Caliban Kit Cars

Caliban Kit Cars (Often known just as **Caliban**) is a kit car company based in Cardiff, Wales, UK. Caliban is specially popular amongst car enthusiasts, and specially amongst those who love assembling and craftsmanship; for those just looking for a fun car, Caliban offers an assembly service. Caliban's mission is to offer the best track weapons to everybody, to take elitism out of the motorsports equation.

## Overview

### Key individuals

Lady Mach III (former CEO), Lord Mach IV (CEO)

### Forum thread

http://discourse.automationgame.com/t/caliban-kit-cars-in-love-with-the-track/22628

## Business

### **Early days of Caliban (1946-1951)**

Lord Mach created Caliban after the war ended, as he had a dream: eliminating elitism from motorsports by offering accessible track cars to those who could not afford a higher end vehicle or modifying one.

Their first model was the Thunder, launched in 1946 and met with good reception. The revenue for the sales of the Thunder eventually allowed Caliban to design a bigger, more powerful sports car, the Type SC (Sports Coupé) for the American market.

#### Negotations with ACA (1948-1950)

After receiving a letter from the CEO of the Auto Corporation of America, who was interested in offering rebadged Calibans with ACA engines, Lord Mach I answered with an invitation to negotiate. Two years of negotiations managed to forge the Caliban-ACA partnership, which was key for Caliban to be able to be truly competitive in the US market.

### **Opening up to the world (1951 - 1968)**

As the ACA-Caliban partnership was cemented, Caliban stablished a production line in the USA, to bypass the need to import their kits. During this era, both the Thunder and the Type SC are reshaped into what they are nowadays, becoming sportier, smaller and more powerful.

During this period, ACA started tightening their requirements for Caliban to stay partnered with ACA. While Caliban accepted this requirements at first, in 1969, a meeting with a representative from ACA saw the end of the partnership. Wanting to take the motorsports operations of Caliban over completely and have more control, ACA tried to sneak these new requirements in the fine print.

This meeting was abruptly interrupted by Williams Mach (son of Lord Mach I, later Lord Mach II), who inmediately took over the company and kicked his father out of it with the support of their economic advisor and lead designer, as well as the workers.

### **Rupture (1969 - 1981)**

After ending the partnership with ACA, Caliban entered a brief crisis, now without the support of one of the big fishes of Detroit. Starting with a low point in sales for the company, the 1973 oil crisis forced Lord Mach II to axe the Type SC in 1975, as its high fuel consumption (due to its high for the era power) made it undesirable even amongst regular track day attendants.

The Thunder remained more or less the same, a small sports car that did not gain much power during this period due to the new emissions and economy regulations imposed on cars in the USA. In late 1980, Lord Mach II contracted tuberculosis, dying briefly after, in 1981. His daughter, Seren Mach, became Lady Mach III and the new CEO of Caliban.

### **Rising and shining (1981-2018)**

Wanting to take Caliban back on track, Lady Mach III used the revenue from the sales of the Thunder to, first of all, create a halo kit car with almost supercar performance: the Predator. This new halo car came bundled with the newly set up assembly service, which made Calibans even more attractive to those who did not want to assemble their own car, but liked what the company was offering.

And finally, in 1987, the Type SC was brought back. This was the period in which Caliban grew the most (in kit car company terms). In 2005, the Caliban Thunder became the first model to receive the "Infinity" seal, followed by the Type SC in 2009.

Lady Mach III decided to retire in late 2012, and her son, Lord Mach IV, inherited the company following the tradition Lord Mach II started. He's since followed his mother's steps, keeping Caliban successful both at motorsports and as a kit car company.