Cord Bauer is the founder of Bauer Limited Production and is responsible for the design and development of the car. He has over 10 utility patents, is the inventor of the ReadyRamp, co-founder of ReadyLift Suspension, and designer of numerous car and motorcycle products. Cord has leveraged the talent and resources of his suppliers and the Southern California custom auto industry to build the Catfish.
Dave Green is the owner of DG Motorsports, which specializes in custom composite and urethane parts for sports cars. Dave has customized cars directly for Mazda, Ford, GM, Dodge, Hyundai, and always has cars featured at the SEMA show. He’s also made racing bodywork for Porsche 917’s, built diving helmets for the U.S. Navy, and even built the underwater jet scooters used by Jacques Cousteau. Dave is in charge of the composite bodywork and fitment for the Catfish, and has several special new products planned for the car.
Ron Hemphill is the frame designer for the Catfish. He has designed some of the iconic frames for off-road vehicles, including those from Chenoweth, Meyers, Mendeola, Sainz and others. His frames have won Baja, Barstow to Vegas, on the salt at Bonneville and his designs have even won the prestigious Paris Dakar Rally Raid. His goals of light weight and ultimate strength translate very well for use in the Catfish.
Terry Birchler and Shawn Whetstone of Zukun Plan were the main designers behind the beautiful lines of the Catfish. Zukun Plan of Columbus, Ohio, is an industrial design company who excels at everything from toys to phone cases to vacuum cleaners. But their passion is cars. For the Catfish, A range of hand sketches were done over the car’s key components to ensure realistic proportions. Next, a surface model was developed further refining the design. For example, one of the design goals was to develop a continuous dynamic “ribbon” surface that ran from the front of the car to the back. This surface defined the car’s unique character and once developed allowed everything else to fall into place. Finally, Zukun built a robust Parametric CAD model so subtle design tweaks could be easily made. The final body molds were made directly from these CAD models.
David Beckett & Mark Blakey of Bent Motorsports are the brains behind many of the details of the Catfish. These fabricators, ASE certified mechanics, wiring harness experts and SolidWorks engineers also have in-depth experience with suspension design and setup. David and Mark will be doing much of the work for customers who choose to have some or most of their car built prior to delivery.