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Ronald Champion
I am reluctantly having to dispose of the very first Locost, built for my teenage son nearly 30 years ago. He used it for the first few months until he got into Locost racing with.the 750 M.C. It's sat in my garage ever since. However every few months I have started the engine and run it up to temperature, and it still starts on the button and runs like a sewing machine. But the years have taken their toll, the clutch is seized as is the brake master cylinder / servo, although the tyres are unused, I wouldn't risk them on the road, but fine for loading into a trailer. But the final straw for me is that mice have chewed the wireing loom and rubber components like fuel and brake pipes. I have stripped out the wireing and hot wired the ignition and fuel pump so it now starts and runs. Thankfully the mice did not touch the seats which are Caterham items.
Like the car the years have taken their toll on me, and I am no longer able to undertake the repairs and recommisioning.
When the book was finished my son upgraded the spec of the car with LOTUS alloy wheels, genuine LOTUS badges and other stuff.
I am open to the best offer in my mind I think the reserve is the value of the following parts as follows. 1098 M.G. Midget engine and gearbox. Alloy wheels (5) from a Mk1 Lotus Cortina. Perfect Caterham seats. Caterham windscreen. Alloy fuel tank. Mk1 Escort rear axle. Mk3 Cortina front discs and calipers. And all the other bits.
If unsold in a couple of weeks, it's then E.bay. Viewing any time by appointment car is located in Peterborough.
Jeez Ron... at least rinse the soap off before you take the photos. At first, I thought that was all bird E36 M3 from being stuffed into the shed for thirty years.
In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :
Me too
I have the original version of the book. It's pretty cool. That would be a super cool car to have just because of the book.
whenever I look at the book I am all excited on the fab part and then I get to the sourcing the car parts part, get really scared and close the book back up.
Here is my favorite pic from the book
dculberson said:
The fun part about this is imagining what a Locost museum would look like. I've been to a British car museum that was basically a shed in someone's back yard (best part: the "please do not toot the horns" sign), that sounds about right.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I tried to look up your book on the topic hoping there would be a cross reference to vehicles you can actually buy in the states and the pricing was not exactly favorable on Amazon!
Mine's out of print, so current pricing is "what the market will bear". It's less of a cookbook than Ron's was, it doesn't go tell you what cars to hunt down.
IIRC the closest thing to an OG Locost donor is a certain Hyundai that had a lot of old Ford underneath, including the "correct" spindles but they're getting pretty old and they may have been Canada-only. Stellar, maybe? A lot got built out of AE86s before the drifters discovered them.
Miatas are, believe it or not, a good choice. You can either stick the whole rear subframe in there or design an IRS. I think the Haynes book used one.
The current market says...
I don't get a penny of that :(
I do own the copyright now that my publisher has decided not print more, so I could do another run. Problem is, it was (just) pre-digital so it would have to be laid out again. I have all the original files, just not the film.
In reply to Crxpilot :
I guess I'm missing it... What's the price?
New York Nick said:
Here is my favorite pic from the book
That was my favorite photo too, and I wanted to duplicate it when I was building my own.
My chassis was a lot heavier than it looks in that picture.
I'm guilty of cutting up an AE86 myself, although this one was probably damaged beyond repair by the time I got it. I bought it out of a junkyard from a guy who had a Hell's Angel tattoo on his skull, before such things came into fashion.
This was all pre-GRM Forum, but somehow I found complete details of SkinnyG's build, which I printed in its entirety and used that even more than I used the original book.
Miata's weren't rusty yet and still beyond my budget back then.
In reply to New York Nick :
My batE36 M3 crazy idea was to stuff a 924 transaxle & shortened torque tube into a basically book chassis, with a VW 1.8 GTI engine up front...entirely because that's what I had lying around.
Sadly I quickly realized I lacked the combination of tools/talent/money/patience to pull it off, and sold the tacked together frame & parts to a guy who in retrospect im pretty sure was a pedophile.
I have Ron's and Keiths books, as well a printed out copy of someone's thesis doing FEA on the chassis and suggested improvements. Got the first book mail order from England while in highschool! I call it my dream section of my library.
Wow. I hope he makes some decent coin off it. That's pretty cool the OG is for sale.
I doubt that it will bring in all that much.
While it's a significant car for the movement that it created, I can't really see it selling for more than the cheapest available used Caterham.
Apexcarver said:
I have Ron's and Keiths books, as well a printed out copy of someone's thesis doing FEA on the chassis and suggested improvements. Got the first book mail order from England while in highschool! I call it my dream section of my library.
I have that thesis too :) It's well worth looking up the "Aussie mods", the improvements required to be road legal in Australia. I've also got Tony Weale's Lotus Seven book which was pretty useful in seeing the various solutions used by Lotus and Caterham.
https://www.amazon.com/High-Speed-Cost-Allan-Staniforth/dp/085059037X
I have keith's book, the OG locost book, and high speed, low cost - along with the midlana book and kimini books. One day I'll finish my locost...
Staniforth - is that the Mini-based Terrapin?
Staniforth has some good case studies of the crazy stuff that comes out of the UK hillclimb series in some of his other books. I think the Race and Rally Car Sourcebook is one of them. Warning, it'll get you thinking about stuff like monocoque chassis. He talks about the Terrapin there as well but not in great detail.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Yep! It's the mini-based hillclimb car, he has some neat stuff in it. I found it for 15 dollars at a random antique store near Apalachicola, FL
