Saturday, December 12, 2009

AREX in Automobile magazine



As previously posted, with better pictures, Dave has completed his AREX and has it on the road. My father was kind enough to cut the article out of the current Automobile magazine and mail it to me. I apologize for the gap in the middle, etc.

Years ago, we came to know Robert Cumberford of Automobile magazine. By the way, its Robert, not Bob. As Robert has been known to say, if you call him Bob, he assumes he doesn't know you and you are probably a salesman.

In the early days, we got the AREX together as a body and chassis, but only had a mock up engine in back. In order to get some good pictures, Robert and his photographer coasted that car down the steep hill from Dave's house giving the car the blurred background of motion in the photos.

Later, when my car was running, but just in dull white gel coat fiberglass, he came back and drove it for real. At the time, he said that so many of these project cars are not well engineered. He said that he should have known that Dave and I, being in the auto industry, would make a real car.

He also noted something that I found for myself. The AREX was a friendly car. People would come up to you and just start conversations when you were in the AREX. Robert said that it was quite a different experience from driving a Lamborgini or other exotics. He felt like people assumed you would be an arrogant asshole just trying to show off in your Lambo, but the AREX was exotic without being intimidating.

Nice to see AREX in print. Congratulations to Dave for getting it done.

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