I noticed a little traffic concerning the British kit car industry
and also noticed that Westfield Seven was mentioned. As a Caterham
owner, I frequently get defensive when people pull up to me at a
stop light and compliment me on my "kit" car...
Chapeman's seventh design was started in the late fifties, 1957 I think,
and continually refined until 1967. At that time he was more
interested in producing the race cars and sold the rights to the
manufacture of spare parts to Caterham and Graham Nearn. Lotus
had built the car in component form for a number of years to avoid
the heavy British tax on completed cars.
The difference between a component car and a kit car is the time
and effort and skill required for assembly. Kit cars requrie
require fabrication and usually the builder is required to supply
parts, often from a doner car. A component car is complete and
just takes hand tools to assemble. In the case of the Caterham
this usually takes two people a long weekend.
The Caterham comes with all brake lines, wiring, dash, basic body
already installed. The new owner assembles the suspension, bolts
on the fenders and wheels and drops in the engine and transmission.
I published the instruction sheet some time ago, interesting because
it was so short. A interesting side light was related to the tax
issues of the time. The British government was frustrated by these
manufacturers producing the component cars and avoiding the tax. It
is difficult to distinguish between spare parts and the boxes of
parts constituting the component cars. They passed a law preventing
instructions assuming the industry would dry up. The motoring press
took up the challenge and would do reviews on the assembly of the cars
obviously with the aid of the manufacturers. The press would get the
parts, assemble the car, note the process in the magazine, and get to
drive around a bit.
Now my opinions start: Gerry writes that the Westfield is "better"
than the Caterham. Of course, he must be mistaken!
Caterham started vigorously defending the design against imitations
about ten years back. They first went after Donkervoort (SP?). They
did have the nicest version of the Seven with independent rear suspension,
beautiful workmanship, and a great engine. I wanted one when I first
started looking but Caterham had basically put them out of business.
Then Caterham went after Westfield. The result of the suit was that
Westfield had to change the design sufficiently so as to be very
different from the original. They tried initially to do this by making
subtle styling changes. You can often recognize the Westfield because
the nose piece droops more than the original. This did not satisfy
Caterham and so the design of today is radically different.
The other major difference is that the Westfield is a kit car. You
must have a doner car. The doner car will supply suspension and
engine. The key here in my mind is the suspension. I have a friend
that I autocross against. His Westfield used the MG Miget suspension
pieces. These a certainly not true to the original Lotus design and
are more difficult to get them to handle like the original. Not
to say that they can not be made to handle well, but it takes more
modification.
Because Westfield had to change the design so much, the sales fell off
and production stopped. They survived for a long time on the Eleven
because the licensing problems do not exist. They may have started
again. The Rotus has been changed significantly from the original
design as well.
Michael
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