27 replies to this topic

[Paul Hurdsfield]

Today I attended the National Kit Car Show at Stoneleigh, and I spotted this.










So do the knowedgeable on here think this is real?

And if anyone thinks it's a kit and shouldn't be on here say so and I'll delete it.

Edited by Paul Hurdsfield, 06 May 2012 - 20:45.

[macoran]

I am not knowledged on Bugattis at all.
I find it very well done, but the front suspension ? .....doesn't look Bugatti to me.

[David Beard]

I am not knowledged on Bugattis at all.
I find it very well done, but the front suspension ? .....doesn't look Bugatti to me.

I think those master cylinders and SU carbs are just some things the historians failed to record in period?

[macoran]

I think those master cylinders and SU carbs are just some things the historians failed to record in period?

They do look very Ford Popular 100E to me as well.

[elansprint72]

I'm fairly sure that this is not a kit and it is certainly not a replica; looks like someone spent a lot of time doing a scratch-build special. Full marks for not putting numbers in the build plate, hope he enjoys driving his creation.

[David Birchall]

I'm fairly sure that this is not a kit and it is certainly not a replica; looks like someone spent a lot of time doing a scratch-build special. Full marks for not putting numbers in the build plate, hope he enjoys driving his creation.

I agree--although I think I would have done without the Triumph front suspension on a 'Bugatti'.
The "gearbox" is cleverly disguised. As someone who is doing something similar -but with a Frazer Nash LM Rep as inspiration - I can appreciate the amount of work and money that has gone into this. I considered doing a Bug but I would have used an AC six...

[cs3tcr]

Looks like its all Vitesse or early GT6 running gear. Nicely constructed, but i think i would have at least tried to get rid of the marks on the dash for where to drill the rivet holes.

[Paul Hurdsfield]

You guys have spotted more in my photos than I spotted on the real thing
But what I know about Bugatti's could be written on the back of a fag packet

[Mistron]

A chap in Edinburgh has an almost identical car - which makes me think it is a kit, albeit a well engineered one. The one I looked over and chatted with the owner was indeed GT6 based, but the front suspension really stood out as the obvious 'flaw' (he had vented disks!) I think it was refered to as a 59 - certainly the bonnet was longer than a 35

Other than the visuals of the brakes (I'd have used a replica axle, or even an old Ford beam), it was a lovely thing, and no doubt a hoot to drive.

[Allan Lupton]

It is registered as a 1964 Triumph Vitesse which was presumably the doner car.
As has been said, much effort has gone into it but one wonders why - e.g. there seems to be a semi-elliptic front spring doing nothing, a lot of work in making a square section rocker box but no attempt to make the Triumph manifolding look Vintage and top-hung pedals in a cockpit with all sorts of complex imitative floor panels, etc.

[Wirra]

If the UK is anything like Oz then Kit Cars are becoming very difficult to get registered. The running gear has to come from a production car and frequently that means a pre-1970 non-unibody vehicle which had few safety design requirements. As a result many ‘kit cars’ are a re-bodied pre-1970 chassis and running gear, thus avoiding requirement like collapsible steering columns and anti-pollution components.

To start from scratch and build an ‘Individually Constructed Vehicle’ means meeting just about all modern requirements including some destructive testing. High volume kit manufactures might be able to afford this (Cobras, Lotus 7, etc) but an enthusiast wanting to build their ‘dream’, and have it registered, is up against it.

Edited by Wirra, 07 May 2012 - 08:44.

[geoffd]

This forum has many descriptions of the trials and tribulations of the IVA Locostbuilders forum

Geoff

[David Birchall]

Since everybody asked here is a photo the progress on my attempt: Alfa 2600 engine/trans, Triumph front suspension with Alfa brakes adapted to it, chassis is based on Frazer Nash/HWM/Lister practice, instruments are all period:

http://imageshack.us...821/018tyr.jpg/

[funformula]

Today I attended the National Kit Car Show at Stoneleigh, and I spotted this.

So do the knowedgeable on here think this is real?

And if anyone thinks it's a kit and shouldn't be on here say so and I'll delete it.

I´d seen something similar last week in the "Meilenwerk Stuttgart"
The description said it´s a Bugatti replica built by a company in South Africa if I remember correctly. Can check this out this week if anyone is interested.
The car looked well made and far from being a cheap glasfibre kit car.

[arttidesco]

HPI reveals the underpinnings are a Triumph Vitesse, I wonder if IUI 5451 might be a TEAL like the replica that is frequently to be found outside the Malta Classic Motor Museum in Qwara which is based on a 1969 MG ?

