Cool old British Kit cars

stroker wrote: Nice thread. There was a group in FL making D-Jag kits called Predator Performance. Dunno if they're still in business, though. The donor was a XJ6 so it was easy enough to get started. I'm surprised you haven't referenced the Fisher Fury, yet. It reminds me of a sort of a "mini-Cheetah roadster" powered by a Hayabusa. Pretty slick. Any idea what transaxle the UVA Fugitive 3 used?

I did actualy make reference to the Fury in one of the other Sylva kits post, I'll get round to it.

The UVA used the Renault transaxle. I've got a good article on one if I can figure out how to post a .pdf

I haven't really done many replica's as most people are familiar with them. But after showing the Noble designed Midtec I thought I had to redeem Lee Noble. This is the Noble P4, obviously a Ferrari P4 replica. They used a variety of engines, normally with the Renault transaxle. I've seen a couple of these, there are some in North America. Nice.

Another 7esc car. The Spyder Silverstone. Not many of these made. They were made by Spyder engineering who were well known for their Lotus Elan replacement chassis. They used that knowledge to build the Silverstone which was way ahead of most 7's of the time in vehicle dynamics. Many of the few built ended up racing in one of the kit car series.

I'm sure everyone knows what a Westfield looks like, but that's the 'modern' SE, SEW, SEiW etc family of fiberglass bodied 7's that look very good. Less well know is the early 7's. These were essentialy identical to a Mk III Lotus 7 or Caterham and lead to a law suit which was settled when Westfield agreed to change their car. These early cars are now known as pre lit cars.

Another Westfield not well know over here is the XTR. This was a mid engined BEC. I think it's out of production now, but it's big problem was Radical on the upper end and a host of cheaper offersing in the kit car market on the lower end.

This is another howler. This is the Spartan. It was a Cortina based kit car that was surprisingly and unfathomably successful given its awful styling!

Next up is the Nova, it's probably quite familiar to people over here as I belive it was also sold in the US as the Sterling. I actualy quite like these in a late 70's over the top way. It also stared in the campy film 'Condor Man' shown below, normaly being chased by all black baddies on bike and in 911's

An offshoot / follow on to the Nova was the Eagle SS. It lost it's raising top for gullwings and gained pop up 928 style lights. It also lost it's VW bug chassis for a simple lader frame with Cortina running gear, yup, they were front engined!

This is another car that started life with a VW bug chassis then migrated with the same body style to a front engined Cortina based chassis. This was the Seraph, loosely (very loosely) based on the GT40, the later ones got Rover V8's.

More 70's madness. Build your own super car for beer money. The Charger, another (surprise surprise) VW Bug based car. I remember avidly following a magazine build of one of these when I was around 9 or 10! This goes in the so bad it's cool catagory for me.

Sir William Towns, bust known as the stylist of Aston Martins in the 70's including the wonderful V8 and eerr interesting Bulldog went on his own into the Kit car industry. He produced many variants of his Hustler them. Most were Mini based with a simple perimeter chassis and flat sided fiberglass bodies. They had cool sliding side glass windows as doors. They came in 4 and 6 wheel versions. He also made wooden versions, all wood with no steel chassis. The most outrageous was the Jag V12 powered 6 wheel version (2nd from top shown above)

Back on the 1st page I showed the UVA Fugative 3 adn CanAm. UVA also made this, the M6 GTR. Obviously it's a replica of the McClaren M6 GT. There was a version made here as well as seen in HArdcastle and McKormic (sp?). As with so many old kits, it started as a VW based car then developed it's own chassis and running gear with Rover V8 engines. Some of these were really nice.

Where does my brain dredge this crap up from??? Over in the worst replica thread I brought up the Jago Geep, A Jeep replica based on Escort running gear. Jago also made this, the Jago Samurai, basicaly the same underneath.

This is one of the good looking ones. The Kougar. This is a JAg XJ based kit in the style of a 50's special or race car. These have been very succesfull and are still made today.

From the beuty of the Kougar above to the uglyness of the Moss Monaco. Triumph Spitfire / Herald based from memory.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Back on the 1st page I showed the UVA Fugative 3 adn CanAm. UVA also made this, the M6 GTR. Obviously it's a replica of the McClaren M6 GT. There was a version made here as well as seen in HArdcastle and McKormic (sp?). As with so many old kits, it started as a VW based car then developed it's own chassis and running gear with Rover V8 engines. Some of these were really nice.

Over here, it was the Manta Montage. It was one of those that was customized (flying butresses in rear and cool headlights) into the Coyote for the first couple of seasons of Hardcastle and McCormick. Later they went to an ugly one off thing.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: GP buggy's RSK Spyder. A very simple shortened VW bug chassis for an RSK replica. I actually prefer the styling to the more accurate replicas out there. And for something like this you didn't need super suspension.

That's not British.....

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

Y'know, if they'd fix the nose on that Moss Monaco I'd love to build something like that red one.

I Am Keyser Söze wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote: GP buggy's RSK Spyder. A very simple shortened VW bug chassis for an RSK replica. I actually prefer the styling to the more accurate replicas out there. And for something like this you didn't need super suspension.

That's not British.....

Psshh, So the sauerkraut eaters built the original and the basis of the kit, but it took British ingenuity to rip one off, rip one to pieces and make the knock off!

stroker wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: Y'know, if they'd fix the nose on that Moss Monaco I'd love to build something like that red one.

In fairness I did pick some of the worst photo's I could find. The basic concept isn't bad. Here's a better one. If they had just tappered the nose down from the cowel area it would have looked 100 times better.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: I'm sure everyone knows what a Westfield looks like, but that's the 'modern' SE, SEW, SEiW etc family of fiberglass bodied 7's that look very good. Less well know is the early 7's. These were essentialy identical to a Mk III Lotus 7 or Caterham and lead to a law suit which was settled when Westfield agreed to change their car. These early cars are now known as pre lit cars.

There are approximately one million prelit Westies in existence. At least, it seems that way.

I think the reason the baby Radical Westie didn't do well is that Westfield seems to be pretty terrible at setting up a chassis. Every time they send a car to a magazine test, it's simply not ready. When they shipped the Miata-based car off to EVO for a test, they left the brake pads from the donor Miata in the car and didn't even bother to align it properly!

An offshoot of the Westfield that didn't get a lot of attention: the FW400 (and friends). FW stood for Featherweight 400 kg, I believe. Carbon monocoque chassis. Some of the styling components became available as options on the more traditional Westfields.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: The modern version of the GTM, the GTM Libra. It used Rover K series engine and was a real Elise competitor. They were bought by Westfield who killed it off in 2010.

Clarification: GTM was purchased by the same parent company that also purchased Westfield.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

I seem to remember one of these with a rotary doing rallycross during the'80's in New Zealand

Keith wrote: Clarification: GTM was purchased by the same parent company that also purchased Westfield.

Yup, I knew that, but didn't think that level of minutia was needed!