November 2018 update: I had a business trip to the east coast and was able to fly out a day early and meet up with Chris at his shop near Cleveland Ohio. He’s been easy to work with via phone/email (lots of other shops are not!), and this carried right over to being in person. Great guy, and just confirms that going with Active was the right choice!
-Chris strikes a good balance of listening to what we want and also making recommendations based on his knowledge/experience; it never feels like a sales pitch…he’s passionate about making a great car, and that sells itself.
-Bespoke shop: He’s got a few GT40’s in various stages of build…some are the straight forward kit (like ours), while others are a full turn-key build per a customer’s detailed specification.
-He’s very involved: since it’s a smaller shop, he’s the prime point of contact for everything. Makes it really easy to coordinate all of the details, as you always talk to the same person & he’s either doing the work or overseeing it.
-Good Feedback loop: We have a few custom portions of our build (ie. Roll cage & Exhaust headers) that we worked through what we wanted…Chris then has the hard job of figuring out how to implement; the great part is that Chris would tac the cage together, then send us pictures for review. We had a few small tweaks we wanted, and Chris was quick to make updates and send out new pictures.
-Payments: It’s a 3 payment structure. 1st payment is ~1/3 up front to start the work. 2nd payment is once the chassis/body is done, which is the next 1/3 payment, but this time it includes any options you’ve added (it’s helpful that the 1st payment doesn’t include the options, as it lets the build start while giving us time to figure out the remaining details). 3rd payment is once it’s ready to deliver. Chris has provided regular updates with pictures at major milestones…which is always reassuring when doing business from afar.
Roll Cage: Normally a GT40 won’t have the front roll hoop…and many don’t even have the rear hoop. We plan on tracking the car, so we wanted some that would be safe and pass most race organization requirements. There’s a central “halo” style center section that connects the front and rear hoops, which is tucked under the body work. Then there’s bolt on side bars (flat bars in the picture) that can be added for track days…but removed for street driving to allow easy entry/exit. There’s also integrated “door bars” that connect with the fuel tank structure.
*you can see 2 other GT40’s (MK2 & MK1) further along in the build process. It was really helpful to see them, and Chris let me spend a good amount of time crawling around them, sitting in, and taking pictures.
