NMS Visits Exomotive

Kevin the owner says go ahead and sit in it. So, I went ahead and sat in it! Not shown is a piece that covers the engine compartment and front corner. 

We recently announced that NMS will be taking on an Exocet build in the future, so here's some more info about the Exocet. NMS drove over to Rome Georgia to visit the home of the Exomotive Exocet! All the team members that are NOT retired stated that they felt this was even more fun than going in to the office for work! All retired members concurred 100 per cent! 

Brian checks out the Exocet as Kevin explains. The orange car has one roll bar behind the seats, and other models have a full cage. Sorry for the glare from outside, things are just brighter in Georgia!

The Exocet is an exoskeletal kit car, that NMS will be building with a Miata running gear. We went there to learn more details about their Exocet kit car for the Mazda Miata, talk directly with the head of the company Kevin, and learn as much as possible. You can check out the company at this link: 

EXOMOTIVE EXOCET!

Rear view, with the cover over the gas tank and etc. in the back. Fuel filler port on top and of course rear lights in the back. 

Since you build it with your own Miata, plus the kit from Exocet, there are a LOT parts of the car that you can customize in dozens or hundreds of ways. If you don't like the round tail lights, try something else. If you don't need cruise control and air conditioning, remove them from the Miata. If you want to add a drink holder for some reason, fabricate something and add that too. 

Here you can better see the cover over the engine and front corner. The hole on top of this one is to allow space for a V-6 non-Miata engine. The number 27 is on a polycarbonate panel. Below the number panel is another longer panel that helps keep pebbles from coming into the cockpit. When we raced a go-kart on a gravel track, there were a lot of little rocks flying around!

The Exocet kit car started in Great Britain as the MEV Exocet, and Exomotive was founded in the US 15 years ago to bring this car to the US. Like other kit cars, the idea is that you can start with a basic running donor car (in this case a 90-05 Miata) and then use it's running gear to build the kit car. There are lots and lots of ways to customize it too. You can even put a V8 LS or V6 motor in if that's your thing. NMS plans on keeping the Miata 4 cylinder stock in our build.

This silver car is the race version, you can see the full cage over the cockpit. There's still room to slide into the seats from the side. With an optional wing on the back, you could leave that off. Yes, the sides are just the steel frame, hence the exoskeleton concept. 

Basically a full cage placed on top of a Miata. For driving on track, the race seats and full harness system are the way to go. The Exocet can be race only or made road legal, of course depending on your state registration laws. South Carolina doesn't have any vehicle inspections, so it should be fairly simple to register.

Here's a detail of just one way to mount the headlights and side mirrors. This light is clamped around the beefy 1.75 inch tube, and the mirror is bolted into it (out of view.)

The orange and silver cars are finished, and the yellow frame is ready to go to a customer. 

They can powder coat the frame if you want it, with tons of colors available.

The gel coat covers for the engine and rear can also be in color. 

Kevin with lots of steel frame parts in the shop. 

Close up of the top perch for the coil overs. You can build it with the stock suspension, or upgrade and modify as desired for track or off road use. Look for the NMS Exocet to be track built. 

Frame welding  tables. While Exomotive has the frames engine and gas tank covers built off site, and the metal frames get powder coated elsewhere, each frame gets welded together right here. This way you can order the frame in several different configurations. NMS plans on using the full Race set up, basically a roll cage with lots of protection for the driver and passenger. Combined with race seats and harness systems, this should make for as safe of a car as you can take on track. Well, unless you drove a tank on track, I guess that would be pretty safe.