Every fan who dreamed of building a car like Speed Racer's Mach 5 will be
interested to know that Speed's ultra-cool car is finally being built by
Long Beach, California-based Focus on Cars, an automotive fabrication
company that caters to the entertainment and advertising industry. The car
will be used to promote a nation-wide safety tour conducted by The Child
Safety Network (CSN) called CHILD SAFETY DAY AT THE RACES. The Mach 5 will
privately debut at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show -
ITE '99, November 2-5, 1999, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The SEMA Show - ITE is
the automotive aftermarket's largest trade show held yearly at the Las
Vegas Convention Center. SEMA is the top advocacy group representing the
$21.3 billion automotive aftermarket industry. The Mach 5 will include much
of the specialty "equipment" found on the animated Mach 5 including the
(dangerous looking) saw blade cutters at the front of the car, the ability
to jump through a special hydraulics system and even such animatronics as
interactive voice responses to steering wheel mounted buttons. "We are
having a lot of fun building the car," said Ron Kasumi, owner of Focus on
Cars. "When you have a car that is supposed to have 50,000 horse power, fly
through the air, drive under water and jump over great distances, you have
to use a lot of imagination." Total cost to build the Mach 5 is estimated
to be between $175,000 and $200,000. The SPEED RACER television series, an
English dubbed version of a Japanese series about the adventures of a race
car driver and his friends, debuted in the US in 1967.