Hi-Tech Automotive is a low volume car builder and design house located in

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, S ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

. Most of the vehicles produced are exported, notably to the US and UK. The main distributor of the cars built by Hi-Tech is

Superformance Superformance LLC (Superformance Replicars) is an American automobile company that builds, designs, develops, engineers and markets sports cars, related performance components and full replicars. The company was founded as "Superformance Internati ...

. In December 2005 Hi-Tech Automotive transferred the ownership of its subsidiary,

, to the Hillbank Automotive Group, which is privately owned by Lance Stander. All Superformance cars are originally built at Hi-Tech Automotive's plant in

Port Elizabeth, South Africa Gqeberha (), formerly Port Elizabeth and colloquially often referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, So ...

before they are shipped as complete rolling chassis minus engine. Hi-Tech also supplies customers with non-road cars ready to race on the track.

Cars produced

Superformance

The vehicles that Hi-Tech has produced or worked on includes: Superformance MKIII (a replica of the third generation 427 Shelby Cobra) Superformance MKII FIA Superformance MKII Slab Side Superformance Daytona Coupe (Discontinued) Superformance

GT40 The Ford GT40 is a high-performance endurance racing car commissioned by the Ford Motor Company. It grew out of the "Ford GT" (for Grand Touring) project, an effort to compete in European long-distance sports car races, against Ferrari, which w ...

continuation series Superformance 1963 Corvette Grand Sport continuation series Superformance S-1 roadster (a

Lotus Seven The Lotus Seven is a small, simple, lightweight, two-seater, open-top, open-wheel, sports car produced by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars (initially called Lotus Engineering) between 1957 and 1972. It was designed by Lotus founder Colin C ...

replica) (Discontinued)

Shelby Legendary Cars

Shelby CSX 6000 MKIII Shelby CSX 7000 MKII FIA Shelby CSX 8000 MKII Slab Side Shelby CSX 9000 Daytona Coupe

Partnerships

Noble M12 The Noble M12 is a two-door, two-seat sports car manufactured by Noble Automotive. Variants The coupe evolved through four versions of Noble cars, with the M400 as the ultimate version of the M12, and is followed by the M12 GTO-3R. Only 220 ...

and M400

Rossion Q1 The Rossion Q1 is an American mid-engined sports car from American car maker Rossion Automotive. Development on the Rossion Q1 began after the rights to the Noble M400 chassis were acquired in February 2007. The goal was to design a completely ...

The first 70 or so ROSSION Q1s were built at Hi-Tech. The ROSSION Q1 is an evolution of the NOBLE M12/M400 that was produced after NOBLE sold off the rights, But not the name to the M12/M400 design. The design rights, moulds and tooling were bought by Ian Grunes and Dean Rosen, The former US importers of the NOBLE cars and redesigned into the ROSSION Q1. Later all the Jigs, Tooling and Moulds were transferred from Hi-Tech to the Rossion production facility at the Former MOSLER factory in Florida.

Optimal Energy Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...

Joule The joule ( , ; symbol: J) is the unit of energy in the International System of Units (SI). It is equal to the amount of work done when a force of 1 newton displaces a mass through a distance of 1 metre in the direction of the force applie ...

Perana Z-One, with bodyshell designed by

Zagato Zagato is an independent Coachbuilder, coachbuilding company and total design centre located northwest of Milan in Terrazzano, a small village near Rho, Lombardy, Italy. The company's premises occupies an area of 23,000 square metres (250,000 sq ...

. Production of the Z-One suffered with the downturn of the world economy shortly after its release and a partnership in 2012 between Hi-Tech Automotive and AC cars of England saw the Z-One re-badged as the 378GT Zagato.IOL: High Tech and AC revive Perana Z-One
/ref> Riverside Racers FIA, a Canadian company that purchased the COBRA FIA body mold from Hi Tech (USA) and partnered with Hi Tech Automotive to produce a Cobra FIA replica. A slab side version was also developed and 50 cars were sold in the UK as the AC Classic. Models are sold in the USA as the Superformance MKII FIA or Superformance MKII Slab Side. Shelby Legendary Cars offer the CSX 7000 Cobra FIA and the CSX 8000 Cobra Slab Side.

References

External links

* Homepage: http://www.superformance.com/default.aspx * Cartorque article on Hi-Tech: http://www.cartorque.co.za/0351.htm Retrieved 25 July 2011 Lotus Seven replicas Sports car manufacturers Kit car manufacturers Car manufacturers of South Africa Economy of the Eastern Cape Port Elizabeth {{Car-stub de:Hi-Tech Automotive & Superformance