Building a car the hard way: a Locost-shaped jigsaw puzzle
Discussion
It’s all my fault.
Or so I’m told, anyway…
It all started back in early 2019. I’ve been best friends IRL with PHer MasterVentris since early high school – we’re both car mad and were brought up to be handy with power tools, spanners and a Haynes book of lies. I was therefore sad to see him disappear to London a few years prior, in pursuit of his dream job and dream woman.
However, having succeeded in both, he subsequently relocated everything back “oop north” from a London flat to a house in our native North West with ample garage space - and decided it was high time to match my streak of highly ambitious projects with the acquisition of a non-running ersatz Mini 1275GT.
(related: I think I won the award for most overkill towing combination
)
Over the course of about 10 weekends over nearly a year, we successfully bumbled our way (with basic tools and a HBoL) into getting the car running and road-legal, but then the project hit a turning point. MV realised that a stripped and lowered vintage Mini wasn’t actually that pleasant to drive forlong any distances on modern roads, and we both realised that un-doing the next round of Stevie Wonder modifications (rollcage attached directly to an unreinforced rusty floorpan full of holes, anyone?) was approaching our limits of driveway tinkering to properly remedy.
At this point in time, I was doing a couple of races a year in a Ma7da belonging to PHer Synchromesh, and may well have been extolling the virtues of these bargain-priced fun machines to all of my friends.
“But”, I hear you ask, “what’s a Ma7da?”.
Well, a Ma7da is a Locost that has been modified to accept the cheap, plentiful and robust NB Mazda MX5 engine and gearbox in place of the Ford Crossflow usually found residing there, which is no longer any of those three things by present day standards.
“And”, I hear you further ask, “what precisely is a Locost?”.
A Locost is a kit car based on a Lotus 7 layout, but designed such that any home mechanic with a welder, a ready supply of 1-inch box section and a rusted-out Escort can fabricate the entire thing themselves by following a book called “Build your own Sports Car for as little as £250” by a Mr Ron Champion – truly a “Low Cost” car!
There was, and still is, a one-make race series for the cars - or owners could add a few extra components and make them road legal for the full CaterField experience at a fraction of the cost.
Sadly, not only have steel prices changed somewhat in the last 40 years of book publication, but the Mk2 Escort parts are now somewhat more prized and difficult to find. Thus, the Ma7da concept was born, and a steady trickle of race and road cars are being converted year on year.
A Ma7da, earlier....
Anyway, all this talk of supposedly cheap and easy thrills pricked up the ears of Mr Ventris, and with the Mini consigned to a classic car auction he was soon looking a Locost of his own with a little help and a lot of “bad influence” encouragement from me….
The decision was made to build one up from a bare chassis rather than buying complete – firstly, due to the ability to spread the cost over a long period, and secondly due to the ability to “freestyle” things such as the engine and interior.
A short while later, a suitably decent looking chassis came up for sale on ebay for a bargain price, and with the chances of it fitting in MV’s Yaris somewhat slim, I volunteered the services of my Hilux and a rented trailer to fetch it from near Silverstone.
The decision to rent a suitably sized trailer turned out to be a very wise move - I had been considering using the monster 20x8 flatbed I own to save the rental money, but arriving at the pickup location revealed it to be down a single track village road with a 90 degree corner over a 7ft wide stone bridge
The vendor turned out to be a race marshall who had a garden full of 3 other Locost/Caterham/Westfields in various states of build! Duly collected, the obligatory roadtrip burger ensued and gave us a chance to pore over the acquisition:
The overall quality of the construction and welding was very good, with no rust in the tubing. Judging by the weight, it was also quite thick tubing and the chassis would be ridiculously rigid! However, there were some interesting idiosyncrasies to investigate, such as the bar over the top of the front suspension points, and the asymmetric engine bay reinforcement and transmission tunnel.
With the chassis back at MV’s house in the North West, the very first task was to measure the available space and work out what engine could be crammed in! Wanting something a bit more rorty and less mundane than an MX5 unit, a few options were considered – up to and including an RX8 rotary, which was discounted on grounds of long term reliability.
As a left field suggestion I volunteered the Vauxhall X25XE V6 from my own Omega track car, as this would give me the perfect excuse for the silly idea I was entertaining of LS swapping it. We weren’t confident the skinny Locost would take any sort of Vee engine, but measuring under the bonnet of the Omega revealed the narrow-angle V6 to be an almost perfect 60cm cube – ideal for slotting in!
A price both of us thought to be fair was agreed – but within a few days, what should pop up on ebay but a “good, running” X25XE complete with a Ford Type 9 gearbox (the preferred box for a Locost chassis) and a unicorn of a bellhousing joining the two together. Oh, and the whole lot was less than we’d agreed for just my engine. Naturally, MV elected to buy this setup, and this would later turn out to be blessing for various reasons I’ll get onto.
So, it was another early start and road trip, in various directions! We realised that whilst the seller could load the engine for us, we weren’t going to get very far with removing it from the back of my truck by ourselves. We’d thus invested in a beefy engine crane, which came flat-packed from a local Halfords and had to be collected and assembled in the morning daylight:
Many hours and miles later, one engine emerged. Once again, the seller was a real character, with a unit in Bedfordshire full of stuff, including a Jensen Interceptor project, and a Firenza (IIRC) track/rally car the V6 had previously been plonked in.
