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Sneak Peek.......of the ace MEV Rocket....... www.mevltd.co.uk

We love the MEV Rocket and it will be on display at the forthcoming National Kitcar Motor Show at Stoneleigh. Form an orderly queue. www.mevltd.co.uk

It’s not often in this high-speed modern age……that I’m moved to say that a Citroën 2CV-based kitcar would be my car of the Detling show. Howver, with the cute Rondo Hot Rod, Deauville Cars, who by the way put on a great FIVE car display in the main hall, had what I reckon is a cracking little highly affordable kitcar. With this kit - known as Vogliette in its native Holland, where it’s marketed by Deauville’s agents Blaauw 2CV Cars - you could be on the road for as little as £3500! At Detling the Rondo went down a storm and took its place among a sizeable five Deux Cheveux-based model line-up, which also featured Canard, Canjito 602, Corbeau and Landaulette. More information on all the full Deauville range from www.deauvillecars.co.uk or 01243 586 805

Deauville Rondo won a lot of admirers at Detling last weekend...

TV and stage personality Ben Richards (Footballers Wives and ********), son of Deauville boss, Mike, tries the Rondo out for size.

 

Aeon Sportscars partners.........Keith Wood and John Hewat have had an amicable parting of the ways, with Keith continuing to market the Aeon GT3 range under the Aeon banner, while John Hewat has formed a new company called Blaze Motorsport, dedicated to the er, Blaze model. Although aimed primarily at the race and trackday market, the car is also road-legal and eminently suitable for such use. Indeed, John plans to add a ‘doors’ option in the near future. Kit prices start at £5000, with a realistic DIY budget figure at £12,000 for a very nice example. Turnkey track cars can be had from £17,500. Power options are bike engines such Suzuki Hayabusa, VAG 1.8T and Rover Tomcat (200bhp for the price of a pint!). More information from www.blazemotorsport.com or 01622 863 122. Meanwhile, Aeon GT3 information can be found via www.aeonsportscars.com or 01622 833 037

The Blaze is now available from Blaze Motorsport...

...while the GT3 remains with Aeon Sportscars

Westfield Sports Cars have had a bit of a model revamp………and have re-aligned their SEi range. Topping this industry leading line-up is the Sport S, formerly known as Sport 2000S, with power still coming from a spiteful 250bhp Duratec engine and equipped with all the bells and whistles, while following on is the Sport, which comes in Ford Sigma 135 and 155bhp guises and 200bhp Duratec option, as does the new Aerosport, which is the stripped-out, fly-screened version, while SDV in Mazda or Ford donor options leads the range off. You can of course opt for the bike-engined Mega-range or if Rover V8-power floats your boat then the SEiGHT remains on the pricelist. What’s more, if you fancy your car coming with the FW style bodywork, £500 will get you that, although you can just have front or rear FW sections if you prefer. More information from www.westfield-sportscars.co.uk or 01384 400 077

New, simplified range announced by Westfield Sports Cars. How cool is this Eleven by the way?

The Amphijeep has always been based…….on the 4wd Suzuki SJ413/Samurai. New for 2007 is that the model is now also available based on the current Suzuki Jimny. The company’s “pile it high and sell it cheap” promotion last year was so successful that this year they have knocked a massive £2000 off the kit cost reducing the price from £9950 down to £7950 inc VAT. The latest S2a Amphijeep, based on the Suzuki Jimny, is ready for you to test NOW so if you fancy a trip up the River Arun please contact Tim Dutton on 01903 721 139. More from (kits) www.amphijeep.biz or for fully built cars - www.timdutton.com.

The king of pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap, Tim Dutton has knocked a large chunk off the kit price of his Amphijeep S2a kit package.

Exact 355 debuted their er, Exact 355 replica at Detling……and the company, with bases in Scotland and south-east England were very encouraged by the reaction. Exact’s Brian Love says that they have decided to make the conversion (moulded from a genuine Ferrari F355, incidentally) an idiot-proof build, by fitting most of the panels for the customer prior to delivery. With the kit priced at £2800 and panel fitting at £4000, a customer can realistically expect to be up and running from £12,000. More information from www.exact355.com or 07789 794 845

Exact 355 replica made its debut at Detling last weekend. It looked very good quality.

Tiger Racing have been busy recently as you’d expect and not only on their existing model range and developing the lovely R6 aluminium bodied lightweight in association with metal gurus Shapecraft either. They can now offer MoT tests on classic and kitcars for just £35, and will soon have a brand new state of the art rolling road up and running. For both of these contact Paul Dudley on 01733 849 328 to find out more. Meanwhile, at Detling, Tiger MD was telling me about the company’s forthcoming engine division which will be called ‘Power by ERA’ and will initially offer a range of Duratec HE engines as fitted to their own R6 Duratec model (tkc test HERE) although other units will be added to the line-up in due course. More information on ALL Tiger’s activities via www.tigerracing.co.uk or 01733 271 131

You'll soon be able to buy a Duratec HE in various 'strengths' from Tiger's new Powered by ERA division.

