Richard, I agree with most of what you said except about the cheap parts,
there a plenty of good four or six cylinder powertrains available which
typically power 3300 to 3600 pound garden variety Hondas, Toyotas, Fords and
Chevys. Subtract 800-1000 pounds from the weight and suddenly you have a
pretty good power to weight ratio.
As Alan alluded to, I believe the Lotus Elise engine is based on a fairly
garden variety Toyota 4 banger.
It will be hard for a small manufacturer to build to a low price, get a
larger player in the mix and maybe that would change. Flashback to the
original 100 story with Austin, a lot of things have changed, but many are
not that much different.
Somewhere between a Miata and a Corvette in price and performance would be
great, but probably too much to hope for. As in the early fifties there is
actually a little gap in the market there, the "entry level" BMC Porsche and
Mercedes roadsters are about as much as the Vette and offer less
performance. Only tweener car I can think of in the USA is the S2000,
perish the thought but maybe something like the torquey GM 3.8 liter v-6 in
the new Healey (believe it was an option in the Camaro Firebird, so even a
RWD driveline available) as a contrast to the high strung Honda unit, and in
keeping with the Healey tradition of a low stressed production units giving
effortless performance
Also it needs to be GREAT LOOKING, stunning, fabulous, etc.
Now I am working myself up, anybody want to throw out a little (OK a lot) of
venture capitol, hell I'll build one!
Greg Lemon
54 Bn1
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