ERA Assembly Milestones

[RAO-3]

Originally Posted by Rickd

Ray, deposit #1 gets you in line for a chassis. ERA normallybuilds around 60 cars a year, probably 50% - 60% or more as turnkey minus or full turnkeys with motors installed. The balance I believe (my guesstimate) are mostly rollers with the body bonded, and many of those have suspension fully installed. My experience was a 12 month turnaround for a turnkey. Deposit #1 in early January, 4 weeks later a phone call "we have a chassis available - do you want it?", yes sir, deposit #2 to lock up the chassis (some people want to wait longer), once you have your chassis, it is a matter of the fabricating shop having room - then a body will be made, cured, and bonded to your chassis. That is generally a couple of months after you have your number. Once you have your body bonded, you can go to paint - mine was at Tony's for 12 weeks. Once back from Tony's, painted, it goes to the other building - final assembly where Peter's office is. That is 'normally', a 3 month process. The car will get a little time each week or so, until it moves up in line, and becomes "one of the 3 cars dat I gotta get outta here this month", and it will quickly morph into a completed car. It's a good thing to have wheels and motor on site so there are no delays. Keith Craft built my motor in 4 weeks from order, and ERA had it by the time my car came back from paint. They had my wheels before the car went to paint. Ordered Jan 7 2007, picked up Jan 7 2008 (approx), one year exactly. Rickd

Rickd, all great information! So they actually started on your chassis one month after the initial deposit? So many have told me that it takes 3 months. I gather from what you said, at this point he assigned a number to you?

So basically you had:

deposit 1 at day 0
deposit 2 - 4 weeks - at day 30
start of chassis build and assign number - 2 months - day 90
chassis/body bonding - 3 months - at day 180
paint with tony complete - 12 weeks - at day 270
final assembly - 3 months - day 360

Based upon this, as long as the engine and wheels show up prior to completion of paint, there should be no outside holdups.

Thanks

Ray