RE: PH Interview: Westfield Sportscars Boss
Discussion
Westfield have always had an impressive set up since the late eighties/early nineties, I built my first Sei in 1991, in the days when Chris Smith was at the helm, and John Grosvenor was the (ever helpful) head technical guy...The factory was streets ahead of most other kit-car makers, who usually traded from a makeshift garden shed, or unit....
Long may they prosper......
Long may they prosper......
BarnatosGhost said:
Caterham have the prestige of being the original copier.
Whoopee doo.But seriously, Caterham purchased the production rights to the Lotus Seven rather than just copied it.
And if you want to be really pedantic, I think that the original agreement with Lotus referred specifically to the production rights for the Series Four Seven, though that was subsequently tidied up.
I have owned two Caterham Sevens and an early aluminium bodied Westfield Seven. Not much to choose between them in terms of quality and finish and anyone that derides the quality of the Westfield chassis is simply wrong.
Competition is healthy. Products like the Mazda based Westfield and the Westfield Eleven are superb and I would be as proud to own either of them as I am to own my current Caterham.
Who honestly gives a flying f**k? I play with Caterhams on a regular basis and own a Westfield. What badge is on the front has no bearing on which one I enjoy the most as that's pretty much down to who built/set up the particular car I'm driving at the time. Because they're all handbuilt, they're all different. I've driven woeful and brilliant examples of each marque.
What they have in common is that they're of the same mentality. They certainly share a kinship and this petty school playground squabbling between the two camps is, quite honestly, embarrasing.
What they have in common is that they're of the same mentality. They certainly share a kinship and this petty school playground squabbling between the two camps is, quite honestly, embarrasing.
Edited by juansolo on Thursday 10th September 14:33
darth_pies said:
....that's because Caterham didn't start a business based on ripping off someone else's product
erm... Westfield didn't start their business building Sevens, you know?darrth_pies said:
...this guy Turner seems intent on taking Westfield away from their 'let's copying everything Caterham do' roots and actually start developing some ideas of their own...
You're clearly pretty clueless about the history of Westfield as a company.Tell you what, since you've obviously no idea, I'll give you a list of Westfield's major products (in roughly chronological order) and you can tell me which ones are copies of Caterham innovations, eh?:
- Eleven
- 23B
- Seven (Close replica of the Lotus Seven Series 1
- Seven SE (updated to Ford Mechanicals but visually similar to the Lotus Seven Series III)
- SE (mild restyle of Seven SE, when Caterham threw Teddy out of the cot)
- SEi (first production 'Seven' style kit with IRS - it only took Caterham about 15 years to get round to copying Westfield, admittedly, so they weren't far behind.
). - SEight (First production 'Seven' style car with a V8 - nice to see that Caterham has finally caught up here, too, though the Levante is typically over-priced).
- ZEi (first LVTA type approved sports car of any type, allowing it to be supplied fully built)
- Topaz (similar to the MGF, but pre-dating it)
- GP Midget
- Sports 2000
- Weasel (in suport of Richard Wilsher - first turbodiesel lightweight sports car)
- TRZ
- 'Whisper' (in support of Martin Ogilvie - composite tub electric 'Seven')
- FW400 (first carbon monocoque 'Seven'-type car, and first production 'Seven' to be fitted with a rear mounted transaxle for better weight distribution).
- Megabusa/Megablade/Megabird (first properly 'productionised' bike engine 'Seven' kits)
Sam_68 said:
darth_pies said:
....that's because Caterham didn't start a business based on ripping off someone else's product
erm... Westfield didn't start their business building Sevens, you know?darrth_pies said:
...this guy Turner seems intent on taking Westfield away from their 'let's copying everything Caterham do' roots and actually start developing some ideas of their own...
You're clearly pretty clueless about the history of Westfield as a company.Tell you what, since you've obviously no idea, I'll give you a list of Westfield's major products (in roughly chronological order) and you can tell me which ones are copies of Caterham innovations, eh?:
- Eleven
- 23B
- Seven (Close replica of the Lotus Seven Series 1
- Seven SE (updated to Ford Mechanicals but visually similar to the Lotus Seven Series III)
- SE (mild restyle of Seven SE, when Caterham threw Teddy out of the cot)
- SEi (first production 'Seven' style kit with IRS - it only took Caterham about 15 years to get round to copying Westfield, admittedly, so they weren't far behind. ).
- SEight (First production 'Seven' style car with a V8 - nice to see that Caterham has finally caught up here, too, though the Levante is typically over-priced).
- ZEi (first LVTA type approved sports car of any type, allowing it to be supplied fully built)
- Topaz (similar to the MGF, but pre-dating it)
- GP Midget
- Sports 2000
- Weasel (in suport of Richard Wilsher - first turbodiesel lightweight sports car)
- TRZ
- 'Whisper' (in support of Martin Ogilvie - composite tub electric 'Seven')
- FW400 (first carbon monocoque 'Seven'-type car, and first production 'Seven' to be fitted with a rear mounted transaxle for better weight distribution).
- Megabusa/Megablade/Megabird (first properly 'productionised' bike engine 'Seven' kits)
Sam_68 said:
darth_pies said:
....that's because Caterham didn't start a business based on ripping off someone else's product
erm... Westfield didn't start their business building Sevens, you know?darrth_pies said:
...this guy Turner seems intent on taking Westfield away from their 'let's copying everything Caterham do' roots and actually start developing some ideas of their own...
