No SL C Components

[qwerty]

I agree with crash33, so it sounds like that only makes only 2 of us around here. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited by the SL-C, but I'm still too new and will likely always be too low in post count to be taken seriously in my reservations not about the car (some), but how it's going to market (many).

Unless crash33 is just a poser about his background/shop, I would say he is exactly the kind of person you WANT owning one; whereas the person who wants to be in a roller and thus closer to the experience of writing a check at the Porsche dealership is a decent enough customer, but not sustaining enough to keep RCR in the business of being in businesses.

J. Miller, this is an elite car, but not in the way you are thinking or wishing. It's not waiting in line for an F430 elite. It's different, Fran is missing this to some extent.

 

[Mike]

....and the above post, by J Miller, is exactly what I was talking about when I said he had pushed the car into an area that people who bought would not want to do any work on the cars. People that want to go buy somethiing and say "Look how cool I am. I can buy this really cool car." There are plenty of expensive status symbol cars out there, and right now plenty of them being repoed and sitting on lots. Kit cars, IMO, have always been about some amount of personalization. I happen to want more than Fran offers with the SLC, but obviously, as the post above shows, there are others that want less and prefer status symbols, as opposed to serious performance machines at a reasonable cost. There is always time to move into the "elitist" ranks if your product is truly exceptional, and that will naturally come in time with a good product. I think RCR may have the beginnings of that type of product, but if it's sold as a kit it should be priced appropriately, as I believe it is. If the step is made to turnkey cars, then $100k would be understandable. It would be up against some stiff competition, but it would be an appropriate cost. I for one, hope he doesn't go there....or at least keeps selling some form of kit for us DIYers.

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

OK ...I will bite.

How would having a customer that wants to change major systems on the car benefit the brand ?

Surely if a prospective customer sees what he thinks is an RCR supplied SL-C only to find out that the rear suspension now hangs from mounts on the side of the transaxle ,the car has an interior of mixed parts with some funny wheels and brakes that he cannot afford to buy as he does not have access to race shop trash bins ...dont you think he would run a mile because he would no longer have any confidence in the fact that he can buy parts from the RCR factory and actually finish his build....nevermind having to buy a CNC machine and pulse tig machine to make everything once the high tech race car derived parts are no longer servicable, due to limited life cycles and being of "minimum build" to actually be called a "real" race car component.....


Situations like this are the reason that people always look down on "kitcars" ,our industry appears to outsiders that we cobble together a mix of parts that may work OK but dont have that OEM feel and functionality....when establishing a brand, consistency is the key...and its damned hard to do that when working with boutique vendors and suppliers that dont have your customers best interests at heart.


Crash...a question for you....how much do you think one of those high dollar, high maintenance transaxles that you cant sneek out the back door costs....??and why should it cost that much money?...they have to be rebuilt every event and are always the liability...so surely they should be inexpensive as they can obviously be built better...??

A thought about pricing....we are all here on a GT40 forum...one of the most expensive replica cars to manufacture and also to build....
I would say that the most inexpensive quality replica on the is forum (besides our scratch build heros) is still around the 60k mark on average...with many many more well over 100k....and many of these are cars being assembled by hands on car guys not just by turn key buyers....so I think your thoughts on cost and what people are prepared to spend on their dream car may be a little out of line..!!?

As I said previously....the SL-C is not available in component form and has never been advertised as such ....if you dont want to pay the price of admission then dont come to the game....it is quite simple....
If you dont like what we manufacture or how we manufacture it or how we sell it ....

DONT BUY IT..

Dont complain about not getting your own way.....just respect the fact that we dont sell what you are looking for and move on quietly and do it your way and leave us and our customers to do it our way....and we can all have all the fun we can manage with what we chose is right for us...

 

[scott]

Here is my last high performance car, I sold it and it just returned it to France where it originally ran LeMans. It is a group C2 car that was, after finishing LeMans 2 years in a row, sold off and registered as a street car in Austria. It still has the horn and turn signals. It would not be street legal in the US however, and to make it so would cost a fortune, and no way would it be worth it.
These types of cars are expensive......to buy, run, even touch it seems. The SL-C is really a bargain for what you get.
As far as the "advice" being given to Fran, you guys are WAY off base. He is approaching the market correctly, I believe. No personal offense meant, but guys like Crash33 are the 10% of the customer base that waste 90% of the manufacturers time......not worth having as a customer in my opinion.

 

[Mike]

Well said Fran.......I think you have better things to do with your time....

 

[Mike]

Fran, I don't know where the attitude on the price thing is coming from. If you read almost everyone of my posts, I say how it is a lot of car for the money, or that it is well worth the price. I understand that it would cost much more to build from the ground up or to convert a DP car.

