Robin Hood Kit car buying advice

[grumpy]

A Westfield in reasonable condition for £3.5K?

[Mr2Mike]

PaulKemp said:

Those that flex were not built properly

They simply weren't designed properly. The old RH monocoques have the torsional rigidity of a plastic spoon, by design.

[LLantrisant]

grumpy said:

A Westfield in reasonable condition for £3.5K?

yes...i, my mates and certain other seven-entusiasts in my area have bought several westfields in the past 2years for prices between 3.5 and 4k...even some IRS ones.


mostly x/flw owered ones.

[LLantrisant]

Mr2Mike said:

They simply weren't designed properly. The old RH monocoques have the torsional rigidity of a plastic spoon, by design.

thats exactly what i say since days....fully agree!!

[Eugene7]

I'm a Caterham 7 driver - have been for coming up to 30 years...
But, I love all 'alternative' 7 type vehicles, and really appreciate the work people put into kits that not simple to put together - the results are often amazing.



You can see Eugene, my 7 here: http://www.7-dna.com/forums/index.php?action=vthre...

And feel free to comment on it, and anything else 7 related there - especially what we do as

[grumpy]

LLantrisant said:

yes...i, my mates and certain other seven-entusiasts in my area have bought several westfields in the past 2years for prices between 3.5 and 4k...even some IRS ones.


mostly x/flw owered ones.

Good hunting, they start a £4.5k at the moment, must be summer prices. I have always liked the per-lit. models.

[LLantrisant]

older westfields can be found for prices between 3.5 and 4.5k anytime....im watching the market since years and prices are standing still...

and when you see that x/flwo powered "as new" sylva strikers can be bought for 3.5 to max 4k..its not worth thinking about buying a robin (as long as you do not need a robin because you have a fat a.s)

[Megaflow]

LLantrisant said:

older westfields can be found for prices between 3.5 and 4.5k anytime....im watching the market since years and prices are standing still...

and when you see that x/flwo powered "as new" sylva strikers can be bought for 3.5 to max 4k..its not worth thinking about buying a robin (as long as you do not need a robin because you have a fat a.s)

I don't know where your looking but the cheapest road legal true Westfield on ebay is £5000, and that is an auction so will go higher yet.

Pistonheads the cheapest is £5500 and the Westfield club is also £5500.

[LLantrisant]

at the moment yes....but i meant with "anytime"...if you check ALL online sales platforms daily over weeks and months you will find such lower-priced ones popping up regulary.

[Megaflow]

I do check.

I had a Westifleld for 15 years, been a member of the club for longer than I care to remember and was even an area organiser for 5 years.

I haven't seen a £3.5k Westfield for many years, and £4.5k are few and far between.

[Mr2Mike]

Megaflow said:

I do check.

I had a Westifleld for 15 years, been a member of the club for longer than I care to remember and was even an area organiser for 5 years.

I haven't seen a £3.5k Westfield for many years, and £4.5k are few and far between.

I've seen a few pop on forums and occasionally on ebay and Gumtree, but rarely if ever during the summer, and they aren't usually very nice examples anyway.

[LLantrisant]

Megaflow said:

I do check.

I had a Westifleld for 15 years, been a member of the club for longer than I care to remember and was even an area organiser for 5 years.

I haven't seen a £3.5k Westfield for many years, and £4.5k are few and far between.

sorry for you...but we have bought around 8 in the past 2 years...not to mention all the other enthusiasts, plus private buyers&dealers from other european countries....so i guess at least 30 cars in that price range have been sold during the past 2 years.

Edited by LLantrisant on Monday 28th July 17:27

[Megaflow]

Next time you see one of these cheap 'Westfields' be sure to pop along here with a link for it.

Like I said I have been around Westfield's and the market for them for 15-20 years. I haven't seen a running car £3.5k for a long time, and £4.5k cars are few and far between. If there was 30 cars for sale in the last 2 years, I don't know where they have been advertised because I haven't seen them.

Just to put some weight behind this, I am in the top twenty posters on the WSCC forum and still a member even though I don't have one anymore.

