Background


Of the many options and kits available we have chosen the South African Birkin - a kit which faithfully reproduces the beauty of Colin Chapman's original car and which you build up with component parts from the factory, adding in your choice of engine and transmission.



This holds true to the tradition of garden shed mechanics without requiring quite the level of welding skill, or CAD programming, that some of the amazing, home built clubman cars require. Or at least we hope not, as neither of us have done anything like this before.....



Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Rear Lights

We bought these lights from the Caterham shop as we felt they are closest to the look we are after. It's easy to make the rear of these cars look like a trailer (and I'm not totally convinced we haven't achieved that!) but whilst the round single units look more traditional they can also start to look a bit cluttered. You pay your money and take your choice.
That being said, because we're having the spare wheel on board, the requirement for two reversing lights to keep visibillity up to happy engineer levels will look a bit overdone anyway. Ho hum, you can't have everything.

The process of fitting requires some masking tape, a spirit level and repeated check measurements from reference points. It's one of those tricky jobs and the complex curve of the rear guards means that when you finally tighten the retaining bolts, the rubber mounts of the lights can distort and change what you thought was a perfect level to ever-so-slightly off. So we will leave them to settle and adjust them gradually over time. It's exactly like trying to hang a picture on a wall thats not quite square....you're never totally satisfied!

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