Single-Minded New Car Company Charges Ahead
An Orange County engine designer and a Northern California motorcycle equipment maker have formed a new car-building company that will specialize in so-called personal transportation vehicles.
Corbin Motors Inc. is a joint venture of privately owned MCM Engine Technologies Inc. of Costa Mesa and Corbin Pacific Inc. of Hollister. It brings together the developers of the unique Corbin Sparrow, a single-person electric commuter car, and the lightweight MCM V-twin fuel-injected gasoline engine that is capable of meeting California’s coveted ultra-low-emissions rating.
The company’s first product, the three-wheeled electric Sparrow, features a design out of a science fiction novel. It is registered as a motorcycle but has an enclosed cabin and steering wheel. It posts a top speed of 65 mph, is freeway-legal and gets up to 70 miles on a single charge.
Sparrows can be recharged in two hours, using a 220-volt power supply, or in four hours using standard household current. Cables and adapters for each type of current are included in the $12,900 price tag. Also standard: a CD player.
Like any new vehicle maker, Corbin faces a tough road breaking through the mass of advertising by major car makers. It’s also difficult to find investors willing to buck the odds and funnel their cash into a start-up company competing with the likes of Ford and Honda.
“It’s almost impossible to crack the market,” said George Magliano, head of the automotive practice for WEFA Group investment and industry consultants in New York.”A lot of bigger players [than Corbin] have tried and failed.”
Still, Corbin is aiming at a developing market for environmentally friendly cars. By limiting itself to single-person vehicles, Corbin isn’t planning a full-tilt joust with Detroit or Japan. The Sparrow is scheduled to begin commercial production at the Corbin Motors factory in Hollister this month.
Corbin Motors already has signed 28 retail distributors, including one in La Jolla and one in Glendale. It could get a big boost this weekend, when Nike Inc. rolls out the specially painted Sparrow it ordered for a promotion during the Women’s World Cup soccer championships in Pasadena.
Next up will be a racy coupe version of the Sparrow powered by an 80-horsepower MCM gasoline engine, said Bill Kniegge, co-founder of MCM and a Corbin Motors vice president. Both three- and four-wheeled versions of the coupe are being considered, he said.
Corbin and MCM joined forces in the car-building venture, Kniegge said, to take advantage of public interest in hybrid vehicles that can overcome the range limitations of a purely electric car while achieving substantial fuel economy and low emissions.
The company launched a $15- million private stock sale last month and plans to hire a major investment bank to help manage its financial future. So far, it has raised about $1 million.
The original Corbin Sparrow was conceived by Corbin Pacific founder and Chairman Mike Corbin, a noted motorcycle racer with a decided “green” streak.
It took half a decade from dream to reality, with a lot of trial and more than a few errors along the way, but the Sparrow has cleared the regulatory hurdles and Corbin is ready to begin selling. Corbin Pacific already has a worldwide network of 6,000 motorcycle equipment retailers that it hopes to use to help crack the market.
“They have to compete against the megabillion-dollar advertising budgets of the established vehicle makers,” said David Hillburn, executive vice president for strategic research at Young & Rubicam Advertising Inc.’s Irvine office--the office that handles Lincoln Mercury’s advertising. “One way to do it is with guerrilla ad tactics” that get Corbin’s products noticed, he said.
Enter Nike.
Linda Mai, a designer for the Oregon company, was scanning the Internet, looking for a unique vehicle to incorporate into Nike’s mobile marketing program, when she found Corbin’s Web site.
“We wanted the car we used to be unique and to be environmentally friendly,” Mai said. “This was it.” Nike bought a Sparrow--one of 50 the company said it has sold via its Web site--and will use it as part of a nationwide tour that begins at the World Cup match this weekend.
Corbin met the MCM crew at the annual Daytona Speedweek motorcycle marketing show at Daytona Beach, Fla., in 1998 and was intrigued by MCM’s suggestion that the lightweight Sparrow would be the perfect vehicle for the Costa Mesa company’s newly designed V-twin engine.
The two companies showed a concept Sparrow at the Munich Motorcycle Show in Germany last year. The response was enthusiastic, Kniegge said, prompting Corbin and MCM to create the Corbin Motors joint venture.
