Looking at buying first kit car poss tiger

[jdominicd]

Need some advice looking at buying my first kit car have seen what looks like a nice tiger super cat for £5600 its maroon has has a 2 ltr pinto if anyone can give me advice on it, will I be able to take it to the track or are there certain things that I have to look out for. What questions do i need to ask and what should I be looking out for? Dont want to buy a lemon
Thanks John

[greengreenwood7]

my 2penneth - but no expert! i bought a supercat earlier this yr as 2nd venture into k/car territory. so little advice based after buying robin hood + the tiger. the Hood was a pinto, looked nice, seemed to go well, spec seemed good ( receipts engine etc). in reality after i bought it turned out the engine was not right ( spec suggested 140bhp - turned out to have same as standard lump ). Based on that i decided this time not to buy anything that didnt have a/ more documentation b/ some form of r/road figs and c/ would be easily tuneable. REALITY> tiger had all the above ( zetec) had been tracked and all seemed good. 1st trackday engine blew ! specialised eng co. reckon sump not man enough and could have happened at any stage on track ( not road). if you want a fun car tiger will be great, personally i'd aim for zetec power. if you want to track it: standard roll bar is cosmetic and not likely to be much use in a roll. aside from engine: some have rear discs, some have had larger f/dics upgrades, rear susp can't be altered as sierra subframe - fronts can. cooling/fan/rad needs checking as can run a bit hot. unless you are handy or lucky expect to be adding bits n pieces ( money!) ask on the tiger owners forum if anyone knows the car. from my perspective i think they're good cars, much fun to be had on road or track. my exp of k/cars is even if you are handy depending on your aims you can easily rack up a lot of extra money. ( a pal bought a dax rush thought it was spot on and he knows a fair bit - 1mth later realised that cooling was poor and invested £1k in new intercooler/rad ).......check , check and check again after deciding what you want from teh car. i'm sure if ther's a local tiger club near you they'll help you with what to look for over a pint......

[jdominicd]

Thanks for that some good advice dont know whether the bloke who has the tiger knows if the engine has been tinkered with , spoke to him last night seems genuine enough he is the 3rd owner he thinks the car is 5 years old I have got him to send me some pictures of the engine. Its even more difficult buying a kit car than a normal one, but thanks for the advice as they say will suck it and see.
John

[greengreenwood7]

no probs. worth registering with the tigerowners. there are also occasionaly cars for sale on there. the main thing to bear in mind is that it is just that a kit, so obvious thoughts are was it built to a good standard and has it been maintained. all very well having a pocket rocket but nice to feel confident that all the nuts and bolts are where they should be! prob fair to say that a number of cars have had modifications after they were SVA'd! As i said if you are a hands on person mechanically then it will make your life much easier, my pal was quite happy to take fit his new rad etc, strip his turbo - me, i'm into a local garage for most things which of course doubles the cost of anything that i do. and the cost of items can seem disproportionate: complete new rear end about £300 seems fair, as opposed to new seats at say £350! anyway, good luck - hope that you find a 'good un' and enjoy your ownership.

[Melch]

Tigers are pretty short on space if you're long of leg or well-upholstered in the ar5e dept....

[Norbury90]

A friend of mine has a pinto cat - after he bought it he completely stripped it down and put everything back together himself to make sure it was all tip-top. It helps if you are hands-on, there will be niggles that will need sorting as they aren't quite up to production car standard!

If you go to the factory it can be quite eay to spend a fair few bob on upgrades, we have a Tiger builders near us who offer new interiors and tasty engine upgrades ( www.chestersportscars.co.uk )

If the one you are looking at is the one in the PH classifieds with the twin roll hoops, you will probably want to fit a full screen to the car to make it driveable without a helmet. Keeping the stainless side panels shiny is also a thankless task!

I hope to have my own supercat in a few years time - I will be going down the zetec route I think.

[CalZoni-911]

lol Melch made me giggle!!

i too am lookin to get into the kit car market, but only being 18 years old, dont have too much to spend on the car do any of u guys know any "cheap" but effective cars that are in the £3k - 5k range,

i was also lookin at restoring a 911, my mate and i wer goin to try it, but it seems a bit expensive

Thanx for any help!

CalZonii

[Norbury90]

Can you cover the insurance costs as well?

It would be advisable to not stray over an engine size of 1.6, the insurance will probably be astronomical! I'm also 18, but I am going to wait until i'm 21 before getting myself a 7 replica.

Maybe you could spend some time building one from scratch, that way you will have some time for your insurance to drop, as well as perfecting your own car and having the pride of building it yourself! You would have a pretty wide range of choices if you went down this route.