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These pages are
maintained by Steve Gusterson, based in Northants, England. I am
originally from Barnet, in North London.
I am the builder of
the car detailed in this site.
An electronics
hardware/software engineer in real life, with a strong leaning
towards the hardware side. Software makes my brain hurt more.
"44 years old,
Steve is married, with 2 middle-teen aged kids, and wishes for
world peace." Failing that, having
the car finished sometime in 2004 would be great!
SITE
SECTIONS
Basic
Specification
Current
Build Status
The
Donor
Preparation
Cologne
V6 engine
Type
9 gearbox
Making
the Chassis
'Book'
Chassis Stiffening Mods
Making
Fibreglass Parts
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The Story of a
Scratch Car.
Before you get carried away, the pic above ISN'T my car, sadly -
its still a collection of ever slowly assembling bits in my single
garage. If it looks the real one above, I would be well pleased.
I change my mind regularly on colour
choice, but right now its tending to be dark red. But its been
dark blue, British racing green, cream, and just about any
non-metallic colour you might think of. My fave colour is red, but
this car has got to look 'period' style, so anything too modern is
out!
So.....what's a Scratch Car?
Its a Kit-Car
without a kit, and is possibly the first sign of madness when you
get the idea to build one. The web is full of sufferers like me,
and we all owe the pain to a certain Mr. Ron Champion, and Haynes
publishing for launching the below book:
You buy a pile of
square section steel, some sheet aluminium, an old car for parts,
a MIG welder, and mix in a lot of your time to come up with a
creation that's ALL your own.
The second sign of
madness is when you decide to document it all on the web - and
there are a lot of nutters on here, believe me!
Ron Champion has
basically written a book on building your own Lotus Seven replica,
and its started off a whole industry of home builders torturing
steel in their garage or workshop into something hopefully shaped
like a car.
You are building a what?
Well, the name for
this kind of car, as defined by Mr. Champion, is a Locost - cos
its supposed to be cheap to build - but my budget has gone over 3k
ukp at this point.
It seemed to me
that a Lotus Seven is essentially a stripped down 30's / 40's
English sports tourer - Colin Chapman basically threw the bits
away that were not strictly necessary.
I decided to put em
all back.....and the car should be a 'Locost' type car, in the
style of a Morgan. I say style, as it is just a bit hard and way
too expensive and time consuming to be a purist.
See the column on
the right hand side for site sections....
http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk
- Where all the real loonies are.
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/locost
- another valuable build resource. Check out the archives - a mine
of information. Seek out the
gems by Ken Walton. One of the nicest and most
knowledgeable guys on the site, Ken sadly passed away Nov 2002.
Thanks for your help Ken.
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