What happened to cheetah boats

[Sportin' Wood]

Liability is always a thing. You sell someone an incomplete boat they complete themselves and something happens you can be sure the manufacturer is gonna be getting sued. But of course they also get sued for complete boats as well since lawyers assume they have the money to pay out for the owners stupidity.

Seems to me its safer to sell a complete boat than not.

I'm not a legal expert, but I would think you stand a better chance of selling the kit, because the risk gets spread around.

 

[Racer56]

I am always thinking about useless stuff. Some nights when I lay awake at 3 am I wonder why no one sells a kit.

• Basic color and standard graphics hull (or single color with wrap)
• PRP Seats (order whatever color you want)
• Wiring harness
• Standard fuel cell
• LS power or whatever you can get your hands on.
• Jet drive
• Find a trailer manufacture

What am I missing? Seems like a fun winter project.

Figure out how to make a profit on the hull, sell the wiring harness and any accessories, set up a resale agreement with PRP, the Pump and a Engine solution. Sell the whole mess on a website. Produce a pile of videos loaded in an LMS for your customers on how to assemble the damn thing. Add a sub forum on RDP.

Is Liability Ins, the hurdle?

EDIT
The only thing I don't think I could figure out is the Hull. The rest of this seems pretty easy, since it's mostly buy resell/drop ship and marketing.

I've had a similar idea, but all the profit in a boat build is a finished product.

 

[adam909]

I am always thinking about useless stuff. Some nights when I lay awake at 3 am I wonder why no one sells a kit.

• Basic color and standard graphics hull (or single color with wrap)
• PRP Seats (order whatever color you want)
• Wiring harness
• Standard fuel cell
• LS power or whatever you can get your hands on.
• Jet drive
• Find a trailer manufacture

What am I missing? Seems like a fun winter project.

Figure out how to make a profit on the hull, sell the wiring harness and any accessories, set up a resale agreement with PRP, the Pump and a Engine solution. Sell the whole mess on a website. Produce a pile of videos loaded in an LMS for your customers on how to assemble the damn thing. Add a sub forum on RDP.

Is Liability Ins, the hurdle?

EDIT
The only thing I don't think I could figure out is the Hull. The rest of this seems pretty easy, since it's mostly buy resell/drop ship and marketing.

Back in 08-09 I wanted to build a sandrail but wanted just a tabbed frame the way I wanted and an almost complete roller. Pretty much I just wanted to do all the bolt on parts and elec. myself. I went to I all the big company's and layed out what I wanted. Most would not want to do it. I did find one that would do it and that's who i went with. I bought all my parts and hardware through the manufacture so I knew everything would be correct for my sandrail and had danzio build my motor which I installed Yes i built a 90k sandcar for 65k I think there is more profits in building it completely and the liability of it being a home built big company manufactured sandrail. I think most companies wouldn't want their name tied to a home-built performance-built machine.

 

[Sportin' Wood]

I've had a similar idea, but all the profit in a boat build is a finished product.

Back in 08-09 I wanted to build a sandrail but wanted just a tabbed frame the way I wanted and an almost complete roller. Pretty much I just wanted to do all the bolt on parts and elec. myself. I went to I all the big company's and layed out what I wanted. Most would not want to do it. I did find one that would do it and that's who i went with. I bought all my parts and hardware through the manufacture so I knew everything would be correct for my sandrail and had danzio build my motor which I installed Yes i built a 90k sandcar for 65k I think there is more profits in building it completely and the liability of it being a home built big company manufactured sandrail. I think most companies wouldn't want their name tied to a home-built performance-built machine.

It seems profit is an issue for even a full build based on the way some of these builders imploded.

 

[JLG614]

Back in 08-09 I wanted to build a sandrail but wanted just a tabbed frame the way I wanted and an almost complete roller. Pretty much I just wanted to do all the bolt on parts and elec. myself. I went to I all the big company's and layed out what I wanted. Most would not want to do it. I did find one that would do it and that's who i went with. I bought all my parts and hardware through the manufacture so I knew everything would be correct for my sandrail and had danzio build my motor which I installed Yes i built a 90k sandcar for 65k I think there is more profits in building it completely and the liability of it being a home built big company manufactured sandrail. I think most companies wouldn't want their name tied to a home-built performance-built machine.

