"Loved the part about EMPI - such great research!  Design stories so often reveal the subtle distinctions between crediting one another for inspiration, or outright stealing IP/copycatting/knock-offs...  It can be blurred and forgotten too but chronology so often sheds light.Oh, and the Can Am car-bed was designed after the orange McLaren.  Funnily enough, Gordon Murray later credited the designer of the kids' McLaren racecar car bed, Stewart Reed, for inspiring his gull-wing McLaren F1 door with the Toyota Sera's gull wing door design Reed did while at Calty, along with the FXV concept car with its solar panels, long before EV-craze.  Bruce McLaren and Bruce Meyers probably shared some commonalities in how they approached racing too...come to think of it.  The world of motorsports, innovation and design history is so interesting!"

"Indeed a wonderful article, such a well researched 'setting of the table' but it stopped short of the Manx SR which was a thoughtful reaction and successor to the copying and off-roading buggies.  Meyers asked Strother MacMinn (or Mac) which of his Art Center graduates would be best to design a Street Roadster.  Mac replied Stewart Reed was best suited to the challenge, so instead of accepting 1 of 3 offers in Detroit, Reed stayed in SoCal to design the Manx SR.  Bruce felt it should have doors, extruded rubber and aluminum parts, and fiberglass panels with very minimal draft angles making the kit much more difficult to copy.  Stewart Reed wanted to echo the fender line gesture of the body with the door line, which lead to the shallow, long shape and the scissor door with upward and forward pivoting solution.Approximately 400 were sold to buyers from around the world before they closed. 3 molds were sold and 2 different companies would sell the SR kits later while Reed went on to Jeep/AMC after delivering a Manx SR to automaker/importer Malcolm Bricklin.  Reed did a decade with Chrysler, then a decade Toyota's Calty, then Tier 1s/freelance and has served as Chair of Transportation Design at Art Center's Transportation Design Dept for 18-years.  The Core77 crowd may enjoy his quintessential life of design, yet another relatively 'unsung' designer, with roles at Art Center as graduate, instructor, advisory board and most recently 'TDD' Chair at Art Center in Pasadena, where the above photo of the Meyers Manx SR was taken with Stewart Reed and transportation design students.  I look forward to seeing what else Dad will do and am grateful I'm able to help out now with my mom's illness.  I worked with Stewart Reed Design when he did the Type 64 Bugatti body, the Lockheed JLTV trucks, the Cunningham C7, the Gearbox for Mobility Outfitters and many others. Grateful too for a long relationship with the Meyers and glad Dad had such a COOL opportunity right out of school to work with Bruce and Winnie Meyers on such fun cars!!!  - Christine Reed Nicholson"