For wozza's curiosity, and others. I thought I had posted this but it seems I hadn't. And to save taking over someones thread, Ill post it here.
Its a Nova developments kitcar, these were body conversions for the vw beetle, and indeed when I first bought it many years ago it was a 1968 beetle in the log book and had a rusty beetle chassis. A 1800 ford was fitted courtesy of a hewland transaxle adaptor kit onto the vw box with a radiator up front, and thereon the shortcomings of the chassis were quickly discovered in the form of a accident involving no other vehicles when it swapped ends on a bend and resulting in the cracking of yet another windscreen at £450 a pop. And the screen is specific to the nova development. Ive had two so far and didn't want to make it 3...
I had plans to build a tube chassis from scratch for it, so the engine could be mid mounted giving proper weight distribution, then one day, I spotted a complete Lotus esprit s2 rolling chassis that had been on fire, missing doors/windows etc and no interior. I "won" it for 26 quid, and the seller let me borrow his car trailer to take it back to my rented place, which included a lockup garage.
There the body was removed and gifted to one of the lotus specialists to make a front repair cut from and the chassis loaded into the back of my van to make the journey home.
Back at the workshop, this is the total of the steelwork in a lotus esprit.
Scared about rolling yet?
The shell was then cut into sections to form flip rear and front ends. I hate
reaching into engine bays to alter something so this is almost mandatory and
something not possible with the beetle chassis, as the bodyshell stiffens the
weak floorpan chassis.
Just some scabby test shots to check clearance of things. The supercharger is so physically large and high it will need a dorsal intake to feed it. Should
be able to hear the whine, since its just the other side of the bulkhead to be
from the seats. I'm hoping to extract in the region of 450-500hp from it which will require forged pistons, steel crank and lots of other (expensive) internal strengthening, for the gearbox, derek bell makes a mainshaft conversion for the un1 which lets it handle this. Pretty much all of the machine work will be done in my shed...
From the front, I can sit like this without my head jamming on the celing
unlike the original bug based car. Im 6'3 and its often said that nova's
aren't for people over 6', well this one will be...
Now, having whetted the appetites of people, Im going to park it in the garage for a while, as almost everything is on hold while we build the new house. But the new place has a much bigger workshop, so I wont need to be tripping overmyself in my single car garage that I use at the moment...
Its a Nova developments kitcar, these were body conversions for the vw beetle, and indeed when I first bought it many years ago it was a 1968 beetle in the log book and had a rusty beetle chassis. A 1800 ford was fitted courtesy of a hewland transaxle adaptor kit onto the vw box with a radiator up front, and thereon the shortcomings of the chassis were quickly discovered in the form of a accident involving no other vehicles when it swapped ends on a bend and resulting in the cracking of yet another windscreen at £450 a pop. And the screen is specific to the nova development. Ive had two so far and didn't want to make it 3...
I had plans to build a tube chassis from scratch for it, so the engine could be mid mounted giving proper weight distribution, then one day, I spotted a complete Lotus esprit s2 rolling chassis that had been on fire, missing doors/windows etc and no interior. I "won" it for 26 quid, and the seller let me borrow his car trailer to take it back to my rented place, which included a lockup garage.
There the body was removed and gifted to one of the lotus specialists to make a front repair cut from and the chassis loaded into the back of my van to make the journey home.
Back at the workshop, this is the total of the steelwork in a lotus esprit.
Scared about rolling yet?
The shell was then cut into sections to form flip rear and front ends. I hate
reaching into engine bays to alter something so this is almost mandatory and
something not possible with the beetle chassis, as the bodyshell stiffens the
weak floorpan chassis.
Just some scabby test shots to check clearance of things. The supercharger is so physically large and high it will need a dorsal intake to feed it. Should
be able to hear the whine, since its just the other side of the bulkhead to be
from the seats. I'm hoping to extract in the region of 450-500hp from it which will require forged pistons, steel crank and lots of other (expensive) internal strengthening, for the gearbox, derek bell makes a mainshaft conversion for the un1 which lets it handle this. Pretty much all of the machine work will be done in my shed...
From the front, I can sit like this without my head jamming on the celing
unlike the original bug based car. Im 6'3 and its often said that nova's
aren't for people over 6', well this one will be...
Now, having whetted the appetites of people, Im going to park it in the garage for a while, as almost everything is on hold while we build the new house. But the new place has a much bigger workshop, so I wont need to be tripping overmyself in my single car garage that I use at the moment...
