Thinking of putting a few thousand away each year for several years and picking up the entry level spec kit.

Then I want to take a few months off, when my old man has retired and do nothing but tinker around in a garage with him.

The sensible part of me says that I should put more towards a deposit on a house, but memories hey? His face would light up if I turned up in his garage with a bugger load of boxed up car components.

Idiotic idea? Yes or no?

I want to build a Caterham with my old man

You should go on Britains Got Talent with skills like that.

I’d need to use both hands and a variety of tools.

Hahah 😀

You have a quick wit Perchypanther! 😀

Engine?

What engine do you intend to use?

Honda Vtec?

Mazda Rotory?

Toyota updated version of 4AGE?

The cheapest to buy, cheapest to run and least idiotic one. Don’t need a 300hp Caterham.

I did this with FiL but with a westfield, great idea do it, building it was as much fun as driving it…

A mate’s building a Westfield with his 17yo son. Both are car mad and both are a but surprised by the amount of work involved. They seem to be living it though. It’s been on the go since Christmas but work and school get in the way a bit.

Do it. Great idea. Don’t wait too long as life has a way of spoiling any long term plans.

Once you have enjoyed your time building it, do a few events with the car and your old man. Then you can always sell it and use the money for a deposit.

I built one and raced it for a few years – building it was fantastic fun. I still remember the first time I drove it down the road wondering if Id done up all the nuts and bolts properly. I even built the engine (which blew up in the first race) 🙂

It’s slowly becoming one of my main bucket list items….. 🙂

I figure it’s the kind of car that I can keep for the rest of my life as well…

Once you have enjoyed your time building it, do a few events with the car and your old man. Then you can always sell it and use the money for a deposit.

No, I would want to keep it and give it my son/daughter – I think. I’d end up attaching too much sentimental value to it.

Do it
I started building a locost from scratch including fabricating the chassis. I loved every minute of it. I had to stop when we moved house and was unsure if I would have the space to continue. Plus actually moving the chassis and bits would of been a big job .
My dream build would be a Caterham with every part new and shiny with a Lego style instruction manual.

[edit, crossed posts with andysredmini, basically I don’t see much point in building a caterham with it’s lego style instruction book if you’ve got the time to do a locost in one go rather than running out of time and space]

Why a Caterham?

There’s plenty of other equally good kits out there, although the caterham’s are probably the most like a big mechano set with all the correct nuts and bolts already there they can be put together in a matter of hours, even Clarkson and co managed it in a day.

What I’m saying is, it won’t be ‘a few months off’, it’s a weekend unless you work really slowly or buy each stage of the kit one at a time rather than saving up.

A proper dad & son project would be a locost. Buy the book, go on a welding course, and crack on. Buy an engine and rebuild it. Chose a gearbox, and differential and figure out how they’re going to fit.

The basic locost could be done for £250, even with inflation in the price of things like Escort axles and steering racks you’ll end up with something far more personal and far cheaper than an entry level Caterham (and probably quicker to boot), £2k wouldn’t be an unrealistic budget.

If nothing else, buy the Locost manual by Ron Champion, worth a read and you can judge for yourself how hard it might be, and that’s arguably the most difficult way to build a kit car, completely from scratch.

Do it. Great idea. Don’t wait too long as life has a way of spoiling any long term plans.

^ This – wish I’d done it 25 yrs ago before house/marriage/kid.

May be another 10 years before I can see space, funds and free time to do this myself now!

Tom_W1987 – Member
The cheapest to buy, cheapest to run and least idiotic one. Don’t need a 300hp Caterham.

Those JapLand brands I mentioned are standard 1.6 litre non-turbo 150 bhp engines if I can recall. More than enough for a fun day drive.

You can also easily boost them to higher bhp if you know.

thisisnotaspoon – Member
Why a Caterham?

Any other brand or made that is available but cheaper and good?

I rather fancy one too … if I got the cash.

I see one flaw in your plan.

This:

They do a ‘budget’ one, that was on Top Gear, which is almost like Caterham ‘lite’. It’s still supposed to be a decent car & fun to drive, but not overwhelming.

Are you definitely thinking of Caterham, or a Caterham style car? There are quite a few people out there doing them…

Tiger cars are quite popular, I think.
It looks like their cheapest full kit is just over £13k:
http://www.tigerracing.com/shop/kits/155-tiger-avon-full-kit.html

andyl – Member

I see one flaw in your plan.

This:

😮 I like!

I would have white with blue go fast stripe …

I’m not sure yet, I have plenty of time to think about it 😀

Never really liked the look of the Tigers, although I might consider one. I’ll check out the Locust book as well.

