excellent. Get out there and mix it up a bit and let us know what you end up with. I wasn't busting your balls or anything but there is a lot of people like you and me out there and the competition is fierce.

In your first post you are complaining about insurance killing you but yet you have thousands and thousands of dollars to spend on mods. It does not sound like you have your ducks in a row concerning this massively expensive and time consuming hobby of showing this car and gaining sponsors

IMHO you are putting the cart before the horse

to give you some idea of what I am talking about here is the short list of my mods:

Full INGS+1 body kit
TopSecret Cf hood
Custom painted Tein Hood Dampers
Fully ported and polished intake manifold --polished inside and out
fully cryogenic treated engine
Cryoed internals
Samco Hose set with all vaccum lines
AEM v2 CAI
Tons of NA perfomance mods to engine internals
Drilled and slotted cryoed zinc plated rotors
Invidia cat back Ti exhaust
Custom painted valve cover
Comptech Adjustable springs
Polished head
Polished block
Custom two tone interior
18" Volf SF Challenge wheels
custom powder coated calipers
APR CF mirrors
Custom paint color
and a lot more......

My point is, my car is infantile compared to most of the modded S's out there. I have been in front of many many vendors with my car and no success with any sponsorships. My advice to you is to is to get all those things you said you had planned done first. Then maybe you can find a vendor willing to sponsor. At that point though, what are going to want to be sponsored for. Most everything will be done.

Start small and local. I dont know what shows you are attending where Fieros of any kind are taking wins and placing no lower than third but this car is in a different world.

I respect your experience and knowledge but it is just not coming across right. A person with that much experience SHOULD not need any advice on how to gain sponsors. I guess I must be reading your info wrong.

You wanted advice so i am giving mine. Pull all of your existing resources and come up with something special. Your dad owned a body shop...any chance he could help you develop a custom body kit of high quality??? That would be a good start on building something vendors could get behind.

I know I am being negative in some ways and calling you out on some things but I think that if I just sugar coated everything and said "go get them tiger!", I would not be giving you things to really think about.

What you want is not going to be easy. I have friends with literally 30-40-50-70 thousand dollars worth of mods and they are struggling to get noticed out there.

If you are as young as you seem (fresh out high school?? maybe a couple of years out??) you have a lot of time to do it right.

I ultimately want you to succeed but right now is sounds to sproatic, too forced and based a little too much on fantasy. Come back in a year or so and prove me wrong, I will gladly eat my words.

I am not flamming you or fighting you on this. I just think your percieved notion on how this sponsorship is going to go is a bit too optimistic.

 

I only had one thing to add. It's all about WHO you KNOW. If you know the right people it's not hard to get free parts. as for myself i've already recieve 2 free exhausts system, shift knobs, t-shirts and jackets and much more on the way.

 

thats true too. If you can walk into sponsorships then thats all good too

 

Well, most of the shows I attended with the Fiero were completely different. I was competing against similar domestic cars, not imports. I am one year out of high school. I only say insurance is killing me because it is nearly as much as my car payment (I've had my share of tickets driving souped up sports cars). My dad would be able to help me fabricate a custom body kit, but my main goal was to stay JDM. If you think a custom kit would help me more, I would definitely be willing to consider it. I'm working 2 jobs, and every spare nickel goes towards modding my car. I am even considering moving back in with the folks to save more money towards mods. I don't think you're being too negative, I appreciate your feedback because it is bringing up things I hadn't thought about before. I knew this process wouldn't be easy, which is why I came here first. I do feel that I have a leg up on some of the other people because I have so much knowledge about cars, and I have somebody like my father who would be willing to help me out. He built show corvettes, and specialized in custom paint jobs and engine swaps. He has a basement full of trophies from his '65 and '71 vettes. My initial goal is to get into the reader's rides section of a few magazines. That will show potential sponsors that my car can get noticed and, with a little help from them, become a feature car. Hopefully, I will be able to prove you wrong. Once again, thanks for your honest advice.

 

I think help form your dad is a great idea. A one off kit if done right will set you apart from the crowd. Unless you get the Top Fuel CF widebody or ASM widebody (these companies probably would not sponser you though). The Amuse kit has been done, C-West kits have been done and the Tracy kit is being done as we speak and all of them have or will be covered in tuner mags.

A one off kit along with some ice and a custom paint job and interior should def help in getting your goals accomplished. It will still be an expensive endeavor even with a sponsership.

Good luck

 

I couldn't agree more with every post Primogen made thus far. He says it like I would say it- blunt and simple. You need to sit down and take some paper and a pen and map everything out. Write down the pluses and minuses to everything, basically form a business plan. This isn't some small idea you have. You have to sell yourself.

You are interested in a FIERCELY competitive market of auto tuning. There are a million+ 18/19 year old kids out there with your same pipe dreams. There are already so many professionally modded S2000s - why should a company sponsor yours? Who do you know? Where will it be shown? What do you offer that the 1 million other kids don't?

Just because "you go to 80% of all meets in your area" or whatever you stated, who gives a crap? Anyone with $10 to pay the cover can go to those meets, you are no different than them. Just because your car has an intake and custom header means diddly squat. You think going to those shows with your car parked in the lot with stickers on it will make sponsors money? HAHA if it was that easy it would have been done already or they would give stickers away to plenty of willing kids who would rock them for free.

Point is you are not bringing anything to the table that companies have not already seen. Like another poster said, you need to KNOW people or get to know them. Your dad might be able to call his old friends or do some networking on your behalf. Without that, you are in for a big uphill climb.

I was also confused about your worry about insurance, yet you have plenty of money in mods and planned future mods. If you cannot afford everything that comes with the ownership, you need to plan accordingly. I would especially not skimp on your BI+PD coverage to make the insurance cheaper. At your age you need good coverage in case you mess up while driving your future supervehicle. One accident goes bad and you have low coverage, the rest of your life is spent repaying someone else for that mistake instead of fixing your ride.

GL with your venture, but realize you have to be in this 110% to make it work. Look at it as a job, trying to get into college, etc. Same level of seriousness.

 

Anybody have info on why this got moved? Seems pretty S2000 related to me...

 

there wasn't a "dreams" related forum, so off-topic was the closest thing



GL on your quest..

 

Too fast 4 y all,

Great advice from the members so read what they have said and go and do it.

I'm doing something very similar in trying to gain sponsorship for a venture that I have planned for 2008 based on the S2000. My scenario is different (I don't require parts just $$$) so I can target non-automobile related companies such as pharmaceuticals, insurance companies, etc.

Just try your hardest and if you succeed - Fantastic. If you don't then you know you gave it your best shot.

Good luck!

Jetpilot