So when Aaron Fodiman
-- former presidential adviser, former restaurant magnate, current
publisher of Tampa Bay Magazine and well-known socialite -- went
shopping for a car, he went for something a little different.
Flipping through an
arcane car-collectors' catalog, he spotted an ad for the Auburn
Speedster, a replica of the mid-1930s classic pictured in all
its flared-fendered, exhaust-stacked, fat-whitewalled glory. But
something besides the looks of the car caught Fodiman's eye.
"Lo and behold, it was
right in our back yard," said Fodiman, noticing the Hudson address
of the manufacturer, North Florida Classics.
Meanwhile, fans of the
Shelby Cobra, the so-called "jet engine on a roller skate" that
tore up U.S. sports car tracks in the 1960s, are stoking the
reputation of Everett-Morrison Motorcars. The Tampa manufacturer
has become one of five major suppliers of what is considered the
nation's most popular auto replica.
Southern California
remains the hotbed of the hot rod industry, but two Bay area
companies are carving out comfortable slices of what the Wall
Street Journal estimated in 1990 to be a $300 million industry.
They build or supply
what are referred to as specialty cars, component cars, or kit
cars.
One company sprang from
the founder's heart, and is slowly and methodically re-creating
the flowing coach he fell in love with as a teenager at a long-ago
car show.
The other was born of
an engineering brain trust, with a close family applying a
slide-rule approach to a powerful symbol of baby boomer youth.
The specialty car field
is difficult to define, filled with everything from $20
million-a-year manufacturers to shade-tree mechanics assembling
their dream cars part by part.
It's a business that
has matured since the first kit makers made dune buggies out of
Volkswagen Beetles. A glimpse of the two Bay area shops shows just
how far it's come.
A trio of soon-to-be
Auburn Speedsters in various states of completion sit in
line at North Florida Classics in the County Line Trade Center
near Hudson. Don't expect to see a more crowded garage, said owner
Michael Akins.
He plans to build 10 of
the cars a year, one at a time, overlapping on a second and third
while paint is drying on the first. If you want one, plunk down a
$2,000 deposit for the $45,000 car, and get on his list. Since
establishing the business in January, he has completed two and has
orders for two more.
"If I have six people
walk in here today, I'm not building six cars," Akins said. "It's
not going to happen that way."
Since he started
restoring cars in the 1970s, first on his own, then with a Largo
antique restorer, Akins has dreamed of building the Auburn
Speedster this way. In 1991, he took apart a friend's Auburn
to start creating the patterns, fiberglass molds, jigs and tooling
that he would need to reproduce the car. He started North Florida
Classics last year.
He starts with a
full-size General Motors chassis and rebuilt engines such as the
350 cubic-inch Chevrolet V8.
Akins forms his own
panels, punches his own grilles and stocks his own leather hide
for upholstery. A sister in Pennsylvania has an Amish wood shop
hand-steam the bows that support the car's canvas tops.
"It's made by hand,"
said Akins. "It's time consuming. Every bolt and nut is secure and
done properly."
That kind of
workmanship impressed customers like publisher Fodiman.
"You see him
hand-rubbing, and hand-sanding, and making those bodies just the
way they should be," said Fodiman, who regularly receives photos
updating him on the progress of his car. "He's proud of what he's
doing. It takes someone who's very confident to show somebody a
work-in-progress."
The pride stems from
Akins' first encounter with the Auburn Speedster at one of
the hundreds of auto shows he's visited since his childhood. It's
an encounter he describes in almost religious tones.
"I went by the car. It
was white ... I looked at it, and I knew, this was too much. I
thought, "This is unbelievable, this car is so beautiful.' "
He went on to other
displays, but the white coach haunted him.
"I had to go back
again. I went back to where it was, got a brochure, and in about
1976, I started building them."
Now, a half-dozen
retirees serve as his part-time staff, and the cars are rolling
methodically out the door. It takes five months to complete one
Auburn.
"I wanted to build it
so you could drive it every day," Akins said.
North Florida Classics
will sell parts and components, but prefers to deliver turnkey
vehicles built to order.
There is no national
trade group keeping track, but the Auburn's light production
numbers put it in the "periphery of the component car market,"
according to Mark Smith, an authority on the genre and co-owner of
Factory Five Racing in Wareham, Mass.
The most popular
component cars are the exotic sports car lines, such as the old
Porsches and rare Lamborghinis. At the top of the list is the
Shelby Cobra, with Smith estimating worldwide sales at 1,000 to
2,000 cars a year.
The car is fondly
remembered by baby boomers who grew up in the 1960s, when racing
legend Carroll Shelby plunked a 427 cubic inch Ford engine in a
tiny British A.C. Ace body and repeatedly upset perennial
powerhouse Ferrari on the road race circuit.