As much as I’d like a big chevy engined thing, GT40’s and AC Cobras can get a little expensive.

I do love a hard top AC Cobra though.

What I’m saying is, it won’t be ‘a few months off’, it’s a weekend unless you work really slowly or buy each stage of the kit one at a time rather than saving up.

I would definitely allow more than a weekend. The magic of TV (and professional mechanics to assist)!

I remember Evo magazine built theirs, but I think they got about halfway through in a weekend then Caterham finished it off for them.

The NK Indy used to be a good value and popular kit. Been a long time since I was looking.

Friend of mine built this from scratch a few years back:

he is now building something a lot more advanced with his own cnc machine etc

Welcome

Any other brand or made that is available but cheaper and good?

Tiger, westfield, sylva, locost (there are places selling most of the bits now).

There’s also the Sylva Vectis which (bear with me) started life as the Sylva Spectre, wich was the re-named J15, which started life as the Sylva Riot (I think), which started life when suitable donor cars for front engined, RWD caterham-7 style cars became thin on the ground. They used the engine and gearbox out of the Fiesta/Puma which put the engine in front of the front axle, but mounted at the back which puts it in the middle and shuffled the seats forward.

Basically it’s a lotus 11, which was a 7 with an aerodynamic body. The 7 has the aerodynamic properties of a brick, but using the newer mid-engine Riot chassis. And it now used a MGF engine/gearbox (no idea why, I guess people though the 1.6 zetec wasn’t ‘enough’ despite now coming in turbo variants as the ecoboost, and being able to transplant the entire subframe/wishbone setup probbaly simplifies the build).

I’d still rather have the aerodynamic brick 🙂 There’s something special about the way they look, besides I don’t intend to drive at 90-100 mph when drag and lift start to become an issue.

It will be for open air driving and nice handling at lower speeds, plus the very basic rain cover is a massive boon.

I have a caterham 7, I’ve owned it for nearly 20 years now.

I didn’t build it,but have practically rebuilt it during my ownership as things wore out,or got broken through crashes ( on track)

They’re very easy to build,and if you’ve done one before you could have it all built in a few weekends. If you’ve never built one then it’ll take longer.

What does the most basic full( ie engine and everything) kit cost these days, is it around 18k?

Once you have enjoyed your time building it, do a few events with the car and your old man. Then you can always sell it and use the money for a deposit.

My old man is very methodical as well and has a rather keen attention to detail, everything will take about 4 times longer than usual.

Plus half the days we will probably end up pissed and have to stop or go back over our work the next day.

I’d love to do this, I know someone with a Caterham 160 on the go, planning to build up with his kids over a couple of years, use it for a while then eventually leave it to them.

The big appeal of Caterham is getting everything you need (well, depending on factory/warehouse competence), all nice and new and going together like it should. The other appeal is that they hold their value incredibly well, and since they protected the rights to the design that they own, they’re the most “right” looking of the cars of that type.

Plenty of other alternatives, although if you want new-everything then they may not save you a huge amount. If you’re willing to put the work in, stripping a donor car and refurbishing parts, etc and doing a bit of problem-solving as you go then you can build something Seven-like for quite a bit less. Some people really like that process, some people would much rather just bolt nice clean shiny bits together.

My FIL had a Westfield with the Puma 1.7 (Yamaha) engine in it.

Geared for hill climbs so the top speed was < 100mph but the 0-60 time was phenomenal (around 3.5 seconds).

my mate bought a caterham for about 5k years ago. its was bloody excellent. we practically rebuilt that over time. it was the rover engined one. so not stupid power or top speed but enough to be waaaaaaay fun.

It might be cheaper to but a full car and rebuild. alot will be a bit bodged so worth teh re-build and you can upgrade stuff as you go. you will also know how its supposed to go together!

i wouldnt consider an alternative to be honest cheaper or not. the cateram is just rad.

MNR Vortx

schrickvr6 – Member

MNR Vortx

What Engine?

Nose cone on that is not pretty!

I have a Locost with a Mazda MX-5 engine.

