Marlon Kirby, from midget car speed demon to designer of the Maxximus G-Force

Marlon Kirby, the designer behind the Maxximus G-Force, has been a speed demon since infancy.

Even when he was two or three, living in Chicago with his mother and policeman father David Kirby, Marlon used to like The Beach Boy's Little Deuce Coupe.

“He used to bounce around like kids do,” his dad told me. “And I thought even then y'know, the kid's affected by speed, sounds & activity.”

One of his dad’s policeman friends was into quarter-sized midget cars; everyone would go to Soldier’s Fieldand watch them run around. The first time Marlon saw those midget cars he just went crazy.

Marlon told me about his sense of discovery at those races:

“I would say I was probably six the first time I saw a midget car. I just fell in love with it.  Y'know, it's racing!
So I started pestering my mom & dad that I wanted to get into racing.  And my mom & dad signed me up, to get lessons to drive & get into racing, and that's where I started, in the quarter-midgets.”

His parents would pack up their stuff every weekend, take him out of town and let him race the cars. They couldn’t afford to get Marlon his own car; at that time even a little midget race car was several thousand dollars.

“Finally we bought him a '67 Nova Super sport,”  Dave Kirby told me. “It was kinda hard to get a hold of back then but we come across one.  He was probably ten years old then, or eleven.  And right away he wanted to tub it out for the big tires, and put, y'know, chrome on it & everything. 

’Course with our budget we had to do most of the fabrication work and engine work ourselves.  Due to the fact that, a couple guys don't make a lot of money tryin' to raise a family at the same time.  I enjoyed the speed & the activity on the tracks, the camaraderie with the guys, a little grease, little tools, y'know, a little fun. 

The Super sport was a rare breed to come across, a 327 engine, 4-speed main.  It was a very hot little car in those times. We put probably four or five thousand dollars in a paint job.  Put a little chrome on it and polished it up. He and I used to sit out in the garage & polish the radiator.  It was brass.  When you get to polishin' of course it comes up to a bright gold look." 

Marlon Kirby and his dad took the Nova out to shows in Indiana on the weekend. You could go to these shows and look around at hundreds of cars.

By now Marlon was twelve or thirteen. He decided to beef up his engine.  He learned everything on his own, by reading books or talking to the fathers of his buddies who also spent their weekends working on cars in their garages.

In a moment of financial crisis his parents had to sell the Nova, and that really affected Marlon. For a while he got into motorcycles.

“It was a fun, time.  But I just realized that motorcycles are  not my cup of tea,” said Marlon.

He turned to wrestling as an outlet for his energies, Greco Roman and Freestyle wrestling, and was national champion.

When it came time to go to work he had a business installing windows. But he was unhappy and wanted to make a change. He started building muscle cars and doing a little consulting for other companies. Finally he decided he wanted to build cars full time, and started his own company, Maxximus Technologies, which would eventually build the Maxximus G-Force. His wife, Stephanie, agreed to support the family through his transition. He made some money on the side as a limo driver. It was his job as a limo driver that led us to meet and to the idea
 for the Maxximus G-Force, but that’s another story.