aussie jimmy

cool - the mono looks great!
good to see you are going for more adrenaline experience.
the radical was too fast for me (*as a passenger), scared the hell outta me...

utkinpol

well, any custom made car will require serious effort to keep it running.
to get such a car with no established local on track support is imho not a very good idea. but who knows, may be this Mono will be a miracle and an exception from a general rule, who knows.

aussie jimmy

this is the bloke who was my driver ( on a different track)

malmasri

Pete...I admire your spirit and courage, venturing into a new spec so quick is not a simple task...I am sure unlike the 4.0 , this was not an impulse ...I will watch your feedback closely and thank you for having the test mule for the GT forum...report back to us after a living with the Atom for one full year please.

Carrera GT

That's worth a chuckle-out-loud.

There's been some great weekend rockets (including the Rocket) built by mad fools in barns scattered across the UK.

Like the Atom and the Radical and their predecessors, they all have their appeal. If you consider the BAC to be a luxury indulgence for weekend DE driving and the Stohr is a race car, I don't think you could compare the two -- one is an entirely new development based on conventional engineering, the latter is from a race engineering company with established competition in the US.

I think the makers of these DE cars know they're not set up to compete in the US competition classes. For whatever reason, they don't produce a version that would be competitive sports racer. The Radical has been toying with the US market for a decade and hasn't sold enough cars to be more than a niche.

At $100K+, BAC has a minuscule opportunity in the USA while it has a waiting list in the UK. The is or was true for the Radical and the Atom -- coming into the USA a handful at a time, the vendor trying to bootstrap a racing series, an enthusiast customer base, but no broader market traction.

The driving of the BAC is apparently excellent and the USA market could use something really happening in this range of vehicles. Here's hoping they find their price point (probably around $50K) and grow their customer base.

Savvy -- why not buy a baker's dozen and rent 'em out? : )

savyboy

I agree with your comment. One of the main reasons why I never was much interested in anything else out there. And after doing my due diligence came to the opinion the Mono will be the exception. We shall see?

It seemed an easy decision to me. Yes, will be an interesting experience. Life is all about taking calculated risks isn't it?

And I will be living with a Mono not an Atom (I know that was an honest typo).

Love the idea! With all my funds having gone to money heaven via depreciation/sales tax/maintenance I can't afford to act on it though. Wonder how RS Academy is doing with this business model?

Ah- fly in ointment alert - just remembered only 12 Monos are coming into US for 2013. Have to be a project for 2014.

Serge944

Calling it a GT3 alternative is like calling your right hand an alternative to your girlfriend.

It's relatively easy to create an extreme car when driveability, versatility, and comfort are not part of the equation. A GT3 (especially the 997) can be your only car.

All that being said... The car looks fantastic. I'm sure it will be a blast on the track and will put a grin on your face from ear to ear!

Carrera GT

As for the nominal "12" coming in, that's as elastic as the price sensitivity of the customers. All the niche operations have what I'd call a "plus zero" allocation model. Ferrari was famously a "minus one" model -- always build one less car than they expect to sell. Porsche seems to have a "plus or minus random" model where they sometimes build far too many (2RS) and other times a tad too few (4.0 RS) and never seem to have any more purposeful number in mind than plucking something of no particular significance in context, like 550 or 356 or whatever. That's never made sense to me, as customer or shareholder.

Anyway, I'm sure that if customer #13 comes along, car #13 will be sold. The thing BAC really needs is customers 13 through 100 to come along immediately (say by the end of 2013) otherwise, it's an uphill battle that nobody has won. By starting out selling 12 cars at $100K, instead of 50 or 100 cars at $50K, they simply repeat what others have done before them. "Repeating same, expecting different."

The car is so popular in the UK -- BAC and Sector111 need to replicate that critical mass, not the gross margin. It's either "loss leader" or "total loss" and every niche track car maker before them has chosen the latter. Nobody needs to prove that point again.

What's GM getting for every Volt they sell? Some say $300K in government subsidies? Maybe BAC should pop a washing machine motor in there with a couple of lithium boat batteries and get the green vehicle rebates rolling.

NJ-GT

@Savy

- Where do you sit your student or instructor when driving the Mono?
- Is there A/C in the mono for hot track days?
- Is there a roof option for rain days?
- Where is the trunk?
- Where are the cup holders?

TRAKCAR

If he sells his 4.0, will he still be allowed to post here?

Dr.Bill

Looks like an awesome machine!

Did you look at the Supersport? About half the price and looks like it would be easy to maintain and offer similar performance.

Alan Smithee

Is this the thing Clarkson wanted to bring to the track day comparo on a recent Top Gear, but then had to settle for a X-BOW because his first choice "broke down while being built"?

utkinpol

if you haven`t paid for it yet i would recommend to think twice.
imho for local market atom or radical is a way better choice if your heart is set on an open wheeler racer.

like my heart is set on a 996 cup car - i can see what and where i will do/run with it, i know how to work it, i know how to deal with it. a local guy bought atom car and so far i think it is permanently parked at NJMP where atom owners group runs most of the time and where car can be supported. i am not sure i would want to have a car that is permanently binded to a single track where local support exists.

this mono car with only 13 of them coming into usa efficiently has no support at all. and from what i understood you are not really a mechanic, so, what are you going to do if you bring it to a track somewhere and it goes kaput? with any p-car there are local resources, usually, who may help - who will deal with this mono?and it is not that i`m against this car - it looks awesome, but it is a simple enough question - who will support it in CA, NV, TX, FL? as if you think it will never brake - it is incorrect, they all brake, any machine will brake eventually, and non-mass produced custom projects usually brake much more often than mass-produced cars.

Serge944

Speaking of alternatives, the new formula ford just came out. Supercar performance out of the 1.0 liter inline 3. And you can go race it too.

Not sure how much it costs, but I assume substantially less than the Mono.

savyboy

That is the only thing I really care about. Where the heck will I put my latte?

Yikes, forgot about that. Well, enjoy me while I last!

Actually I did look at the Supersport. And I would suggest anyone else looking for a track toy do the same. It offers an interesting value proposition. For me though, it was apples/rutabagas to compare them.

There are all kinds of half-the-price/just-as-fast track toys out there. But the build quality, aesthetics, and attention to detail don't come close to comparing to a Mono. For some those matter and for others not.

Look how crazy we here on the GT3 forum are eh? The things cost Porsche maybe $50-60k to build and we have been dumb enough to to pay $150k-$250k all day long.

Not sure, hadn't heard about this? I know TG has done several comparos with the Mono. I've posted one here.