The Caterham is a complete kit and a fully developed car. It will all fit together and will be relatively easy and quick to build. It will have basic settings to get you on the road and it will all just work. It will probably take a few weekends to assemble 8)

My Locost tooks hours of collecting parts, modifying parts and fabricating special ‘bits’. When I collected the basic kit I got a chassis, some suspensions bits for the front, some Aluminium panels to make the body and some fibreglass mouldings for the complicated bits. I love my finished car and I loved building it but it is VERY different to a Caterham. Even after it’s finished it needs setting up and developing and will probably not be as accomplished as the Caterham. It took me 3 years to finish my Locost and get it on the road 8)

So make your decision carefully and know what you want from the whole experience – I’m sure you must have already thought that though 😆

I had the same intention. Growing up, my dad and I restored my sister’s first car (68 130 beetle) then an Austin Sprite (aan10) which was then my first car.
A gap year as a result of skiing injury during first year of a mech eng degree and a decided course change to industrial design managed to persuade my dad that us building a Westfield together would be a great idea.
It was, but he didn’t get as involved as I thought. Even though he was a car guy and taught me plenty on our classic projects it ended up as a solo build, but that’s ok, I learned plenty and got to do it with my own processes. Took me about 7 months of evenings/weekends with a break of a ski season worked in the Alps. Donor build with Cortina uprights, 1800 zetec from a focus, sierra diff etc.
Total build was about 12k. I sold it 10 years later when I was buying a house in Canada for 8.5k.
10k miles, couple of track days and a few great drives and a whole bunch of hooning around. Wish I still had it, but would’ve done it very differently in hindsight. My build was in line with where kit cars were back in 99/2000.
Quick look at the photo of my car on the fridge and I’m smiling 😉
While the welding side of the Low-cost woukd be great, unless you are a talented and creative fabricator, prepared to build custom bodywork and work well outside the manual, it’s never going to look as good as you hoped it would (compared to factory produced). If I wanted to create something fun with a ton of fabrication, I’d rather do something oddball like a mid engined rwd bike engined mini.

MNR Vortx

Hmmmm – not a looker!

caterham self assembly

“It can take anywhere between 80 – 100 hours to build your own Caterham and you will need specialist equipment to assist you.”

I can imagine it will be a lovely way to spend time with your dad. Especially if you’re both mechanically minded.
They have a technical helpline which you’ll probably need to use (so say friends of mine who have been there).

Caterham owner of 8 years – miss it terribly.

TM

p.s. the top gear cars were prebuilt and taken apart again before the challenge I understand.

Go for it!

Lots of people have build blogs on-line which will give you an idea of what’s actually involved in assembling a Caterham from a kit. There’s a reasonably active Caterham sub-forum on Pistonheads and lots of info on the Lotus 7 club site.

As others have highlighted, a Caterham is potentially a more significant investment than some of the alternatives. There are positives and negatives to each approach, however one benefit of buying a Caterham is that they will be more than happy to let you drive lots of examples with differnet specs at one of the showrooms before you buy – just give them a call and make an appointment. Even worth considering this before you start saving, to give you some idea of what you’re aiming for. You can always consider renting one for a weekend as well.

I’ve never driven a 160, but it’s worth comparing one with a basic ‘normal’ Caterham as well (currently the 1.6 Ford Sigma engined 240) before buying. One of the great things about a Caterham is that it’s endlessly upgradeable if you get into it, and the Sigma engined version *may* be a better starting point for this if you’re going to keep it a long time.

Keep us posted with what you decide!

I’ve built two kit cars, a Westfield with a Ford cross flow, and a locost with a Fireblade bike engine.
I’d say forget the Caterham. Expensive, and just assembly. (Which may be what you want.)
Other kits will involve more actual building and making stuff, and be cheaper (so you can start sooner).

Do it!

My dad had a Lotus 7 (bought off is brother) and a Morgan 3-wheeler when he was young then had a 1935 BMW 315 Special he restored in the ’70s before I came along. He helped me with my Mini’s when I got a license and we did plan to do something else at some point but his health means he can no longer do anything like spannering. They were good times bonding over a common hobby. When he paid for my sister’s wedding he said he’d do something of equal value for me. A kit car was both of our first thoughts 😀 Whatever I build it will have a small plaque with his name on it so a Caterham is top of the list, as a homage to his original 7.

My brother built up a Locost (forget which kit but was around £2k). Was meant to be a budget build but now has a 2 litre Duratec, with ITBs, emerald ecu,adjustable shocks,LSD and is around 170bhp at the wheels. Absolute riot.

I think it’s a lovely idea Tom. You should definitely do it

doesn’t really matter what car really, but Caterham’s are great fun.

The reason you should save up and build a Caterham over any other “7” replica.

RESALE VALUE!!

Check out the s/h price of Caterhams vs everything else! Buy a kit, build it, drive it for a few years, pretty much sell it for what it cost you to build! Compared to any other kit car, that might be £10k cheaper, but is worth about £3 once you’ve built it……….

It’s a great idea.
Doesn’t matter what car, just the fact you have a relationship like that with your dad. Makes me jealous and kind of sad at the same time. Cherish every moment you spend together doing ‘man stuff’.