Contemplating building a sevenesque kit car on a budget....

[Petrolhead_Rich]

Just after some educated opinions of if this even sounds feasible, and what likely issues I may have (SVA, proof of donor parts etc etc...)

So I've built a few projects in my youth for rallying round fields, my most ambitious being a bare chassis off roader & sticking a saab engine in the boot of a peugeot 306 body, so I understand that what I'm thinking of is not a 6 month hobby, but a major project...

...I'm thinking of stripping a RWD donor (BMW's seem to be the main thing appearing on my radar), and building a chassis from scratch to suit the engine/gearbox/suspension and of course my 6'5" body (something alot of production vehicles struggle with!!), my thinking is to buy a pre-made nose, bonnet & mud guards and keep the sides/back flat & build these myself.

I'm a qualified welder & electrical engineer by trade and also have access to some nice big offcuts of flat carbon fibre, titanium, stainless etc through work so my next question is budget wise, what am I looking at?

In my mind, its the following;

Donor Car £1000 (with £75ish back on scrapping body shell)
Steel Box Section £500
Nose, mudguards, bonnet, windscreen, lights £500
Getting finished product painted £500??

Total £2500

Does this sound reasonable? I appreciate there is alot of other costs like gas/mig wire/grinding discs/electricity etc too, but for the purposes of the budget, these are little costs along the way and not really an issue..

Donor car wise, as it's only the engine & box I'm really interested in, I'm thinking of going for something unpopular & high mileage to keep costs down, e.g. a BMW 523/525 or a 320 with 100-150k motorway miles on, my thinking being that once it's built I can run it for a bit and worst case is I have to get another engine, of course between donor car and kit car I'll give it a good service and replace all the hard to access bits e.g. clutch, gaskets, seals etc. too.

Appreciate any feedback/ideas/advice, including "Don't do it, it will take over your life!"

[Petrolhead_Rich]

all good points,

No windscreen is a good shout, especially given the heater/wiper job is instantly crossed off the list.

Is the IVA really such a sticking point, I know it will be the little things that fail it, but £1000 seems alot?

Good shout on the consumables and of course suspension rebuild/replacement, I'm thinking of an inboard solution for the front so will probably use some different suspension parts.

I would definitely remove the ABS, but this would simply be a bit of careful shredding of wires on the loom, remove the ABS warning bulb/light and remove sensors from the wheels.

Added a bit to the budget for consumables.

MX5's are in the same category as 325's, 328's, etc etc, in that they are so popular as a track toy that the prices are higher, that's why I was looking at 5-series because the smaller engined 5 series (520-525) are unpopular when old and thus quite cheap, but the engine in a kit car would still offer ample power for a fun toy (and probably give a 328 a run for it's money as it will be lighter), other options are old Volvo's (2.5 RWD, or old Mercedes tanks which again are pretty cheap as they are undesirable.

I'm not after an off-road style kit, been there done that;




I've looked at various off-the-shelf kits but I'd quite like to scratch build as I have a few non-standard ideas for the chassis, including a safety cell for the passenger area and weaker "crumple zones" for the front/sides/rear and also a thicker side wall for Side impact and a roll cage intergral to the "safety cell" rather than bolting one ontop of a standard chassis.

Also as mentioned I'm quite tall with long legs, so a longer than normal pedal tunnel and slightly raised sides/roll cage are going to be included.

Edited by Petrolhead_Rich on Saturday 29th August 18:15

[Petrolhead_Rich]

S-Type has also been suggested, would prefer a front engine, RWD setup.

[Petrolhead_Rich]

finishing touch said:

Quote:
Is the IVA really such a sticking point, I know it will be the little things that fail it, but £1000 seems alot?


Hi Rich, perhaps I should explain.

IVA costs £450
Re-test will almost certainly be needed, so another £90
Cost of getting there, + loss of earnings, X 2 if you retest £???
( For me I trailered 70 miles to Norwich twice. £30 + £100 x 2 = £260 )
When you send your pass cert to DVLA you pay registration, tax, and also needed is insurance.
Then it's just number plates and WAHAY.

For me that's "wahay" over the thousand pounds.


Just some other thoughts.

If you deviate from standard dimensions chassis wise then you will need to make the bodywork to suit,
which may or may not be a problem. Since mine was a scratch build I was going to make it anyway so the plus 4 (4 inches wider)
didn't matter.


Personally, having been a passenger in several cars without windscreens and suffered "watery eye syndrome." To me it's a must have.
If you plan to fit one post IVA then make sure you allow room for wipers, perhaps even fit the brackets for the motor within the scuttle.
A Classic Mini motor with it's flexible drive is the norm.


Hope this helps
Paul G

Edited by finishing touch on Sunday 30th August 09:11

Ok the £1000 makes sense now, guess I havn't got as far as looking at costs of IVA etc yet, by the time I actually get that far they will probably have doubled anyway!!

[Petrolhead_Rich]

V8 Fettler said:

Cheapest route to seven(ish) is to buy someone else's SVA-passed project.

I think part of whats making me want to do this is building it from scratch, buying an unfinished project is just car modification, plus you are relying on every weld having been done right & everything fitted/aligned properly, or stripping the whole thing to check?!