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Barn find bargain


pistonbroke

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If the V5 still says Escort mexico, as a lot of kit cars seem to retain donor's identity, may be worth it for that.

 

Otherwise...!!

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There truly were some god-awful kits back then weren't there......

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Back "in the day" the kit car industry really was like the Wild West; at one end of the scale you had exotic looking Countach replica kits that had never had a single successfully completed example!

 

Really, some of them, not a one! There would be no demo car and the photos of a customers example would be of the poor hire car that had had the moults ripped off it.

 

You then had endless ranks of small one man band, but very genuine, garden shed operations. I can only presume that the original drawings, if any existed, looked like their dream car, but that in each successive pass over the buck, the gulf between ability and reality forced steadily more compromises. And that the reality of what it would actually look like, never really hit home till it was way to late.

 

Then you had some truly in ovative and skilled designers that came up with some gorgeous creations. Some of those companies, especially in the sixties, when publicity was hard to come by, and a total production run between five and twenty was a roaring success, did really well. In the eighties the equivalent designers of the day, trying to break new ground seemed to have much more of a struggle, with the growth of tv broadening people's car experiences, kit magazines, shows etc, it seemed to be the decade of the replica, the Cobra and Countach, the Daytona and E Type, 911's, Dino's and way more... It seemed there was no room for unique, "new" designs. Though thank goodness one or two made it.

 

But until SVA/IVA kicked them into touch, there was always, always that underbelly of cheap, if not always cheerful, ahem, unique British kits. The ones that only had flat glass, the ones that the maker at or may not know how to make a mould with a curved surface in it, but truly had no concept of a compound curve....

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Silly question but re. That eyesore...

Is it actually road legal as advertised if its not had sva/iva?

Dave

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In 1962 the Lotus Elan was available in "kit" form , though i think this was more of a tax dodge than a diy project 

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Yeah, Lotus had a name for it!

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