Although his inclination for high speeds and recklessness led him to believe he'd never see age 30, 50-something Mark LeVea, with his company Xtreme Classics, is racing toward superstar status with his supercar production company, Xtreme Classics.

LeVea started Xtreme Classics in his spare time four years ago while still working for the U.S. Treasury Department.

"I've always been into cars," he said as he admitted he built his first mini-bike at the age of twelve while other boys his age were happily tooling along on bicycles.

When LeVea left the Treasury Department two years ago, he happily turned Xtreme Classics into a full-time venture "to play with race cars," he said. His sights, however, were quickly turned from race cars to supercars when a kit replicating the Ford GT40 of the late 1960s made its way across his path.

The $85,000 ERA Replica Kit became an obsession for LeVea who has a talent for taking good racecars and making them better.

Typically, LeVea said, people buy a kit like this and spend $125,000 putting it together and improving on it. LeVea, however, went above and beyond the norm, designing his own improvement creations and turning the ERA Replica into a $300,000 supercar that he is hoping will outperform Cobras, Corvettes and the like at Bonneville this fall.

"It has performance and handling levels of cars in the $600,000 to $1 million range," said LeVea.

Not only has LeVea's financial stake in the car been high, he has more than 1500 man-hours in research and development invested in inventing new devices for the vehicle.

According to LeVea, many racecars experience lift in the front-end while racing to speeds of more than 215 miles per hour. To eliminate this problem, LeVea invented the aerodynamic splitter, a short apron for below the front fender, which cuts airflow and redirects it around to the side of the car instead of going under the front and causing it to lift.

He also created the sill extension, a similar apron for the sides to help keep the rear end balanced.

But who plans to drive a car at speeds above 215 mph? LeVea does and he plans to go much faster than that.

At the present time, the newly dubbed Xtreme Classics GT40 can handle itself up into the 230s, but LeVea has plans to increase the car's performance up to 250 mph, with a little help from nitrous oxide. The car's systems are run through a laptop computer, which LeVea keeps on the passenger seat so he can monitor performance at every turn.

"Cars like this shouldn't fall into the hands of a normal driver," said LeVea, "he will hurt himself. The sale of this type of car will have to come with some track/instructional time."

Although his "mule" (the prototype LeVea has built and will use to test out new systems and ideas) is not for sale, LeVea is showing it at the Carlisle Car Show in Pennsylvania in hopes of earning more magazine and newspaper publicity as well as finding buyers for the subsequent GT40s he is hoping to build.

One problem LeVea ran into was that ERA does not manufacture many of the GT40 Replica kits.

"I've seen a lot of things in this industry that are cool," said Peter Portante, co-owner of ERA to LeVea, "but this was a partnership opportunity."

After seeing what LeVea could do to a supercar, Portante agreed to double production on the kit so LeVea can make a career out of designing and producing them.

LeVea's goal is to walk away from the Carlisle Car Show with maximum exposure and twelve deposits, which will keep him busy for the next two years.

Until now, LeVea has done all of the work for Xtreme Classics on his own. If he meets or exceeds his goals at Carlisle, he plans to locate and open a production shop in Northern Virginia and bring in a few of his highly qualified friends who have expressed an interest in "quitting their day jobs" to build supercars on a full-time basis.

LeVea admits that he has known people who have questioned what he does, especially after seeing his modest-size home in disarray and comparing it to his rather large garage, which is immaculate. He says he has even been accused of having a Peter Pan complex because he tinkers in the garage all day instead of sitting at a desk like most men his age.

"When you're shirking responsibilities, it's Peter Pan," said LeVea, "when you're building great things, it's something positive."

When he's producing supercars that can sell for nearly $300,000, who can argue?