You're clearly pretty clueless about the history of Westfield as a company.Tell you what, since you've obviously no idea, I'll give you a list of Westfield's major products (in roughly chronological order) and you can tell me which ones are copies of Caterham innovations, eh?:
- Eleven
- 23B
- Seven (Close replica of the Lotus Seven Series 1
- Seven SE (updated to Ford Mechanicals but visually similar to the Lotus Seven Series III)
- SE (mild restyle of Seven SE, when Caterham threw Teddy out of the cot)
- SEi (first production 'Seven' style kit with IRS - it only took Caterham about 15 years to get round to copying Westfield, admittedly, so they weren't far behind. ).
- SEight (First production 'Seven' style car with a V8 - nice to see that Caterham has finally caught up here, too, though the Levante is typically over-priced).
- ZEi (first LVTA type approved sports car of any type, allowing it to be supplied fully built)
- Topaz (similar to the MGF, but pre-dating it)
- GP Midget
- Sports 2000
- Weasel (in suport of Richard Wilsher - first turbodiesel lightweight sports car)
- TRZ
- 'Whisper' (in support of Martin Ogilvie - composite tub electric 'Seven')
- FW400 (first carbon monocoque 'Seven'-type car, and first production 'Seven' to be fitted with a rear mounted transaxle for better weight distribution).
- Megabusa/Megablade/Megabird (first properly 'productionised' bike engine 'Seven' kits)
They sound scarily like rip-offs of the "Caterham Academy" and the "Caterham Drive Experience" - both of which have been running for quite a long time (i seem to recal from a recent Performance car article that the Caterham Academy has been running for nearly 15 years!)
Imitation is the highest form of flattery though i guess. Bless 'em.
atom-ick said:
You are totally right - the Westfiled SE was nothing like a Caterham at all - the courts decided to stop Westfield building them for a laugh.
Two points:- I didn't say that the Seven SE was nothing like a Caterham. I said that it wasn't a Caterham idea. As PatH pointed out above, what Caterham bought was the rights to produce the Seven Series IV (that's the funny looking beach-buggy style car pictured with Nearn and Chapman, above), and for the components supply business. As far as I am aware, they never bought the rights to actually manufacture the Series III, from which the current cars are developed. Lotus has never litigated against Caterham, just as they never litigated against any of the companies (including Westfield) who have built 6, 7, Eleven, 15, 23, Elan and Elite replicas. They're a forward-looking company and are obviously not too worried about people copying their long-obsolete products.
- The courts didn't stop Westfield building them. The matter was settled out of court.
Edited by Sam_68 on Thursday 10th September 14:54
The Black Flash said:
Why is it that caterham owners always feel the need to go on about how "original and best" their cars are? Seriously, give it a rest, nobody else cares.
I own a Caterham and I certainly do not think that it is any better than the Westfield that I used to own.So nurr.
PascalBuyens said:
Cobra replicas with anything other than a +5 liter V8 are just wrong to me...
Seems pretty valid to me. Big engine make for bigger bills, but not always bigger grins.I used to think the old Cobra kits based on Ford Granada V6 mechanicals sounded like a good laugh for not much money. Don't know if there is a similar cheap platform that can be used these days. I admit a 4 pot would just sound wrong, regardless of power output.
How does the Cobra wheelbase match up with, say, a BMW 530? Plenty of those around.
funwithrevs said:
PascalBuyens said:
Cobra replicas with anything other than a +5 liter V8 are just wrong to me...
Seems pretty valid to me. Big engine make for bigger bills, but not always bigger grins.I used to think the old Cobra kits based on Ford Granada V6 mechanicals sounded like a good laugh for not much money. Don't know if there is a similar cheap platform that can be used these days. I admit a 4 pot would just sound wrong, regardless of power output.
How does the Cobra wheelbase match up with, say, a BMW 530? Plenty of those around.
Sam_68 said:
atom-ick said:
You are totally right - the Westfiled SE was nothing like a Caterham at all - the courts decided to stop Westfield building them for a laugh.
Two points:- I didn't say that the Seven SE was nothing like a Caterham. I said that it wasn't a Caterham idea. As PatH pointed out above, what Caterham bought was the rights to produce the Seven Series IV (that's the funny looking beach-buggy style car pictured with Nearn and Chapman, above), and for the components supply business. As far as I am aware, they never bought the rights to actually manufacture the Series III, from which the current cars are developed. Lotus has obviously never litigated against Caterham, just as they never litigated against any of the companies (including Westfield) who have build 6, 7, Eleven, 15, 23, Elan and Elite replicas. They're a forward-looking company and are obviously not too worried about people copying their long-obsolete products.
- The courts didn't stop Westfield building them. The matter was settled out of court.
If one used the analogy of watches, Casio make some exellent, and highly accurate timepieces which do exactly what ANY watch should do extremely well.
But if you were given the choice between a Casio, and a Rolex, which both do the same thing, which one, do you think most people would choose?
But if you were given the choice between a Casio, and a Rolex, which both do the same thing, which one, do you think most people would choose?
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