The "Bucket List"
And so it begins ....
Covid 19 hitting the UK coinciding with the end of a 30 month contract (based a long way from home) and suddenly it seems I have a lot of free time to occupy. Too much free time perhaps!
Background
One of the unfulfilled ambitions I've had since my teenage years is to build my own kit car. Up until now other things in life have conspired to get in the way of fulfilling this ambition. Marriage, kids, work, family ... all of these suck up available spare time and money.
So, with the kids now grown up and a lot of time to daydream I've decided it is now or never. If I don't start on it this year then by the time I've built and registered a car I'll probably be too old to enjoy it. I have spent a lot of time over the past two months researching kit car options and decided I'm not fancying the "donor" route where you strip an old car, refurbish the components and rebuild into a kit car chassis. No, I want to go down the "full kit with new components" route if possible. Besides, I only have a single garage and the WAF will be zero if I strip a sh*tty old banger on the drive. The neighbours would probably lynch me too.
Even though the design is now 63 years old (bloody hell! even older than me!) there is only one style of car I'm considering - a Lotus 7 styled car. A back to basics, old school "engine in the front, rear wheel drive" drivers car. For readers who don't know, they look like this (pic is of a real one, not a kit)
The Plan
There are quite a few suitable "sevenesque" kits on the market and I did look at just about all of them including Caterham, Tiger, MK and MNR . There are pros and cons for each but I have now narrowed the options to two possible candidates :
- A Westfield FW special edition
- A GBS (Great British Sportscars) Zero GT
Still not 100% sure which one to go for but I'm hoping to get to the Stoneleigh kit car show in August where hopefully I will be closer to making a decision.
In the meantime, as a first step - sort the bloody garage out!
An empty(ish) garage just begging for a project. Still a few bits and bobs to get rid of but I've measured up and there's enough space to build a 7 kit, even with the "white goods" taking up valuable space. Also changed the rubbish fluorescent light tube for two six foot LED battens. The lighting is great now.
Now, how to sort the finances for this? I'd better start being nice to the Chief Financial Officer. Her birthday is coming up soon, time for some bribery 😂
To be continued ....