Kelmark Engineering

Kelmark from 1987

Kelmark GT

Kelmark Engineering was an American kit car manufacturer based in Okemos , Michigan , from 1969 to 1994 .

description

Kelmark focused on mid- or rear-engined kits that were hand-assembled by private customers or specialists. Either the kits were built on the floor pan of a VW Beetle or they were given tubular frames in the style of racing vehicles.

None of the models were produced in large numbers, but the GT was the most successful. It was featured in Car and Driver magazine in 1977 and 1979 . When it was first introduced in 1969, the car featured bold styling that is said to have been influenced by Ferrari and Corvette concept cars . The Independence was a GRP body for a VW floor pan, while the Liberator was even more tuned and could be mounted on a tubular frame, a VW or Porsche chassis or even on another chassis according to customer requirements.

Kelmark also built a vehicle that was unique at the time, a VW Beetle with a V8 engine called the Sleeper . It looked like a factory-made VW Beetle. There was also a Corvair with a V8 mid-engine.

literature

• Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 , chapter Kelmark.
• George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 2: G – O. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , p. 816. (English)

Web links

Commons : Kelmark Engineering  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

• Photo by Kelmark at Priceofhistoys.com

Individual evidence

1. ^ Car and Driver, November 1977
2. ↑ Going for it . Car and Driver, 1979
3. ↑ Kelmark History at Bugoholics.com ( Memento from October 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Kelmark Marketing Brochure of Independence and Liberator ( Memento of July 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ ^{a b} Kelmark marketing brochure of the V8-Vair and the Sleeper ( Memento of July 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive )