LocostUSA.com

Great article about 4 Locost 7's. Included are Jon Winterhalter's BMW 4cyl, Mark Rivera's turbo miata engine, Chris Fiaccone's Honda CBR900 engine, and Keith Tanners Miata build.

This mag. is worth $3.99 for these 6 pages alone

It sure is. That is how i found my way here.

I have been thinking of building a car for the last few years. And then this article came out... And well, its all over. Time to go out and buy a welder and get learning so that i can start a new Auto-x toy


I look forward to reading all your guys experiences with building these cars.


Ken

I would have really liked to a have seen them test a car with a live rear axle (I realize they could only test what showed up). The comparision would have been rather interesting especially since a couple of the cars had rear suspension tuning issues (with I believe only Keith's car being fully sorted).

that is the first i even heard of locosts, they are SWEET and i would love to build one one day, but for now im just browzin, being only 16 and broke i dont think i will be starting a build any time soon

i got interested when C&D test drove their firs caterham back in liek march. then every mag after that had something about them in it. this past mag brought me here seening if there was a forum and low and behold here it stands, growing like none other.

thats what got me here too great article.

Welcome to all the new readers!

We tried to get a number of different cars for the article. In the end, we were limited by whoever was able to show up. It sure would have been nice to have a live axle car or even another car or two with some miles under the wheels (I was really trying to get Esko to drag his down) but it just didn't seem to be possible.

The bike engined car didn't have a rear suspension tuning issue although you might figure that from the article. It had a bad wheel bearing and the very limited drive time before the test didn't bring that to light. It's something that could happen to any of us, especially considering the fact that we don't usually start with showroom-fresh parts! The other car with suspension troubles was Mark's turbo car, and that was a bent front control arm. IRS didn't make any difference to either of those problems.

I also found my way here from the C&D article. Been reading about Locosts since then (including at work )

Thinking about doing a build, most likely with the Coveland IRS chassis and Miata donor; I go by the K.I.S.S. methodology, although a bike build is intruiging. I was tracking my S4, but an incident made me realize that tracking your daily driver isn't a good idea.

Keith Tanner
I really wanted to see a live axel n the competition/comparison, but them's the breaks. Hopefully another car Mag will wait six months or a year and do a follow up or a complementary story.

I really like the work that the BMW four pot locoster did with his nose cone and fenders and how he went about building it. Any chance of passing on my e-mail to him and asking him some questions?
How many man hours it took to build the nose cone?
If he built a buck to shape the Aluminum?
What tools he had to build and or shape the nose cone?
How many peices his nose cone was before he welded it?
What Welder did he use to weld the aliuminum? (type and model)
The article mentioned that he would be retiring in a couple years.

mr.peabody.d
at
gmail
.com

Jon hangs out on the Yahoo group. I don't have his email handy unfortunately. I think he also spends time (probably more of it) on the metal shaping groups.

About a follow-up story in 6 months - there's nearly a 6 month lead time on stories such as this. I wouldn't expect any other magazines to jump on the chance to follow the leader, but Grassroots Motorsports has always had interest in the Locosts. Expect to see more there. They've done Seven comparison tests both in GRM and Classic Motorsports. I have at least two at home.

I also liked the C&D article.

I'm not new to the site, having mostly lurked for the past 9 months or so. I've got my 442 chassis tacked and just got my nosecone & scuttle from COLD. Sometimes its just great to see that it can really be done.

Keith How's that Targa Miata coming. I was up in St. John's on work last fall when the Targa was on and got to see a little. It looks like a really fun event, seems like everyone on the island is involved. The people stories are amazing. You should have a blast.

Dan

You can see the Targa Miata at http://www.targamiata.com . It's coming along slowly.

I attended the Sevenfest, and got to check out all four cars in person. Got to see the suede car come off the trailer naked! They are all incredible builds, but I was most impressed by Jon Winterhalter's, both for being a father/son build and for having been a GRM $2005 challenger. Inspired me for $2006

Lenny

Interesting reading indeed which I expect will contribute to the public image of Lotus seven clone homebuilding . I agree with Keith we should not publish it here until the next issue of C&D appears on the shelves. Doing so is not good for our collective image.

My own view of the feature in question is that it is a mixted blessing. On the positive side the article sets the record straight with respect to the theatrical claim that one can build a roadworthy sportcar for 250 pounds. It also identifies Keith Tanner's book's limitations as far as building from scratch is concerned. Reading this article will therefore be beneficial to would-be builders and will further accredit the car in the eyes of the public. On the other hand I would have liked to see more flatering pictures of homebuild locosts of which there are hundreds of samples on all continents.

Louis VB

The hundreds of samples declined invitations to come to the test.