Another welcome debut at Detling……..last weekend came from Race Car Replicas, and American-based company run by ex-pat Englishman Fran Hall. Although Stateside they have a growing range of replicas including P4, F512 and Porsche 917, currently only the Lola T70 and GT40 are available here. The cool thing about the whole range is that all models fit onto derivatives of the impressive-looking aluminium monocoque tub, with the T70 Mk IIIB sales being handled in the UK by Joe Tavani of Specialist Automotive and GT40 sales in either Mk1, Mk2 and MkIV (the only such replica in the world) taken care of by RCR 40 UK run by one of the foremost authorities on the GT40, Chris Melia (01638 510 136). The kits are supplied in pretty complete manner and in several different package options (deluxe plus, deluxe or standard), with prices dependent on exchange rate. At the moment with the pound very strong against the Dollar (almost two to one) the RCR kits are attractively priced starting at around £13,362 for the T70 and approximately £12,353 for the GT40. DIY builds can be completed from around £37,000 and £35,000 respectively. More information from www.race-car-replicas.com  

Aluminium monocoque from Race Car Replicas impressed many at Detling last weekend...this version underpins the RCR Lola T70 replica.....

...while a derivative sits under the RCR GT40. The Michigan-based company also make XJ13, F512, P4 and Porsche 917 replicas too. In fact, they offer the petrolhead a dream garage in replica form...

Dutch manufacturer Alphax Kitcar Engineering…………..were at Detling last weekend with their Firefly demonstrator and also an intriguing VAG 1.8 engine/Ford MT-75 gearbox set-up, complete with suitable adaptor plate. I’ve been banging on for ages about the virtues of two engines that I think will go onto become big news in this industry. One is the Honda VTEC and the other is the Volkswagen Audi 1.8 turbo unit. If you opt for the Alphax package, a £2000 budget will buy you the engine at £1440 and the MT-75 ‘box at £520. The 180bhp engine was primarily found in the Audi S3, A4 and TT although did also find its way into other VAG models such as VW Golf and Seat Leon, and has huge, affordable tuning potential. The company can also supply other engines including Nissan SR20DET, Toyota 4A-GE, Mitsubishi 4G-63T and Honda VTEC. More information from www.alphax-kitcars.com

Great VAG 1.8 Turbo engine packages from Alphax Kitcar Engineering, in addition to an adaptor palte to mate the engine to a Ford MT75 gearbox. They also offer Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota and Honda engines too.

Latest manufacturer of the………popular paddle-shift gearchange system ideal for bike-engined kitcars, is Race Gadgets based in Huddersfield. Run by Mick Crick, the company have a background in motorcycle racing although their products lend themselves superbly to kitcar installation. Crick has been around bikes since he was a small boy and his father raced sidecars, before Mick took to the circuits on two-wheels. More recently he has worked as a race technician for the likes of Troy Corser, James Haydon and Michael Rutter. His shift system is actually available in three guises – Button Shifter, as the name suggests provides the facility of changing gear via push-buttons, and costs £175 inc VAT, while Quick Shifter comes in at just £220 and comes complete with a control box, which is constantly watching the sensor (every 1000th of a second) to detect the position or pressure of the gearlever when the gears are about to be separated. The control box then cuts either the ignition or fuel injection and starts the ‘kill’ time. This can be adjusted from 30 to 100 milliseconds. When the kill time is over and the next gear is in mesh, the engine power is restored and the control box carries on monitoring the sensor for the next shift. The top of the range system is Air Shifter, which really is a clever piece of kit. The control box constantly ‘watches’ the steering wheel shift buttons and/or paddles (every 1000th of second) and waits for the signal to either upshift, downshift or select neutral. For gearchanges, pressurised air (which is adjustable) is fed to the gearlever ram for a preset time (also adjustable, but typically 60 milliseconds), which moves the gear lever to select the appropriate gear. Neutral is obtained by keeping the downshift button pressed for two seconds after reaching 1st gear. This will send a smaller (again adjustable, typically 20 milliseconds) duration of pressurised air to the gear lever ram allowing the lever to move a shorter distance. Air Shifter costs £470 inc VAT, but a typical installation including steering wheel, paddles and throttle blipper comes in at around £1000. The company claim that the systems can be installed in an hour, although will fit them for you (while you wait) for an additional £150. More information from www.racegadgets.com or 01484 689 113.

Superb paddle-shift system from Mick Crick at Race Gadgets.

With kitcars underpinning the……..trackday movement there’s been a steady growth in the sales of specific parts for the discipline. One of the main areas has been the use of dedicated trackday tyres, as people discovered the joys of using semi-slick yet road-legal rubber and the softer compounds and performance characteristics improve grip more than you’d ever believe. One of the leading mail order suppliers of such tyres is Camskill Tyres who stock trackday tyres from Dunlop, Hankook, Kumho, Toyo and Yokohama with prices being inclusive of 48-hour postage. More from www.camskilltyres.co.uk or 01946 518 202

Want trackday tyres? Check out Camskill Tyres who offer great mail order prices for the leadling brands.

I was having a surf on the…..Holley website the other day and came across a superb new facility that I’m CERTAIN will help you if you are building or own a V8 engine. One of the greyest, grey areas concerns carburettor selection for such bad boys, with everyone believing that they’ll need a 1000cfm double-pumper on their Rover V8 (for the record a road-spec engine requires a two-barrel 350cfm carb – part number 0-7448) when in reality the car will then run like a Pig with an abscess. Simply visit www.holley.com, click on the ‘Interactive Carb Selector’ icon on the top right of the page and follow the instructions on screen, via the fab toggle switch selectors, and hey presto, you’ll then be told the carburettor and part number you require. A brilliant and useful resource. More from www.holley.com 

If you've got a V8 engine then why not check out Holley's online interactive carb chooser? Follow the instructions on-screen and find out what carb and cfm is correct for you.

.....and FINALLY.

Superb DNA F360 replica on display at Detling. Is this the best of the breed seen thus far?

www.dnaautomotive.com