Classic Kit Cars

Over the past 50 years, since Derek Buckler, founder of Buckler cars, inadvertently started the UK kit-car industry by supplying eager customers with ‘replicas’ of his clubman racer, the kit-car scene has evolved from one full of ‘funny little plastic cars’ to today’s position where it embraces credible businesses making superb cars, such as Caterham, Westfield and Ultima. This comprehensive, authoritative and often humorous look at the UK’s kit-car scene documents over 1,500 different vehicles, including the successes and the failures, the perennial survivors and the short-lived, the good, the bad and the ugly.

In Build Your Own Kit Car, renowned kit car expert Steve Hole presents a comprehensive guide to planning, managing and executing a kit car build. The first part of the book covers the history of kit cars; detailing the innovations the kit car industry has made in car building technology, and how companies like Westfield and Caterham have become household names. The second half of the book takes you through a full build project, from chassis, brakes, suspension and engine through to trimming and interiors. Other topics include: Types of kit cars, including the differences between kits, replicas and one-off builds; Choosing the right car for you; Budgeting for your build; Setting up your workspace, tools needed and workshop safety; Building techniques; List of useful contacts to help find the best resources for your kit car build. Whether you are planning on building a blisteringly quick trackday car, classic roadster or eccentric road car, Build Your Own Kit Car has all the resources and information you need to build and enjoy your own unique automotive creation. A comprehensive and instructional guide to planning, managing and executing a kit car build, superbly illustrated with 300 colour photographs. Steve Hole is one of the UK's leading authorities on the world of kit cars and is editor of tkc magazine.

The kit car building industry has increased in size significantly over the past few years, in both the UK and US. A rising number of enthusiasts are attracted by the prospect of driving a tailor-made car that they have built themselves, and the vast range of designs available ensures that there is a vehicle to suit all tastes, from replica classic sports cars to specialist track-day machines. This book, written in a humorous, down-to-earth style, provides all the information required to choose a suitable kit and complete it successfully to produce a safe, roadworthy car.

The Shelby Cobra is one of the most legendary sports cars in automotive history. Only about 1,000 of the original Cobras were ever built, and many enthusiasts wanted to own and drive one of these ultimate sports cars yet could not afford to.

This book focuses solely on the cars derived from the classic Mini. Small GTs, sports cars, roadsters and fun cars: Mini-derivatives that changed the specialist motoring market completely in the early sixties, and new designs kept it busy for nearly four decades. from the well known Mini Marcos and Unipower GT that raced at Le Mans, to the very obscure but as exciting Coldwell GT or Sarcon Scarab, almost 60 cars are thoroughly researched, described and photographed in this book.

This one-of-a-kind reference work provides essential data on some 10,700 manufacturers of automobiles, beginning with the earliest vehicle that might be so termed (Frenchman Nicolas Cugnot's steam carriage, in 1770) and covering all nations in which automobiles have been built--67 in all. Not an encyclopedia or collection of histories, this is instead a very complete registry providing essential facts about the manufacturers: complete name, location, years active, type(s) of vehicles built, and other basic data. Compiled during more than 30 years of research, this reference even lists companies that produced just one car. Any builder of passenger-carrying vehicles on at least two but no more than eight wheels, of any design, either mass produced or built as one-off specials, experimental cars, prototypes, or kit cars, is included. Builders of internal combustion, steam and electric powered vehicles are all covered; companies that built only trucks, buses, racing cars, or motorcycles are not included. From A.A.A. to Zzipper and Argentina to Yugoslavia, this is an astonishingly comprehensive resource.

More than 1,000 photographs in b&w and color illustrate the extraordinary variety of sports cars that have been offered to the public. All the great names are featured, including cars from Israel, Egypt, Spain, Switzerland, Norway and Brazil.