The kitcar business

[Steve (sdh2903)]

I don't think it's a cost thing primarily. A westfield mx5 sdv can be built very reasonably if done frugally and using as much of the donor as possible. But as said above not many people have a great desire to cannibalize cars on their drives anymore, they'd rather build from a nice new box of parts. And that's where prices jump.

The other thing is we've been around in an era where suitable rwd donors and engines are abundant, cheap and relatively simple. As per @Thrustyjust discussion on future engines. Where will the donor engines come from in 20 years? They will all be small displacement turbo direct injection or hybrids which will be massively more complicated and expensive compared to your crate zetec.

Lastly the thing which annoys me a bit with the kit industry is the quality and lack of refinement over the years. Now I don't mean they should be comfortable and quiet I mean in the quality of the product.

I'll use westfield as an example, Westfield have been around donkeys, why is the fit and finish still so bad? Why are they still using the (imo) terrible British Leyland switch gear, why are the wipers still so bad after all this time? Why do they only supply one (Or 2 if you count FW) body styles? Why not a nice full body that fits to the existing chassis? Why as they are so into the Jonny cabs, why not an electric version? 

The automotive world has progressed but the kit car industry has stagnated. 

[stephenh]

7 hours ago, Steve (sdh2903) said:

 Why do they only supply one (Or 2 if you count FW) body styles? Why not a nice full body that fits to the existing chassis? Why as they are so into the Jonny cabs, why not an electric version? 

 

Not quite correct, there are 3 body styles, classic (or whatever you wish to call it) FW and XI.

[Steve (sdh2903)]

1 hour ago, stephenh said:

Not quite correct, there are 3 body styles, classic (or whatever you wish to call it) FW and XI.

Apologies. But aren't the XI only released as a limited run? I didn't think they were available all the time?

[stephenh]

They seem to be selling more and more of the kits (XI that is) now. They did stop making them quite a few years ago, but re-started several years ago. I believe that the kit components are bought in in batches of 10, and no doubt they wait until they have orders placed for some of those 10 before assembling the batch, but I think they take orders for them at any time, and have done for the last 3 or 4 years.

Edited to add, actually, time flies. I bet it is more like 5 or 6 years.

[Nick Algar - Competition Secretary]

On 26/12/2018 at 12:17, Rory's Dad said:

"Car culture as a whole is in major decline. Baby boomers and Gen X are the last people to care about this sort of thing. Similar thing going on with motorcycles. Not that no young people care but most don't. 

That just doesn't ring true to me at all. You only have to look and the companies like Ferrari, Porsche, Lambo, Bentley, McLaren etc etc and watch how many new models they have brought out recently / are launching to know that Car Culture is still very alive. It's very alive in UK, EU and USA but also a massive status symbol in countries like China, India etc to have a high end car. 

I do agree that mass transport is going to see some changes, particularly in the city. Public transport needs to improve, but meanwhile Alternative Fuel vehicles, Car share etc will all help.

[jeff oakley]

I think you have to look at the age demographic which is where the problem is. When I was young it was everyone's dream to have a driving licence and car. It was freedom and relativly affordable as we got old cars and did them up.

Fast forward to now, a much more difficult test to pass, very expensive lessons, hideously expensive insurance and if you pass your test and get 6 points instant ban followed by an extended test to pass. Add in requirements for black box monitoring and you can see why there has been a drop in young people having driving licences. It fell by 40% according to government research in 2017.

Cars in the groups mentioned by Nick it is true, in developing countries they are seen as a status symbol but that does not address the question about car culture changing. The car to those groups are just a status symbol to show wealth not something to own to drive, it is just another trinket.

Classic cars are huge at the moment but that is not driven by enthusiasm it is being driven by speculators who get 1% return on cash in banks yet huge returns on classic cars with no capital gains to declare if sensible. As pure hobbies the numbers, whilst still large, have not grown and in some areas have declined. Just look at how many car magazines have vanished over the years.

In the states and the UK there are schemes to get younger people involved, Hot Rods are seen as an old mans hobby over there where there is still a huge car culture with street racing, japaneses cars and drifting being big. Over here some classic clubs loan cars to younger drivers to get them interested in the hobby.

