Building a Lowcost 7
By Arthur
Dent
So why build a sevenesque
style sports car? Well I’ve always liked the rawness of the Lotus Seven but the
prices of the originals are way out of my price range, the modern replicas like
Caterham, Westfield, Birkin, etc even more so. Well one day I was browsing the
local book store in the automotive section and came across a book with a Seven
on the cover with the title 'How to Build Your Own Sports Car for under £250' by
Ron Champion. Flipping through it casually I got very excited and eagerly partly
with $50 Cdn or so (it is much cheaper online). Ron detailed how he and his son
had built a Seven (larger than a true Lotus but very, very close dimensionally
to a pre-litigation Westfield) from a pile of scrap metal and a rusted Ford
Escort MkII. The frame was welded up from 1”x1” hollow steel square tubing, most
of the mechanical bits from the donor and major body panels either flat aluminum
or bolt on fiberglass pieces. A lot of work to be sure but each individual step
looked do-able. Between having kids, buying other cars and family budget
constraints it was a couple of years until I was able to
begin.
Sure the book budget was hopelessly off but most reasonable folks reckoned a basic one could be built for a couple thousand dollars. Sure beats a used Civic or something. The first stumbling block is a donor car – the book went with a Ford Escort MkII with front spindles from a Ford Cortina MkIII, neither of which was sold in North America. Really any small-engined rear wheel drive car would do but there were drawbacks to each (for example a Chevette has useable front spindles but a massive transmission and torque tube rear, old Corollas have strut front suspension, etc). There was no “perfect” donor.
Luckily
there is an active and knowledgeable Locost community on the internet. Initially
I did a pile of research and was able to determine that Hyundai used to assemble
old Ford Cortinas for sale in their home market. When they developed their first
car on their own, the Hyundai Pony, they used an early Cortina rear axle which
happens to be the same as the Ford Escort MkII (as used in the book). Hyundai
also built the Stellar in the Eighties, which was essentially a Ford Cortina
MkIII with a styling again by Italdesign and engine and transmission from
Mitsubishi. So the front spindles could be sourced here. Unfortunately for
Americans these cars were never sold in the US due emissions standards.
Originally I figured I was doing a budget build so I bought a 1986 Hyundai
Stellar GSL with 1.6L Mitsubishi 4G32 engine and 5spd transmission as my main
donor. I sourced a low mileage Pony axle, Honda motorbike muffler, Minilite
style wheels and a Triumph Spitfire gas tank. I was ready to build the frame.
Then I learned that my wife was pregnant again with
our third so I decided to look at pre-made frames due to the new time
constraints. Luego, which is one of the bigger names over in the UK, has a
distributor in Innisfail, Alberta, about an hour and half drive from me. I ended
up buying their demo pile of parts that included frame, fiberglass body panels,
aluminum side panels, steel floor, and suspension bits. It was more money than I
had originally planned to spend on the whole car initially but the quality was
very good. I hauled the frame and other pieces home in the back of my wife’s
minivan, which caused a few curious looks for other drivers. I quickly got it to
“rolling chassis stage” or would have if I had any tires on my rims. Since I
spent all this money on the frame I couldn’t possibly put in an old Hyundai
motor could I? Of course not so one thing lead to another and I decided that I’d
need to upgrade my choice of power plant. Size a real concern in a Seven –
especially height but I think I’ve found my ideal engine that will be revealed
in the next update when the deal goes through for sure.
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