Thursday, February 5, 2009

The Last Bite of the Elephant

For those of you who don't know him, Dave Stollery is a friend from my California period. He created the AREX, the concept, the package, the design, and a fair bit of the practical engineering. When I arrived out in California, I met Dave and he sucked me into the AREX project. Or is it the AREX that sucked me in?

I guess you could say that I'm the number two man in terms of contribution to the design of AREX and I did the majority of the engineering. In the end, there are two AREX, one for Dave and one for me. Yes, I do think that the plural of AREX is AREX. Since I moved back to Michigan, the two cars have gone slightly different directions. Dave has done a better job at completing his car, as well as making some small styling changes to update the car and to accommodate his engine.

You see, Dave always loved big, nasty superchargers and, more than anything, he wanted this car to be supercharged. While mine is a simple high performance small block, Dave went the route of a new LS-1 with a supercharger on top. From what Dave says, it has 600 HP and massive torque on tap.

As you can imagine, creating a car like this has been a huge project. Dave had a favorite saying in regards to big projects. He would ask. "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Well Dave's AREX is on the road and working well enough that he is ready to stop working on it and just enjoy it. Now we all know that no project is ever completely done, but for now, here's to Dave and congratulations on the last bite of the elephant.

3 comments:

  1. Is it just me, or is one of those tires on backwards?

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  2. The car looks stunning, though I believe Parsla is correct. Also interesting to notice the one rear tire appears much more worn than the other rear tire.

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  3. First of all, Parsla can't be an ex-tire engineer if she notices things like that. Its funny, I noticed the worn shoulders, but didn't catch the backwards tread. Sharp eye, P. I'll bug Dave about that.

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