Detroit is back to maybe 80 percent of its original glitz and glamour, but with Nissan and a few other mainstream makers absent there was room on the main floor for some decidedly un-mainstream players in a dimly lit corridor between the swanky Chevy and Volvo stands. And these small companies that I had never heard of purport to be taking orders for cars you can buy now, or very soon.Coolest looking of the bunch is the Mach 7 Motorsports Falcon, a Corvette-powered mid-engine exotic hailing from Holly, Michigan, a small skiing hamlet north of Detroit. This company, best known for making body modification kits for Dodge Vipers, is trying its luck with a 200-mph, $200,000 American exotic, but most of the purchased components come not from the Viper, but from its archrival Corvette. Engine choices include your choice of a 500-horsepower LS3 or a supercharged 640-horse LS9 small-block, the frame is a hydroformed tube chassis employing mostly Corvette suspension pieces, upgraded with an adjustable KW coil-over spring/damper kit. The body and interior are completely custom made (those sinister looking headlamps are aftermarket replacement units for a Dodge Avenger, shrouded a bit). And a Targa-style roof panel lifts off for open-air motoring. Performance is quoted at 3.5 seconds to 60 for the top-dog version. The company hopes to build 15 per year. We wish Mach 7 all sorts of luck–Michigan could certainly use another profitable car company–but considering that the official Falcon web site doesn’t load on the day of the press conference, we caution you not to fork over a hefty deposit in giddy haste without a thorough read of the refund policy.
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