I have a great idea for a kit car, what can I do with it?

I have a great idea for a kit car for a market segment that has been ignored. Anyone in the kit car business would feel like an idiot for not doing it first if I told them about it. Something very similar has happened once before, so I can't assume nobody else will eventually figure it out. There is probably a bigger market for it than any kit car available today, except maybe if you look at traditional Sevenesques as a whole.

This car could be successful enough to launch my own kit car company, which would be a dream job for me, but I'd have to crowdfund it and I'd have to quit my day job to do it, and I have no savings right now (see: Corolla build thread), and frankly my income is nothing in the face of doing grown-up things like starting a business.

I could try to sell the idea but a short description of the car's purpose would be enough to give anyone in the industry a eureka moment and they could easily replicate the idea after telling me "no thanks," and taking someone to court is a grown-up thing.

I'm just really tired of sitting on great ideas until someone else figures them out and gets rich from them. It's happened far too many times. If I could launch my own kit car company somehow that would be the best thing ever. This is not only one of the most valuable ideas I've ever had, but probably the most interesting.

Bugeye Sprite kit via one Miata ala Factory Five Cobra via one Mustang?? That is what I would like.

I'll tell if you guess but that's not it.

Submarine kit car?

Get the patent process started, tell no one until that is in place... slap a 3D prototype image together and put up a Kickstarter project ASAP?

I assume the kit car you're planning will actually replicate some other "real" car - is that really a patentable thing?

Seems like you should be more concerned with infringing on the real manufacturers property.

So what you're saying is you have an idea, and you want to make money off it. But you don't want to put it into production yourself. And you don't want to sell it because you don't believe in non-disclosure agreements.

I say you sell shares in the idea. Have everyone send you $20, and when you get to your happy number, you reveal it to the world. Yes, it's a joke. But seriously, I'm not sure what you're really asking us.

That_Renault_Guy wrote: I assume the kit car you're planning will actually replicate some other "real" car - is that really a patentable thing?

It won't replicate any other car at all. It would be very different from anything you can buy right now so I'm not at all worried that I might infringe on anyone's property.

And it's not a submarine car

Keith Tanner wrote: So what you're saying is you have an idea, and you want to make money off it. But you don't want to put it into production yourself. And you don't want to sell it because you don't believe in non-disclosure agreements.

I'd look at ways of selling the idea, I thought of an NDA but isn't relying one of those, as a "little guy," sort of like trying to pull off a robbery with a gun that is visibly not loaded? They could just call my bluff and I'd be SOL.

I'd like very much to put it in production myself but I can't think of a way to do it with essentially no resources.

Then you need an investor. Find one you trust and approach them with a plan, including numbers. Repeat until successful. This will take some work, but it's pretty hard to make money without some work.

Update: Well damn I just figured out why nobody did it. All of the series I was thinking the car could compete in require production-based cars, although the cars competing are so heavily modded there's usually only a few bits of sheet metal left from the original car when they're done.

I think it would still sell decently but not an easy instant success waiting to happen, it could only be sold to "grassroots" racers. At least that reduces my anxiety.

It sounds to me like you need a partner you can trust. Many companies are started by an "idea person" who is willing to put in most of the work and a "resource person". Ideally, the later would also have some relevant industry knowledge and experience: say, the publisher of a magazine that deals with with enthusiast vehicular activities...

Dang smart phone, too slow with my post again.

Pick up a wrench - me
Show me the code - Linus Torvalds
Get the job done, 'stead of talkin' 'bout it - Cowboy Troy

(i.e. you want to sell the idea, and you'll be taken more seriously if you have a functional prototype. Go make one.)

it's this, isn't it?

No, I said it's like nothing you can buy right now, there are both monocycles and Maserati Biturbos already available

Thread resurrection: Today I read an article in an automotive mag where I learned that a company has come within a hair's breadth of figuring out my idea. They narrowly missed the real meat of the gains I have in mind but otherwise came very, VERY close. To get around the requirement for a production vehicle, they built their kit car around the cabin sheet metal of a production vehicle. This also means losing a lot of the cost savings but there's no way around it...

They're so close it's scary.

Clearly you need to file a lawsuit. It's the American way.

Unfortunately I hadn't patented my concept

GameboyRMH wrote: Thread resurrection: Today I read an article in an automotive mag where I learned that a company has come within a hair's breadth of figuring out my idea. They narrowly missed the real meat of the gains I have in mind but otherwise came very, VERY close. To get around the requirement for a production vehicle, they built their kit car around the cabin sheet metal of a production vehicle. This also means losing a lot of the cost savings but there's no way around it... They're so close it's scary.

Sounds a bit like the Smythe VW Mk IV Jetta kit.

Yep, Fran Hall's RCR has ventured into this territory with their Eclipse based Apex:

As has Mark Smith with the Smyth G3F using a Jetta platform:

That doesn't mean that you can't carry on with your idea and join in also!

Jeff

What I read about this morning wasn't a single-donor kit car, that couldn't pass for a production vehicle...it was a kit car with a chassis built around a large part of the chassis from a production vehicle. Think more along the lines of how builders use modern pickup cabs to build crazy rat rods.

Exocet? Or something with body panels?

Body panels optional

Make one and show it around.