I work with a lot of younger guy's, they will happily spend £3k on a mountain bike but haven't got a licence as they are not interested in something they see as no great benefit to them.

It would be interesting to see the age profile of our club members as an indication, are we attracting 20-30 year olds or are we all older.

Cars will be around for years but lobbying for restrictions upon us is working. Cars being restricted on emissions is just one example and as technology moves forward there will be restrictions on speed limited externally for vehicles. Some of the technology I see is impressive if you want to control everyone remotely who is in a car but at the moment it would never get through politicians, in the far future it will.

 

[Blatman]

1 hour ago, jeff oakley said:

are we attracting 20-30 year olds

Do we want to?  

[Lyonspride]

It's a complicated subject......

The availability of PCP/finance has turned cars into white goods, they're built to be very hard for the home mechanic to repair and very few people now bother even trying to work on their own cars.
Social status is now even more of a big deal than it was in the 80's, so cars are more about status than enjoyment.
Combined with this ^^ there has been a steady govt/media lead campaign over the last 2 decades, to pigeon hole real car enthusiasts with boyracers and as such with the lower classes (as they have done with football supporters), which in turn puts people off for fear of damaging their social status. This I believe is probably part of a wider goal to keep people buying new cars and tosupport the big automotive manufacturers.

I think that if enough people started using kitcars as every day transport, 365 days a year, the authorities would devise a way to ban them. At the moment they are "tolerated" at best.

[Nick Algar - Competition Secretary]

As a club, I don't think we have ever attracted the 20 to 30 year old's but to some extent neither has the Kit Car industry as they are mainly 2nd cars

Spot on with the White goods comments, they are definately viewed in that way by a lot of people these days. I was really surprised to speak to some guys with high end supercars who wanted as big a ballon at the end as they could get as they fully expected to just hand the car back and walk away. That one really surprised me, given what they were paying up front and then each month. 

Are we seeing the end of the Classic Car values ?? doesn't seem to be the case, they keep climbing at the moment............  but then I can remember the days when a Ferrari Daytona went from £100K to £ 250K and back down to £ 80K in about 10 years. Oh, I think they are now over a £ 1 Million 

[jeff oakley]

34 minutes ago, Blatman said:

Do we want to?  

Only the fit ones

[Steve (sdh2903)]

We need the younger members to keep all you old codgers in check

[Blatman]

1 hour ago, Lyonspride said:

It's a complicated subject......

The availability of PCP/finance has turned cars into white goods, they're built to be very hard for the home mechanic to repair and very few people now bother even trying to work on their own cars.
Social status is now even more of a big deal than it was in the 80's, so cars are more about status than enjoyment.
Combined with this ^^ there has been a steady govt/media lead campaign over the last 2 decades, to pigeon hole real car enthusiasts with boyracers and as such with the lower classes (as they have done with football supporters), which in turn puts people off for fear of damaging their social status. This I believe is probably part of a wider goal to keep people buying new cars and tosupport the big automotive manufacturers.

I think that if enough people started using kitcars as every day transport, 365 days a year, the authorities would devise a way to ban them. At the moment they are "tolerated" at best.

Yet more opinion dressed as fact. Got the numbers to support any of this? Where is the evidence? Apocryphal is not the same as evidence.

 

1 hour ago, jeff oakley said:

Only the fit ones

Damn straight

57 minutes ago, Steve (sdh2903) said:

We need the younger members to keep all you old codgers in check

I have no desire to be kept in check by someone young enough to have kids who would call me grandad  I intend to grow old disgracefully, re-inforing prejudices as I go  

[TAFKARM]

4 hours ago, jeff oakley said:

 

It would be interesting to see the age profile of our club members as an indication, are we attracting 20-30 year olds or are we all older.

 

I asked the same question a couple of years back and got no where, didn’t even think it was something we should have data on.

Without younger members both the industry and the club will die. 

[Blatman]

51 minutes ago, RussH said:

Without younger members both the industry and the club will die. 

But if the club dies because it's members do, there's no problem, surely? I couldn't care less if the club lives longer than I do...  

[Kingster]

1 hour ago, RussH said:

I asked the same question a couple of years back and got no where, 

The info is there, the will to do the work is not that forthcoming (by me at least!)