This is taken from the information board at the side of the car at the show.
It's a charger 2 kit car.
Based on a VW Beetle 1500 Floor pan and mechanics. The body is a one piece fibreglass moulding circa 1986.
Being Beetle based the mechanical parts are easy to get and there are many specialist suppliers, it uses standard 1500 parts.
Body parts are however not that easy, the moulds have long since disappeared. The front screen is a Ford Cortina item and the rear lights are cur down Capri units. Any body repairs are definitely a case of repair it yourself.
Because it uses the original floor pan unaltered, it is not subject to SVA and just needed an MOT test once I had overhauled it. It retains the registration of the doner car, and because it predates 1973, is tax exempt and classified as historic, which means free road tax.
I found this car on eBay, some three years ago offered in a stripped down condition. It had been started but never finished and left in a lockup for the most bit of ten years, most of the bits were still in the suppliers boxes and the body was only loosely fitted to the floor pan. What had once been brand new parts had seized and rusted up, the interior had been partly assembled – but had rotted away, the only usable bit was the front seats. the wheels came with the car and are genuine Woolrace units. In fact when I bid for the car there was one other bidder who wanted it just for the wheels – and was going to scrap everything else where as I wanted to restore the car. the owner accepted my bid because he too didn't want the car to be scrapped.
I bought the car for £350, and spent about the same again on parts fitting an all new braking system, new tie rod joints and track rod ends. The wheel bearings were brand new and only needed cleaning up and re-greasing. The engine was seized and wouldn't turn over by hand, expecting the worse I managed to remove the barrels and split the case, to my surprise everything was brand new and was covered in oil so after taking the crank to an engine overhaulers for his opinion all it needed was new shells and a through clean out I fitted a set of standard 1600 barrels, up-rating it from 1500 and put everything back together again. the carb was replaced with a new stock h31 and the distributor was changed to a Bosch vacuum unit.
It passed the MOT in June 2008 and I am working on it as and when I can afford to to finish it off. It is an ongoing project and there is still work to be done on it. the doors need attention to get them to close flush and the interior needs work.
On the road it is fun to drive, despite the beetle engine, it is nippy enough for modern traffic, the steering box being worm and peg isn't as precise as modern systems but it ok once you get to it. The brake setup of discs at front and drums at rear is good, the top speed is about 100mph but because its rear engined and very light on the front end, it doesn't feel that stable at speeds above 60 but is happy to cruise at 60 all day long.
Not long after I had put it back on the road I had the normal running in problems. mostly on the fuel side, a new pipe from the tank to engine and re-routing the pipe in the engine bay sorted this out.
These are very rare cars nowadays, there are still a few around, but not many on the road as far as I know – at least nobody else in Kent has got one that I am aware of.
I am trying to find out about these cars history, but have been unable to find out for sure when the car was built the previous owners father bought the shell in 1986 so I would get its an djh sportscars body.
