Thread: Ask Mike
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Old 04-14-2009, 10:03 PM
MDorffler MDorffler is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Canon City, CO
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
What was the competition with Centuri like for you guys doing all the designing? Were there many designs (not just rockets) that were meant to directly compete with a specific product they produced, or vice versa? I know the products eventually intermingled, so I'm referring to the days before that happened. Mr. Estes said he always had a friendly respect and competition with Mr. Piester as a company, but I never saw anything specific printed about it.


Ya know, we never thought much about what Centuri was doing as far as designs go. We of course paid attention, but I think it was closer to they were a 'Chevy' and we were a 'Plymouth' sort of competition. I don't ever remember we felt as though they produced a new kit design that needed to be answered. When we first saw their Saturns though, it did wake us up. I personally always felt they ate out lunch on the V. Damon was driving our bus right then and we had very little money to spend for kit tooling. Lee hadn't yet sold to Damon so his use of money for tooling was much differnt than ours. And by the way, it was Keith Niskern who was responsible for their V and IB. Great guy, and I miss him.
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