is the company that builds the cars in Cape Town and the dealers in the US have their stateside name in front of AV.
As mentioned in ‘CAV – the true story’ the CAV space frame car was a direct copy in every respect from the imported GTD body/chassis kit. The subsequent CAV monocoque is quite a different car.
I’ve seen many good build manuals in the past, in particular from the British kit car industry, but they all fell short in various ways. I wrote a 65 page build manual and set out to make it the most accurate and complete manual ever written. I didn’t even look at the GTD manual but started with a clean sheet.
I divided my build manual into chapters and for each build stage I put the tools, the exact number of nuts, bolts, rivets and washers, etc, and glues, silicone, cleaning materials, whatever, for each particular stage, ‘on the bench’. I wrote it so that anyone with minimal mechanical knowledge could build a space (tube) frame CAV GT40 provided that he stuck to the sequence and didn’t get clever by taking short cuts. It was also written for new assemblers who would be joining CAV as the company grew.
For example, the drilling and riveting of the floor pan sections required 130 3,2mm
stainless steel blind rivets and a 3,3mm drill bit. It’s easy be casual and to say 3mm rivets and 3mm drill bit. Doesn’t work that way, one must be precise.
In fact, that’s why the American, British and South African kit car industries, in the eyes of many, do not enjoy the best of reputations. Many companies don’t even issue build manuals and the result is utter frustration, incomplete cars, divorce, nervous breakdowns,etc. My CAV/GTD manual took two working months to write and my argument is that if your’e going to set up a kit car manufacturing business a detailed build manual should be part of your investment. You’ll end up by having happy customers and a successful business.
Someone asked about US GT40 Inc. Three partners in Greenwich approached Ray Christopher to ask him if he would be prepared to supply GT40s in substantial numbers. It was just after we entered into an under-license deal with Ray, Graham and GTD when the request was made. CAV was going to be a tiny outfit supplying GTD with only two body/chassis per month. We agreed to the bigger picture and a deal was struck with US GT40 Inc. For whatever reason the deal was cancelled after I left CAV but I believe that US GT40 was the moving spirit that turned CAV into a much bigger company than originally intended.
.
Onwards and Forwards (or as they say in the RAF Onwards and Upwards!)
Andre 40
