florida_man
New Member
Hello folks, this is my first post, so I'll introduce myself. (There should be a new member sub forum.) As a college student, I don't have the time money or space to buy a kit. But I do have a lot of interest in cars and want to understand them. I do plan to buy one a few years later when I got the funds and place. I figure I should learn as much as I can and help keep the small community alive.
Part of that is reading as much about kit cars as I can. I noticed that there is a lot of older posts about kit cars that are out of production. Many British kit cars that are out of production. Most of the kit cars that are still made and been in production for years are expensive like SLC, Factory Five GTM, etc. While the Ecotec exists, there is a huge performance difference between the TC Goblin and a stock Miata.
It seems like kit cars come and go as the seasons. In the Kickstarter world, one of the biggest unexpected challenges is actually making the product. Labor, factory space, materials are things that people just don't think about.
That leads me to why I like the DF Goblin so much. It's not that just that it is fast, but it actually high quality and exists. The most underrated part of manufacturing is the skilled labor and expertise. Usually, people have a great idea and bumble around for years to make it right. A lot of the times, they burn through all the funds and the project fails. Here we already have skilled expertise since DF is in the aerospace industry and the passion to see the Goblin created. From what I read, this is a very rare combination and necessary to actual make any good product.
To me, the most amazing parts of the Goblin project was actually seeing professional welders, jigs, CNC design, and very nicely machined uprights. To really understand the difference, look at Locost car kits, where you weld the entire frame and source all the parts. The shortest possible time is 400 hours from what I read. That's not counting all the possible ways to ruin your car. There are also mid engine versions.
Anyway, I started this topic because I don't see much people talk about manufacturing kits. I hope that Andy can add his view actually running a manufacturing company.
Part of that is reading as much about kit cars as I can. I noticed that there is a lot of older posts about kit cars that are out of production. Many British kit cars that are out of production. Most of the kit cars that are still made and been in production for years are expensive like SLC, Factory Five GTM, etc. While the Ecotec exists, there is a huge performance difference between the TC Goblin and a stock Miata.
It seems like kit cars come and go as the seasons. In the Kickstarter world, one of the biggest unexpected challenges is actually making the product. Labor, factory space, materials are things that people just don't think about.
That leads me to why I like the DF Goblin so much. It's not that just that it is fast, but it actually high quality and exists. The most underrated part of manufacturing is the skilled labor and expertise. Usually, people have a great idea and bumble around for years to make it right. A lot of the times, they burn through all the funds and the project fails. Here we already have skilled expertise since DF is in the aerospace industry and the passion to see the Goblin created. From what I read, this is a very rare combination and necessary to actual make any good product.
To me, the most amazing parts of the Goblin project was actually seeing professional welders, jigs, CNC design, and very nicely machined uprights. To really understand the difference, look at Locost car kits, where you weld the entire frame and source all the parts. The shortest possible time is 400 hours from what I read. That's not counting all the possible ways to ruin your car. There are also mid engine versions.
Anyway, I started this topic because I don't see much people talk about manufacturing kits. I hope that Andy can add his view actually running a manufacturing company.
