Build Your Own Sports Car For As Little As 250 And Race It

Build a roadworthy two-seater open sports car for a fraction of the cost of a kit car! Using standard tools, basic skills and low-cost materials, this volume shows you how to make the chassis, suspension and bodywork, and advises you on how to modify and use inexpensive but serviceable mechanical components. Contains sections on improving handling, information on how to get through the Single Vehicle Approval test, and builders' own stories.

The all-color practical Build Your Own Sports Car provides all the information needed to build a road-going two-seater, open-top sports car on a budget, using standard tools, basic skills and low-cost materials. The down-to-earth text clearly explains each step along the road to producing a well-engineered, high-performance sports car, providing a learning experience in engineering and design - and opening up a whole new world of fun motoring. The Haynes Roadster, which has fully independent rear suspension, has been designed with the aid of CAD software to develop the chassis and suspension, resulting in a car with performance and handling to challenge many established kit cars and mainstream sports cars. The design is intended to make use of components sourced primarily from a Ford Sierra donor, although alternative donors are mentioned.

Though students aren’t yet old enough to drive, that doesn’t mean they can’t satisfy their need for speed. Author and physics teacher Bobby Mercer will show readers 25 easy-to-build racecars that can be driven both indoors and out. Better still, each of these vehicles is constructed for little or no cost using recycled and repurposed materials. The Racecar Book will teach readers how to use mousetraps, rubber bands, chemical reactions, gravity, and air pressure to power these fast-moving cars. They will learn how to turn a potato chip can, a rubber band, and weights into a Chip-Can Dancer, or retrofit a toy car with a toy plane propeller to make an air-powered Prop Car. An effervescent tablet in a small canister makes an impressive rocket engine for a Mini Pop Car, and old CDs, a small cardboard food box, and drinking straws become a Mac-n-Cheese Roller. Every hands-on project contains a materials list and detailed step-by-step instructions. Mercer also includes explanations of the science behind each racecar, including concepts such as friction, Newton’s laws of motion, kinetic and potential energy, and more. Teachers will appreciate the opportunity to augment their STEM curricula while having fun at the same time. These projects are also perfect for science fairs or design competitions. Bobby Mercer has been a high school physics teacher for over two decades. He is the author of The Flying Machine Book and Smash It! Crash It! Launch It! and lives with his family outside of Asheville, North Carolina.

Automotive technology.

'Adrian has a unique gift for understanding drivers and racing cars. He is ultra competitive but never forgets to have fun. An immensely likeable man.' Damon Hill

Author and his son built their Lotus 7 lookalike.