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Technology Stocks : Orbital Engine (OE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bob Howarth who wrote (1756)	6/14/1998 10:49:00 PM
From: Maverick	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4908

This may be the end of Kia (another potential Asian customer): biz.yahoo.com I'm thinking Ford owns a chunk of Kia though, and if so they would likely throw in more money (to save them) to try to avoid a total loss. However, with so much in back wages owed already, the union probably won't return unless they get paid. Kind of ironic, as Kia is expanding it's dealerships into more US States right now (including mine). Finally, not many know it (because it's only sold in Kia's local markets), but Kia bought the Lotus Elan tooling. Lotus only built the Elan in 1991. It was a fantastic car, but the Lotus faithful couldn't swallow the front wheel drive (less than 800 came to the US). Kia replaced the turbo Isuzu motor with their own naturally aspirated motor and made some minor styling changes. ABS was added to bring the car up to date. Kia has been talking about bringing the car to the US (since the local market collapsed), but that means production changes to bring it up to current US specs (and they don't have the money). This is WAY more car than a Miata, as it has the Lotus "backbone" chassis. I scammed a dealer into letting me drive one three different times before he finally figured out I didn't have the money to buy it! What would be really sweet would be for Kia to hire Lotus to put OE DFI on the Kia motor (to bring it up to current US emissions) and bring it here. Kia has said they would have to be able to do low $20k's or it wouldn't sell. Lotus tried to sell the car for $40k in 1991 and it was too high. Most went out the door in 1992 for closer to $30k, but still bring over $20k today. But the tremendous strength of the US dollar has probably doomed the reentry of the Elan. Too bad. The car is still regarded as the best handling front wheel drive car ever built (and it's fast and beautiful to boot). Mercedes serious about the small market: biz.yahoo.com This could be REALLY good for OE if MB was on board. Not only would they have the prestige of having MB as a customer, but nice volume too. The Ryobi "all position" 4 stroke weedeater has arrived, but the wife won't let me at it until next Sunday.