Westfield FW400 | Spotted
The ultimate in silly Westfields, made slightly sillier and now for sale. Feeling lucky?
Once upon a time the Rover K Series went in seemingly every sports car imaginable, from Caterham Seven to Lotus Elise and Ariel Atom to, well, the MG TF. And with good reason: it was a light, revvy, exciting four-cylinder engine, perfectly suited to light, rev-thirsty, exciting cars. Unencumbered by the extra weight of vehicles like the Land Rover Freelander it was also put in, the K Series generally proved less problematic in the smaller roadsters.
So how about this for the ultimate expression of maximum K Series naughtiness with the minimum of motor vehicle to drag along? It's a Westfield FW400, a car that arrived at the end of the 20th century with a focus seemingly on being the most technologically advanced, raw and thrilling Westfield yet made. Quite an aim.
To that end five FW400s were built on a carbon monocoque for the lightest possible weight and greatest possible stiffness; the ad for this one states a 397kg (!) dry weight, along with torsional rigidity way in excess of a regular Seven. This particular car is exceptional in having a carbon body, too, making it the leanest of the lean.
As if that wasn't enough, the previous owner of this FW400 has seen fit to tinker just a little, the aim presumably to make the flippin' fast get somewhere close to utterly feral. The VHPD K Series has been rebuilt, including Jenvey throttle bodies, an Emerald K6 ECU and a bespoke exhaust, meaning peak power of nearly 220hp. It's dry-sumped, too, surely a necessity with something as overtly track biased as this, yet without compromising the integrity of the structure. They've even gone to the effort of using titanium nuts throughout the car, shaving more precious grams.
This is all on top of a base package that included Penske dampers, a Hewland straight cut gearbox, adjustable anti-roll bars and a design penned by former Lotus F1 man Martin Ogilvie - it's quite something. And the all the mods in place are reversible, for those after the original experience. On the other hand, those who might like to compete with their FW400 will be pleased to know that it's being sold with spares - including a different clutch and flywheel - that will make it even more circuit ready.
All of which sounds pretty exciting, does it not? Moreover, despite all this work, the FW400's incredible rarity and very exotic spec, this one is for sale at less than £30,000 - about the same as you'd pay for a Lotus Exige of the same era, or even a retro Caterham Seven from the present day. Doesn't seem a lot of money in that context, does it? Just don't forget to wear your (carbon) helmet as well - that aero screen doesn't look suited to deflecting anything away from your face...
Apart from the sheer speed of it, the thing that stood out in respect of the weight was that it had a very tall 1st gear, but would basically pull from idle, so you could let the clutch in with no or very little throttle and it would immediately accelerate to about 20mph... the sensation was a bit odd, but really did make you feel that there was no weight there at all.
The steering feel was superb, and very light, too: much better than a Caterham.
It drove very well indeed, albeit rather too stiffly set-up for road use (which is what I mainly used it for - the mileage quoted on the advert is nonsense... it had no odometer when i had it, and I certainly put more mileage onto it than that on my own). Very, very quick, but very benign handling and not at all scary.
Gearbox was the major shortcoming, though - it's a straight cut, dog-engagement Hewland LD-200, so it was VERY noisy. Like sitting next to an SDS hammer drill with knackered bearings. And the gearchange took some getting used to, in road use (it's designed for clutchless upchanges at full throttle when racing; part throttle gearchanges on the road had to be judged right). The gear pattern was not normal (first was left and back, dog-leg backward second to 3rd, with no spring-loading on the centre plane), which didn't help, either.
Each to their own and IMHO, of course, but I wouldn't have spent the money the subsequent owner spent on more engine power; I'd have spent it instead on converting the gearbox to a Hewland JFR-200 6-speed sequential (still as noisy, but would have made the gearchange easier and quicker). The conversion would be pretty straightforward, as the JFR is designed as a straight replacement for the LD-200
I don't think it shares a single significant component with their spaceframe cars... which may be one reason that this one is sticking on the market. Break it, and you've got problems. I bought the entire factory stock of spares (which I assume will be passed on as a package with the car), but there wasn't all that much.
The other problem with it is that the handful of cars built were very much prototypes; some of Ogilvie's design is very elegant, but the actual fabrication of the tub, and a lot of the minor details that I assume were left to Westfield themselves to sort out are pretty shonky, to be honest.
Given the prices Caterham and Donkervoort charge for their 'ultimate' models, it would be an interesting proposition.
Edited to add:
Oh... and the 'original carbon pre-preg bonnet' isn't pre-preg... it's carbon, but it was done as a wet lay-up, by hand.
It's actually S355XWP (the one in the advert) that was used (probably) in the Autocar and Cars and Car Conversions road tests.
T635WAD was used in a later Autocar article for a 0-100-0 group test, I think.
I say 'probably', because you could swap the front and rear clams around, complete with number plates and it would be impossible to tell one car from the other without checking chassis numbers, and there is some evidence to show that this may have happened on occasion.
There is/was a third car in the UK (X304KNP), owned by another PistonHeader last I heard (this is the one that can be seen on YouTube, at the Nurburgring), but it suffered an under-bonnet fire a few years ago. It looked repairable, but on checking, it doesn't seem to have been MOT'd subsequently, so maybe it's now dead.
The other two known cars are in Japan, AFAIK. A sixth was allegedly destroyed in a testing accident at Thruxton, while still in the hands of Westfield.
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