Tue 5 Jul 2011
After our post on the Dodge Tomahawk replica, we received a comment pointing out these were for sale on Alibaba as the X Racer. Well, that’s true, but it gives a misleading idea about the one we had in our post.
I had a phone conversation with Howard Dorf, the builder of the replica in the photo, a replica he designed and built. In the course of building this project, he contracted a number of parts to some shops in China. When drawings and details of his project got over there, some folks decided to “borrow” his idea and go into production on their own. The X Racer for sale on Alibaba is an unauthorized knockoff, it is not something Howard bought and imported. Howard wanted to also point out, the Alibaba versions are not EPA or DOT approved so they cannot be imported. He also pointed out, the photo they are using is his photo so he isn’t sure if they’ve even built one yet.
Howard has been building all sorts of interesting things over the years, including a full size Robby the Robot, some guys and their workshops never cease to amaze me.
We wanted to make sure the whole story was reported so people didn’t get the wrong idea about who was actually doing the building here.