[elansprint72]

HPI reveals the underpinnings are a Triumph Vitesse, I wonder if IUI 5451 might be a TEAL like the replica that is frequently to be found outside the Malta Classic Motor Museum in Qwara which is based on a 1969 MG ?

I saw a Teal at Oulton some while back, it had Marina front suspension/brakes (and probably more, I suspect), so, assuming all Teals were like that, then this one with Triumph suspension is not one.
A certain Mr Hickman saw the merits of the Triumph suspension designs, although he would have done away with the trunnions, given a larger budget.

[arttidesco]

I saw a Teal at Oulton some while back, it had Marina front suspension/brakes (and probably more, I suspect), so, assuming all Teals were like that, then this one with Triumph suspension is not one.
A certain Mr Hickman saw the merits of the Triumph suspension designs, although he would have done away with the trunnions, given a larger budget.

I believe there is more than one TEAL model but I may very well be wrong.

[BRG]

I believe there is more than one TEAL model but I may very well be wrong.

Not wrong at all - see their website which is very compprehensive.

[Bloggsworth]

The pedals are a givaway, brake pedal in the middle...

[fatbaldbloke]

As has been said, much effort has gone into it but one wonders why - e.g. there seems to be a semi-elliptic front spring doing nothing, a lot of work in making a square section rocker box but no attempt to make the Triumph manifolding look Vintage and top-hung pedals in a cockpit with all sorts of complex imitative floor panels, etc.

The 'why?' would be because he could I should imagine. I had a good long look at this thing at Coventry Festival of Transport a couple of years ago. The suspension leapt out at me immediately, but then I learned my spanner twirling on Triumph-based kitcars and specials. There are some lovely touches throughout the thing and the owner built it for himself, not anyone else. For the vast majority of us who will never be able to afford the real thing, why not?

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

[Doug Nye]

We put together my Proteus C-Type kit twenty years ago, using an aluminium body (because I felt that if I was going to have a fake it ought to be a good fake), a 3.8 Jaguar XK engine which had been submerged in its S-Type saloon donor car for at least 12 years in a pond on a local chicken farm, and a 4-speed with overdrive gearbox. Two big SU carburettors, Jaguar Mark II front suspension, back axle and disc brakes with servo made it all work reasonably well, but my fixation with using period 1952-53 date-stamped Lucas electrics proved to be a really bad idea...

Until very recently the car cost me nothing, and provided a degree of posacious fun directly proportional to the mood of its electrics on any given day. But I doubt we could build such a car today, given the scarcity of Mark I/Mark II-style parts and the sheer expense of any that you do see available. Neither were we beset in the early 1990s with all the kit car controls and bureaucracy now oppressing simple enthusiasm. It really isn't that long ago, but Lord how times have changed.

DCN

[David Birchall]

"Posacious fun" caused me to pause but then I got it

I really think that as somebody else said, you have to build them for yourself. That said, my opinion is that you should use period wheels/brakes/tires or what is the point? The biggest advances since the cars we are trying to copy were built has been in the brakes/tires/wheels department.
Any damn fool can go fast with sticky tires and modern brakes-and plenty do-but what is the point? If you are trying to duplicate (never replicate) the original, then duplicate the handling, or lack of it, and the brakes or lack of. Then you truly can experience what Moss, Nuvolari, Fred Bloggs and yer dad experienced.

[arttidesco]

Until very recently the car cost me nothing, and provided a degree of posacious fun directly proportional to the mood of its electrics on any given day.

DCN

Apparently it cost £70K to put together the only LHD K1 Attack ever built, I suspect there is not much in the way of Lucas electrics fitted to it's electric doors, bonnet and boot

[David Birchall]

Arttidesco, not sure what that has to do with this thread?

[arttidesco]

Arttidesco, not sure what that has to do with this thread?

I just found the cost of Doug's kit car and the one in the photo rather striking David

[David Birchall]

Ok, sorry--I didn't realise that was a kit car--godawful looking thing isn't it?

[David Birchall]

This is the opposite extreme--TNFer Miles Fenton asked me to post photos of the Riley Nine special that he built a few years ago--this is emphatically not a kit car since it is built on a modified Riley Nine and everything, including the chassis, was modified-it is a work of art:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us




Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Edited by David Birchall, 09 May 2012 - 15:32.

[elansprint72]

I'll take the blue car with the red wheels, who wants the white one..............................?


We don't seem to have a tumble-weed smiley on this forum.