Houston Locost: The Beginning

As the description above says, I am attemping to build a reasonable facsimile of a Lotus 7 from scratch. I hesitate to call it a replica, since there will be a lot of departures from the original car. To point out the obvious (maybe), the general concept is called Locost because its based on a Lotus, and most people complete the car for very cheap, especially compared to a real Lotus 7 replica, the Caterham 7. To learn more about the concept, check out http://www.locostusa.com/, http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/, the Yahoo Locost Group, Ron Champion's legendary book Build Your Own Sports Car for as Little as £250 and Race It! (no longer in print, but a great read if you can get your hands on one), and Keith Tanner's great book How to Build a Cheap Sports Car.

The plan is to build the frame from scratch, use a 1990 Mazda Miata as a donor for parts such as the hubs, uprights, steering rack, steering column, brakes, etc. etc, and power the car with a Yamaha R1 engine.

From here on out, I'll try to update the blog at milestones, but I will have to update you what's happened in the past month and a half. Click on the pictures to view full size.

5/30/09

I bought my donor car, which I wasn't actively looking for. I just saw the car for sale on Craigslist the previous week and thought that it would be a perfect donor. I hadn't quite planned on starting on the project just yet, so I didn't inquire right away. But then I thought about it for a couple days and said to hell with it and bought it for $500. It was too good of a deal to pass up. This should be a lesson to everyone about how Craigslist is the devil. You end up with crap you didn't plan on buying. Crap that makes your fiance shake her head. And wonder what the hell she's gotten herself into.

Towing it home:

The ignition switch was broken and battery was dead, and the driver's seat was just sitting in its spot, so it was easier to just tow it home. Here it is at its new home. And also its deathbed.

Notice the driver's seat held in by gravity, the passenger seat held in with one bolt. and the entire contents of the driver's door (window, door card, power window motor) sitting in the passenger seat.

Not in bad shape, just not in particularly good shape. Pretty much every panel has dents in it, it had been lightly wrecked in the front, and left sitting in a parking lot for 6 months or so with no windows and a ripped top. So all that considered, it's in damn good condition.

5/31/09

Didn't waste any time, and ripped out the interior:

Not a bad haul for a $500 car.

6/13/09

Bought the steel, built a build table last week and cut and laid out the bottom rails this week:

7/7/09

Got the the basic top rails and rear bulkhead tacked together:

7/12/09

I'm getting tired of seeing the ugly Miata in my driveway (and I suspect my neighbors are too), so I took the weekend to completely strip the car in order to cut it into pieces to haul to the scrap yard. I can report that it was freakin hot in Houston over the weekend. Not fit for man or beast out there. Not sure what that makes me, but whatever.

Before we (we meaning me and one of my good friends who inexplicably keeps helping me with this project despite the fact that a) it feels like 109 degrees outside, b) he has his own project CB750 he should be working on, and c) did I mention its 109 degrees outside??) tore the car apart, my buddy jerry rigged the car to run, just to prove that I bought a perfectly running car for $500. Then we drove it around the block with no interior and no muffler giggling like idiots.

Boring video of it running:

Onto the carnage:

Open wiiiiide...