So, we had the main ingredients… now what?
Stay tuned for the next step in the tale!
Or so I’m told, anyway…
It all started back in early 2019. I’ve been best friends IRL with PHer MasterVentris since early high school – we’re both car mad and were brought up to be handy with power tools, spanners and a Haynes book of lies. I was therefore sad to see him disappear to London a few years prior, in pursuit of his dream job and dream woman.
However, having succeeded in both, he subsequently relocated everything back “oop north” from a London flat to a house in our native North West with ample garage space - and decided it was high time to match my streak of highly ambitious projects with the acquisition of a non-running ersatz Mini 1275GT.
(related: I think I won the award for most overkill towing combination
)Over the course of about 10 weekends over nearly a year, we successfully bumbled our way (with basic tools and a HBoL) into getting the car running and road-legal, but then the project hit a turning point. MV realised that a stripped and lowered vintage Mini wasn’t actually that pleasant to drive for
At this point in time, I was doing a couple of races a year in a Ma7da belonging to PHer Synchromesh, and may well have been extolling the virtues of these bargain-priced fun machines to all of my friends.
“But”, I hear you ask, “what’s a Ma7da?”.
Well, a Ma7da is a Locost that has been modified to accept the cheap, plentiful and robust NB Mazda MX5 engine and gearbox in place of the Ford Crossflow usually found residing there, which is no longer any of those three things by present day standards.
“And”, I hear you further ask, “what precisely is a Locost?”.
A Locost is a kit car based on a Lotus 7 layout, but designed such that any home mechanic with a welder, a ready supply of 1-inch box section and a rusted-out Escort can fabricate the entire thing themselves by following a book called “Build your own Sports Car for as little as £250” by a Mr Ron Champion – truly a “Low Cost” car!
There was, and still is, a one-make race series for the cars - or owners could add a few extra components and make them road legal for the full CaterField experience at a fraction of the cost.
Sadly, not only have steel prices changed somewhat in the last 40 years of book publication, but the Mk2 Escort parts are now somewhat more prized and difficult to find. Thus, the Ma7da concept was born, and a steady trickle of race and road cars are being converted year on year.
A Ma7da, earlier....
Anyway, all this talk of supposedly cheap and easy thrills pricked up the ears of Mr Ventris, and with the Mini consigned to a classic car auction he was soon looking a Locost of his own with a little help and a lot of “bad influence” encouragement from me….
The decision was made to build one up from a bare chassis rather than buying complete – firstly, due to the ability to spread the cost over a long period, and secondly due to the ability to “freestyle” things such as the engine and interior.
A short while later, a suitably decent looking chassis came up for sale on ebay for a bargain price, and with the chances of it fitting in MV’s Yaris somewhat slim, I volunteered the services of my Hilux and a rented trailer to fetch it from near Silverstone.
The decision to rent a suitably sized trailer turned out to be a very wise move - I had been considering using the monster 20x8 flatbed I own to save the rental money, but arriving at the pickup location revealed it to be down a single track village road with a 90 degree corner over a 7ft wide stone bridge
The vendor turned out to be a race marshall who had a garden full of 3 other Locost/Caterham/Westfields in various states of build! Duly collected, the obligatory roadtrip burger ensued and gave us a chance to pore over the acquisition:
The overall quality of the construction and welding was very good, with no rust in the tubing. Judging by the weight, it was also quite thick tubing and the chassis would be ridiculously rigid! However, there were some interesting idiosyncrasies to investigate, such as the bar over the top of the front suspension points, and the asymmetric engine bay reinforcement and transmission tunnel.
With the chassis back at MV’s house in the North West, the very first task was to measure the available space and work out what engine could be crammed in! Wanting something a bit more rorty and less mundane than an MX5 unit, a few options were considered – up to and including an RX8 rotary, which was discounted on grounds of long term reliability.
As a left field suggestion I volunteered the Vauxhall X25XE V6 from my own Omega track car, as this would give me the perfect excuse for the silly idea I was entertaining of LS swapping it. We weren’t confident the skinny Locost would take any sort of Vee engine, but measuring under the bonnet of the Omega revealed the narrow-angle V6 to be an almost perfect 60cm cube – ideal for slotting in!
A price both of us thought to be fair was agreed – but within a few days, what should pop up on ebay but a “good, running” X25XE complete with a Ford Type 9 gearbox (the preferred box for a Locost chassis) and a unicorn of a bellhousing joining the two together. Oh, and the whole lot was less than we’d agreed for just my engine. Naturally, MV elected to buy this setup, and this would later turn out to be blessing for various reasons I’ll get onto.
So, it was another early start and road trip, in various directions! We realised that whilst the seller could load the engine for us, we weren’t going to get very far with removing it from the back of my truck by ourselves. We’d thus invested in a beefy engine crane, which came flat-packed from a local Halfords and had to be collected and assembled in the morning daylight:
Many hours and miles later, one engine emerged. Once again, the seller was a real character, with a unit in Bedfordshire full of stuff, including a Jensen Interceptor project, and a Firenza (IIRC) track/rally car the V6 had previously been plonked in.
So, we had the main ingredients… now what?
Stay tuned for the next step in the tale!
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