We just got back from a
two-week vacation in Oregon. A 2000-mile road trip and we didn’t see a single Locost the whole
time. Disappointing. We did stay overnight at the Oregon Caves and later drove through the town of
Cave Junction, but at the time we were completely unaware that Cave Junction, Oregon is home to
the worldwide headquarters of America's biggest and best Locost parts supplier, Kinetic
Vehicles.
Not only is Kinetic a great source for Locost parts, but four years ago Kinetic’s proprietor and
adventurer extraordinaire Jack McCornack offered up my recently-wrecked ’91 Miata to the auto shop
class at the local high school, with the goal of using it to build a Locost-type car that Jack
designed. Jack and his girlfriend picked up the mangled Miata from my brother’s house in Willows,
CA (home of Thunderhill Raceway) on a cool Saturday morning, and drove it all the way up to its
final resting place in Oregon in a single day.
The old '91 arrives at Cave Junction HS
The Cave Junction high school auto shop class wasted no time stripping the Miata down to sheet
metal in preparation for the build, and pictures of the dismantled car are still up on the
locostusa
forum. Over the next couple of weeks Jack started putting together the frame and suspension,
but unfortunately that's as far as he got. The project was never completed, and nothing from the
old Miata survived the ordeal. It's not clear why to this day, but due to some kind of crazy
mix-up the high school shop teacher took it upon himself to send the car off to the crusher.
So that was a little disappointing, but we got over it, and now we have our own project to deal
with. It would've been great while we were up in Cave Junction to stop off at Kinetic, visit with
Jack and maybe pick up a Locost nose cone or a windshield, just a couple of the myriad parts
we're going to need down the road and aren't sure we can make ourselves. Maybe not a myriad, but a lot. Half a myriad.
We knew before we left on vacation that Kinetic was somewhere in Oregon, but we were halfway to
Eugene before I thought to look up the location of the place. My bad. Maybe next year. At least
we're back home now and can start working on the Locost again, as soon as we figure out where we
left off. I think we were cutting tubes.
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posted September 20, 2017 at 08:05:13
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