Curt Scott, publisher
of the Complete Guide to Specialty Cars and the Complete Guide to
Cobra Replicas in Santa Clarita, Calif., describes the car's
allure.
"You had all this
torque and horsepower on a 2,300 or 2,400 pound road machine ...
That formula, plus the long shape of the front end, the whole hood
section similar to a fighter plane, had this aura of one hell of a
lot of brute power," Scott said. "It was referred to as a jet
engine on a roller skate."
That's the car that
caught the fancy of brothers Bruce and Brett Everett after they
followed their father, a retired engineer, to Tampa in the early
1980s. Brett had also studied engineering, finishing at the
University of South Florida.
While considering their
futures, the brothers came across a classified ad offering Cobra
body molds from a Sebring car builder named Morrison.
Against their father's
advice, the two sons took the plunge. Buford Everett reluctantly
backed his boys in the venture, Everett-Morrison Motorcars.
"All of us have always
been interested in cars," said Bruce Everett. "From the point of
view of Brett and [Buford], they wanted to do something
engineering-oriented. Building cars is something that's quite
appealing."
The Everetts got out
their pencils and "designed everything from the ground up," Bruce
Everett said.
The delivery of the
company's first bodies convinced the senior Everett he had
underestimated the business. At that time, Everett-Morrison sent
its molds to an outside fiberglass specialist.
The sight of completed
Cobra shells on an open truck bed was enough to spark a convoy
back to the Everetts' garage near Tampa International Airport.
"When [the truck
driver] got here, there were 20 cars behind him," said Buford
Everett. "I said, "Gentlemen, we can't help you, we don't have
anything to sell.' "
Business took
off"merely filling the demand of the guys who walked through the
front door," he said, and by the end of the Everetts' first year,
they had sold $165,000 worth of Cobra components.
In 1987, they
redesigned and rebuilt their Cobra body mold. A 24-page, single
spaced computerized parts list gives an indication of the
intensity they bring to each car. The Everetts offer nine
different engine types, 16 transmissions, and four suspension
types.
"There is very little
that General Motors does that we don't do in some way," Buford
Everett said.
Today, the Everetts and
a staff of about 20 send out 100 to 150 cars a year, in the form
of components, advanced assemblies, kit packages that run about
$30,000 or complete turnkey models around $40,000. The company is
building a 14,000-square-foot plant in the Odessa Industrial Park
that is expected to open in December.
The prestigious Car and
Driver magazine praised the Everett-Morrison Cobra in a 1991 cover
story. Scott, publisher of the specialty and Cobra guides, also
gives the Everetts high marks for their versions of the popular
car.
He also describes the
continuing popularity of the cramped, loud, relatively impractical
vehicle:
"It's a total roadster
experience," Scott said. "Cobra drivers like to look up and see
the sky. They like to smile and see bugs in their teeth. The Cobra
offers all those visceral thrills that a lot of muscle cars
don't."
Fodiman's Auburn
Speedster, due to be delivered any day now, probably won't
leave bugs in his teeth. But he shamelessly admits that he's
hoping for an attention-getter.
"You can call me
flamboyant or showy. I accept that," he said. "That's one of the
reasons I bought it. I love it when you pull up and people look at
it, or people come up and start talking to you about your car."
That classic image
comes at a fraction of the cost of the original vehicles. Auburns
from the '30s and Cobras from the '60s are advertised in the
$200,000 range, and have fetched as much as half a million
dollars.
Vintage appearance
aside, both North Florida Classics and Everett-Morrison are happy
to accommodate modern accouterments in their vehicles, especially
stereo equipment.
Akins said he has
installed multidisc CD players and even a gun compartment. But
there's one accessory that clashes a little too strongly with his
authentic interior.
"No," he said, scowling
at a '90s fad. "No cup holders.
Illustration: PHOTO 8 (7C)
(C) Guy Kusnierz of Everett-Morrison Motorcars refurbishes a mold
u body of the Cobra sports car. JOCK FISTICK/Tribune photo
(C) The dashboard of a
Cobra sports car, above, has the look of an airplane cockpit. JOCK
FISTICK/Tribune photo
(C) At right, the
operators of Everett-Morrison Motorcars are Buford Everett,
center, and his sons Brett and Bruce. JOCK FISTICK/Tribune photo
(C) (Cobra logo)
(C) Michael Akins, top,
fabricates a radiator mount for an Auburn at North Florida
Classics. NEIL McGAHEE/Tribune photo
(C) Plush leather and
burled walnut accentuate the car's interior.
NEIL McGAHEE/Tribune
photo
(C) Akins made his own
exact copies of the Auburn engine logo and header pipes. NEIL
McGAHEE/Tribune photo
Michael Akin
Copyright 1997 The Tribune Co.