One thing to consider for these companies selling rollers is quality. Not pointing to you in particular but look at what funco builds. Truely beautiful badass sand cars. Now you sell joe blow a roller and he pieces some junk together and calls it a funco that does not look good for the company. If I was in that industry I wouldn't want junk cars with my name on it next to $300k+ cars I built. Also most of them will say its a liability so that can't sell rollers.

and I'm not knocking home builds. My family is like you. We have all bought older 2005-2008 cars and we strip them down to bare chassis and rebuild them how we want. Sometimes the manufacturer is amazing and sometimes we change things we don't like and go with our own designs. to each their own.

Not sure how much you follow them but Tatum/Racer are a really cool family that has been in the offroad industry for years building and fabricating their own cars. They bought tatum and racer to build cars but they also just came out with a new brand Racum. Racum only builds rollers and sells them for people to build themselves. It the exact same frames and parts as their factory cars but this way they can differentiate cars they built in the factory vs home builds. Really cool concept in my opinion

 

[SOCALCRICKETT]

One thing to consider for these companies selling rollers is quality. Not pointing to you in particular but look at what funco builds. Truely beautiful badass sand cars. Now you sell joe blow a roller and he pieces some junk together and calls it a funco that does not look good for the company. If I was in that industry I wouldn't want junk cars with my name on it next to $300k+ cars I built. Also most of them will say its a liability so that can't sell rollers.

and I'm not knocking home builds. My family is like you. We have all bought older 2005-2008 cars and we strip them down to bare chassis and rebuild them how we want. Sometimes the manufacturer is amazing and sometimes we change things we don't like and go with our own designs. to each their own.

Not sure how much you follow them but Tatum/Racer are a really cool family that has been in the offroad industry for years building and fabricating their own cars. They bought tatum and racer to build cars but they also just came out with a new brand Racum. Racum only builds rollers and sells them for people to build themselves. It the exact same frames and parts as their factory cars but this way they can differentiate cars they built in the factory vs home builds. Really cool concept in my opinion

Makes sense, at that point create a different product name for the home builds. For example a funco is car completed at the shop, but gumco (or whatever you want to call it) are home built cars. Both come from the same jig but one is essentially a "take and bake" model

 

[JLG614]

Makes sense, at that point create a different product name for the home builds. For example a funco is car completed at the shop, but gumco (or whatever you want to call it) are home built cars. Both come from the same jig but one is essentially a "take and bake" model

Exactly

 

[Orange Juice]

I am always thinking about useless stuff. Some nights when I lay awake at 3 am I wonder why no one sells a kit.

• Basic color and standard graphics hull (or single color with wrap)
• PRP Seats (order whatever color you want)
• Wiring harness
• Standard fuel cell
• LS power or whatever you can get your hands on.
• Jet drive
• Find a trailer manufacture

What am I missing? Seems like a fun winter project.

Figure out how to make a profit on the hull, sell the wiring harness and any accessories, set up a resale agreement with PRP, the Pump and a Engine solution. Sell the whole mess on a website. Produce a pile of videos loaded in an LMS for your customers on how to assemble the damn thing. Add a sub forum on RDP.

Is Liability Ins, the hurdle?

EDIT
The only thing I don't think I could figure out is the Hull. The rest of this seems pretty easy, since it's mostly buy resell/drop ship and marketing.

I built my own airplane from a kit. 200mph 2 seater. Took 15 years and 1 move.

 

[Orange Juice]

I'm not a legal expert, but I would think you stand a better chance of selling the kit, because the risk gets spread around.

Lawyers will round up everyone involved.

 

[ToMorrow44]

So would it help if the boat builder did everything but the drive and engine so they could control their internal costs and labor only? Then refer the customer to a reputable engine shop and let them complete the build with the engine/drive and rigging there?

The manufacturers make a good amount of money on markup of the engines/drives. How much they’re marked up varies significantly from one manufacturer to the next.

 

[77charger]

Makes sense, at that point create a different product name for the home builds. For example a funco is car completed at the shop, but gumco (or whatever you want to call it) are home built cars. Both come from the same jig but one is essentially a "take and bake" model

Years ago funco sold a kit car too. Believe the front skid plate was different on the kit cars to tell the difference from a shop built car vs a kit assembled car.