The only issue I had was that I wished it was available in a more basic kit form to allow me some build latitude. I fully understand your decisions from a manufacturers point of view and have no problems from that view.

If you got the impression that I thought you were way out of line on cost, I'm sorry. That was never my intention, or what I said.

You had previously answered all the questions I had for you-thank you-, and I really didn't think this thread had much more life. I don't know how you can post so much and get anything else done.

I hope I haven't pissed you off so much somehow that you won't take my money in six months or so. Hope there are no hard feelings.

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

Crash...I quote...from your very first post

" off other "real" race cars I can use, but the only way RCR will sell an SL C is as a $45k package. That's pretty darn expensive for a vehicle without any drive train and it's questionable whether it can even be registered. It's not a real race car, ............ ""

Not to labour the point......
Regards
Fran

 

[Mike]

Now about what the Ricardo costs that my friends are running. I don't really see the relavance, but just a case, after the factory team good guy discount is around $50k. I would imagine that an entire box would be in the $150-$200,000 range. As you know comparing service scenarios of a race car part to a street car part is apples to oranges. Certainly you wouldn't want to run a dogged box on the street, but just as certain, an annealed 4130 upright is going to have just as long a service life as your aluminum uprights in a street application. There will be no "timing out" in that street scenario of either part I suspect.

I have never bashed your product or said your vehicle was underbuilt or anything like that. I have never seen it in person and would never pass full judgement until I saw it function. That was not the point of this thread. I'm sorry if some on here got it in their head that I was complaining about the price or workmanship. I was doing niether.

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

Crash,
thank you for your opinions...my reference to the box was to compare your opinions about "real" race car parts...and the cost attributed to such....as we should compare apples to apples....
I have not been offended by anything you have posted ....it makes for lively discussion.

 

[Mike]

Yes but if you were to continue with the sentence that you are quoting, what I am saying is that, IMO, you are pushing the definition of a traditional kit car more over into an elitist car such as what J Miller wants. It wasn't about cost for what was delivered. Afterall, I only got that question answered a couple of posts ago. It was about the fact that for a kit car, there doesn't seem to be alot of kit. The only option is geared more towards the "elitist" crowd. Again, if that's the road you want to take, that's your decision. I just wanted to express my disappointment with your decision and let others know who may have thought there was a cheaper kit available.

Again, thank you for your time, and hopfully no hard feeling. It looks like you build a hell of a car for a decent price.

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

Are you calling all us GT40 loons that spend our hard earned on a 60-100k replica "elitist"....you will be hunted down and burned at the stake for heresy....:thumbsup:

 

[ArnieSmith]

Well you got the loon part right.

 

[Jac Mac]

Cmon Arnie, dont degrade yourself, surely your at least on the 'elitest side' of being considered a loon.

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

Nice avatar dude

 

[Mike]

No, no. You are either just yanking my chain now, or you missed my point, but really I thought J Miller validated my belief very well. I thank him for his "elitist" post.

And BTW- It is likely that most every driver of a GT 40 or SLC would be considered in an elite class no matter what the cost. I believe most people would actually give us more respect once they find out we built it ourselves.

BTW also- Reading the thread about the guy that got an SPF car and won't touch it and wants to sell it after 20 days of ownership because of some teething pains makes me sick. That guy should never have bought this type of vehicle. He should have stuck to the Mercedes, Porsche, BMW lots. That's where most of the "elitists" IMO should stay.

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

:toilet:

 

[Mike]

Hey Arnie, I see you have a spec racer? That's one of the ones I can't bare to get rid of in my shop. I still have the Renault in it. I believe it was a far superior engine to the Ford. Still run it now and again and it goes like a Timix.

 

[Ian K]

Again, as I have mentioned elsewhere, SB100 makes it fairly easy to register
any of them - FFR GTM, Noble, Ultima and RCR SL-C. The only problem is
being one of the first 500 getting paperwork in every Jan 2nd or 3rd.

Ian

Oh, and I should add that as far as all of these vehicles go, many can probably
be registered as new/calendar year vehicles with new crate engines and all OEM
smog equipment as required by CA law. After all, an 7.0 LS7 stock pushes over
500HP. And there are plenty of CA EPA legal mods that can be done.

I know of a guy locally with a Noble. Maybe I'll ask him how he got reg'd.

Ian

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

Crash,

that is me in the SR from years ago

 

[Randy V]

Hey Arnie, I see you have a spec racer? That's one of the ones I can't bare to get rid of in my shop. I still have the Renault in it. I believe it was a far superior engine to the Ford. Still run it now and again and it goes like a Timix.

The Renault engine is a good one and fairly strong, but I prefer the 5 speed gearboxes in the SRFs...
I instruct at this school;
BIR Racing School Performance Driving - www.birperformance.com

Small world eh?