[LLantrisant]

the problem hereby is:

those cars are often advertized in a worng category (e.g. at fleebay under "interior")..or they are advertized for 5k and the final deal was made for less than 4.

not that i want to say that those cars are perfect..but good runners, mot-ed, sometimes they need a bit of TLC but fully useable.

sometimes the (kitcar)market is really strange...there a seven´s advertized which look nice, but technically bad or the basics are wrong...and those are sold for a rather high price. on the other side there are well sorted and engineered cars advertized for much less, but they arent sold.

often it depends also on the location: an overpriced pile of sh** advertized in london area is sold quick and far too expensive, whereas a nice wonderfull car somewhere around liverpool or scotland is advertized over weeks / months.


the 30cars are not far-fetched....checking the french, german and NL sales platforms for super-sevens turns out a lot of RHD cars, imported over the last years from UK...and those "dealers" need to buy at around the 3-4k mark for making any profit.

surplus all the imports in private-hand, bought for pleasure and not for making business!!

[LLantrisant]

http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic/1038...

this car was sold, incl. trailer (!!!) for 3200 to a dealer in UK

he put the cylinderhead back, (easy job on a x/flow), as the original alloy head was sold from the former car owner and the car was again sold for 3400,- with MOT, without trailer, to my mate.

(incl. a new wunoff spare silencer and a noisy one fitted to the car, windscreen frame, windscreen, side doors, hood, original fuel tank and lots of other bits & pieces)

1 saturday cleaning, setting igntion timing, valve clearances and carb thats everything the car needed up to now!!

and even the car looks a bit scruffy outside, the chassis and suspension parts are clean and tidy with undamaged black powdercoating, as it left the factory.

Edited by LLantrisant on Thursday 24th July 09:23

[Mr2Mike]

Megaflow said:

Next time you see one of these cheap 'Westfields' be sure to pop along here with a link for it.

Or you could just open your eyes. Despite your undoubted high standing in the Westfield community and your astoundingly high post count on the Westfield forums, you seem unable to find things that others have no problem with. A properly registered and complete 1600 Westy sold for £2300 on eBay a few days ago - it will likely need a little work to get it on the road but they are hardly difficult cars to work on.

Another one already MOT'd on the on the road sold for £3900 a couple of days later. This is in the middle of summer, prices fall in colder/wetter seasons.

[Megaflow]

LLantrisant said:

http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic/1038...

this car was sold, incl. trailer (!!!) for 3200 to a dealer in UK

he put the cylinderhead back, (easy job on a x/flow), as the original alloy head was sold from the former car owner and the car was again sold for 3400,- with MOT, without trailer, to my mate.

(incl. a new wunoff spare silencer and a noisy one fitted to the car, windscreen frame, windscreen, side doors, hood, original fuel tank and lots of other bits & pieces)

1 saturday cleaning, setting igntion timing, valve clearances and carb thats everything the car needed up to now!!

and even the car looks a bit scruffy outside, the chassis and suspension parts are clean and tidy with undamaged black powdercoating, as it left the factory.

As it says on the thread, that is a *very* cheap car, it was also a year ago.

Mr2Mike said:

Or you could just open your eyes. Despite your undoubted high standing in the Westfield community and your astoundingly high post count on the Westfield forums, you seem unable to find things that others have no problem with. A properly registered and complete 1600 Westy sold for £2300 on eBay a few days ago - it will likely need a little work to get it on the road but they are hardly difficult cars to work on.

Another one already MOT'd on the on the road sold for £3900 a couple of days later. This is in the middle of summer, prices fall in colder/wetter seasons.

Care to post a link, because I have just looked and I can't find a sold Westfield for £2300

ETA: I was looking on my phone at the time and I have now found it. The orginal point was about finding running cars for £3.5-4.5k, this is not a running car... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Westfield-1600-project-/...

Edited by Megaflow on Thursday 24th July 12:07

Edited by Megaflow on Thursday 24th July 12:10

[Mr2Mike]

Megaflow said:

ETA: I was looking on my phone at the time and I have now found it. The orginal point was about finding running cars for £3.5-4.5k, this is not a running car... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Westfield-1600-project-/...

The engine runs, but obviously it will need some work. However, it's also half the upper limit of the budget. It's also a crossflow, one of the easiest engines to work on ever made and the kind of parts that are likely to need replacing are cheap.

As I say, they do turn up. I've seen them and clearly other people on the thread have seen them and we probably only have a tiny fraction of your post count on the Westfield forums.

Also as I mentioned before, the real bargains don't tend to turn up in summer.

Edited by Mr2Mike on Thursday 24th July 18:26

[LLantrisant]

back to the thread title:

reading all this info above, its a nother vote for NOT buying a RobinCr*p

Edited by LLantrisant on Friday 25th July 10:15

[LLantrisant]

oh...and this 2300 project was even a pre-lit model!!!!

which are ususally rated more valuable than the later SE´s...but as you can see...prices are also falling even in summer time.