ERA engineers a great car that is solid, well thought out, period correct where it counts, and intelligently engineered where it doesn’t. BUT…. Each individual build result can vary slightly as the customer/owner chooses to take on the final completion work…installing the drivetrain, assembling the suspension, installing the interior in the case of my car. If I was going to auto-cross this thing, it was going to need some sorting. The nose pushed, it was riding on flabby tires with a rock-hard compound, the seat wasn’t ideal, ride height was too high, and the steering wheel was too large and thin. Exhilarating in a straight line, certainly, but turning was something to be done with due care. So those observations created a tick-list for the up-coming Winter months in preparation for the 2011 auto-x season.
However, the car is perfectly capable at posted limits, and the overall excellent quality of the build gave me the confidence I needed to proceed with plans for the September 1,300mile round trip to Tennessee’s Tail of the Dragon. In preparation for that, I contacted Bruce Chervenak and asked him to make me a Lemans Hardtop so that I would have some weather protection for the trip. The reasoning behind the Hardtop was practical as well as a desire to incorporate the historical significance of that style of Hardtop. The documentation of the top build is located here:
LeMans Hardtop for ERA
- Allen.