This article started with a completely bare shell pushed six blocks through Costa Mesa by hand. It rolled easily enough. No engine. No interior. Just a skeleton breathing quietly over cracked asphalt. I was the one driving, sitting on the cowl with my legs hanging over the fender, steering through the window, hopping off to run, then back on again, letting it roll on its own when I needed to breathe. Behind me, Paul Lefevre idled in his own 2002, shepherding us on. DCOEs murmured low, idling through velocity stacks lit through raw fiberglass by streetlight.
We coasted, pausing where we had to. No one asked questions or impeded us. The shape said enough. Just a silhouette stripped to its truth. Weightless. Honest. Strangely alive, and clearly on its way to its next life. The shell came to a stop in front of Paul's shop. The place where ideas become structure. Where learned carbon fiber surfboard construction is reformed into fenders, hoods, doors, and more.
Dieppe sits along the northern edge of Normandy, France, a place where salt air eats steel and history refuses to settle. It's a place that holds its name in reverence. Not because it asks to be remembered, but because it never lets go. Paul Lefevre grew up in it. Learned from it. Then left it behind in search of something else. He came west chasing surfboards, glass, resin, fins, control. He worked for major names but kept his own rhythm, shaping on the side. At the beginning of the pandemic, when the work dried up and the city got quiet, he turned inward.
"I had the 2002 in the shop, in my warehouse, and I started working on it while I was shaping some surfboards on the side," Paul said. His 2002 sat in the corner collecting dust. So he started shaping. First a fender. "I think I started with the fenders," he said. "And then I slowly started doing the hood and the roof and ended up doing the whole car."
The car wasn’t a project at first. Just a shape in the shadows. But that dust had a way of asking questions. What started as a fender turned into a direction. Then a discipline. A roof. A door. A way forward. It wasn’t over-branded. It wasn’t pitched. It wasn’t launched. It just happened. Like good things tend to when no one’s watching, and the only one there is to impress is yourself.
He didn’t want a trophy. He wanted something that moved like the boards he built and carried the same weight, which wasn't much. Something light enough to be felt without being announced.
The first full build wore Florida green. Loud color. Quiet car. You’ve maybe seen it. A featherweight 2002 carved entirely from carbon and intent. A car that didn’t shout to be seen but still drew attention. Paul called it finished, but not final.
While most people were still discovering it, he was already working on the next one. Not a follow-up. A counterweight. Something that didn’t mind door dings or scratched trim. A car that could be parked anywhere, driven everywhere, and still carry purpose. "That car's been built with a little less care and a little less attention to detail," Paul said. "Just to be able to enjoy every day and be a little less stressed about parking the car in the street or stuff like that."
That bare fiberglass and balsa one carries the weight. It’s the prototype. The proving ground. Every new part starts there. If it doesn’t survive that car, it doesn’t make it to the others. Mold by mold, the car shapes the work that shaped it.
There’s nothing extra on it. No insulation. No trim. Nothing to soften the message. Close the door and the outside doesn’t go away. It's not a place to seek solace in the conventional sense. Every sound comes through. Every corner, every throttle input, every pebble in the fender well. Nothing gets filtered.
Everything is light: carbon fenders, carbon roof, magnesium wheels, even the battery. "I wanted to go as far as I could in getting that car as light as possible," he said. It runs a knife-edge crank, high compression pistons, and 40mm Webers. "With those Weber carburetors, the response is pretty insane," Paul said. "There's no lag, there's no delay. The car is very alive. It's not a fast car, but it's really quick, very light. And that's what I like about it."
His friends named it "The Honey Badger." Not because it was cute, but because it earned it. "It's small, loud, and a little unhinged," Paul said. "But it gets the job done, and it doesn't care what you think." It's not polite. Just real. It doesn’t care what you think. It has no air conditioning, no carpet, no sound deadening. The dashboard is exposed fiberglass. You can see the balsa wood stringers underneath the hood like ribs beneath skin. Paul wanted people to see what the car was made of. "I really wanted to keep this car more like a correct tribute, to show the fiberglass and the balsa stringer for the reinforcement on the hood," he said.
When he sold the green car and saw it drive away for the first time, he finally understood what he’d made. "I passed it on the highway," he said. "And I saw it in my mirror. It hit me then. I built that."
And that’s what makes it special. Son of Cobra isn't restoring cars. It’s resurrecting them, subtracting the unnecessary, removing the safety nets, and pulling the soul closer to the surface.
