Help with project

[agera]

Hi all, I am writing a school assignment on the british kit-cars industry, and need some help with information I cant find elsewere. Here in Norway, the goverment and various car clubs are for the time beeing discussing the possibility of making kit-cars/homebuildt cars legal with a new set of rules based on IVA or the Swedish SFRO rulebook, so I (and my teacher) thought it could be an interesting and relevant topic. As a long time reader of this forum, I know there are many in here with considerable knowledge, so I thought I could pop some questions here. Anyone who knows or think they know anythin about it, please feel free to reply:

-How many kit-car/amateur buildt cars are registered in UK each year? (I have read somewhere that 5000 cars goes through IVA/SVA, but I understand that also include ambulances, cars for disabeled etc?)

-How many manufacturers are there in UK in total? The webpage "kitcarlinks" lists about 140, but I have found several that is not listed there.

- Does anybody knows production numbers for any of the kit car makers, how many who works there and how the kit/readybuildt matrix is? I'm interested in numbers from antything from one-man companies to the big ones like Caterham etc.

Thank you, and sorry for my crappy english skills, but "hey, I'm only lil'".

Best regards

Olav

[CPDMotorsport]

That is a really difficult question, I doubt anybody knows for sure.

Maybe to try and keep the project from getting out of control you could try getting the numbers you need just for 7' type kit cars or another specific style of kit car. Otherwise your list is going to be endless and constantly changing.

Even trying to mull over the list of kit car companies that make 7's in my head the list is getting pretty long and convuluted.

[Racing8]

A good starting point would be the kit car magazines, they will have infomration on the size of the Uk market, the numbers of manufacturers etc, as they need that information to sell advertising space.

[250LM]

Hey there, if you want registration statistics I would think that different goverment offices have a pretty good view of the picture, try ie DVLA.

As for the manufacturers I doubt there is good sources but the companies themselves, but since you asked for examples:

According to a Pistonheads feature I read this weekend, Caterham is now the biggest kit-car manufacturer in UK. They sold around 470 kits and cars last year with at staff of about 45. That is down from around 600cars/70people staff in 2008 due to the credit crunch. I think I remember from an earlier article that the productmix was about 50/50 kits/complete cars, with the numbers of fully buildt cars Increasing.

In september last year Westfield boss Chris Smith said that they would probably sell about 300 cars in 2009, not included "GTM" og "Roadster Bil" cars, but included about 50 Sport Turbos. About 40% were kits. They also sold about 1 or 2 GTMs pr month.

[spaximus]

give Steve Hole at Totalkitcar magazine an email. He has encyclopedic knowledge of the market.

[singlecoil]

250LM said:

In september last year Westfield boss said that they would probably sell about 300 cars in 2009, not included "GTM" og "Roadster Bil" cars, but included about 50 Sport Turbos. About 40% were kits. They also sold about 1 or 2 GTMs pr month.

Something not quite right there.

[250LM]

singlecoil said:

Something not quite right there.

Well, in that case, isn't it common courtesy to point out what, especially in someone elses thread? And especially if you got information that could help the kid?

[Sam_68]

spaximus said:

give Steve Hole at Totalkitcar magazine an email. He has encyclopedic knowledge of the market.

Good call, but even the editors of kit car magazines would just be giving you a best-guess estimate.

I know from the days when I was involved with the magazines that this sort of information is next to impossible to obtain, because it's too commercially sensitive to the companies involved... I guarantee that you won't find many smaller players willing to admit that they haven't sold a single kit for months/years (which is frequently the case - the numbers often only come out years afterwards, when they will admit that total production was in single figures) and the big players like Westfield and Caterham always try to big-up their numbers to promote market confidence in their product.

It's even more difficult to pin down the market these days, because all you need to become a 'manufacturer' is a website and a computer-generated model of your new car.

[singlecoil]

250LM said:

singlecoil said:

Something not quite right there.

Well, in that case, isn't it common courtesy to point out what, especially in someone elses thread? And especially if you got information that could help the kid?

There are several GTM experts here, I'm not one of them. They could tell you whether or not Westfield have ever sold any GTMs, and, if they did, when they stopped. So although I suspect the information I drew attention to is wrong, I am unable to provide the correct information. I daresay there will be somebody along soon who can and will do that. If I had had time earlier, maybe I would have written then what I am writing now, but I didn't, and so I didn't.

Incidentally, there are plenty of kit car manufacturers in this country, both current and intended, who would love to have the information the 'kid' is requesting.

[Bikali]

For the number of kits registered in the UK wouldn't an FOI request on the DVLA do the trick ...the link below shows info / the costs for UK residents. Framing the question is key, as how effectively they can search the database, will affect the cost and how much info can be extracted.


http://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/faqs/freedom_of_infor...