A Locost is a home-built car inspired by the Lotus Seven. The car features a space frame chassis usually welded together from mild steel 1 in × 1 in square tubing. Front suspension is usually double wishbone with coil spring struts. The rear is traditionally live axle, but has many variants including independent rear suspension or De Dion tube. Body panels are usually fiberglass nose and wings and aluminium side panels. Each car is highly individualized according to the resources, needs and desires of each respective builder.
A kit car is an automobile available as a set of parts that a manufacturer sells and the buyer then assembles into a functioning car. Usually, many of the major mechanical systems such as the engine and transmission are sourced from donor vehicles or purchased new from other vendors. Kits vary in completeness, consisting of as little as a book of plans, or as much as a complete set with all components to assemble into a fully operational vehicle such as those from Caterham.
AC Cars, originally incorporated as Auto Carriers Ltd., is a British specialist automobile manufacturer and one of the oldest independent car makers founded in Britain. As a result of bad financial conditions over the years, the company was renamed or liquidated many times until its present form. In 2022, the new corporate structure began the production of new AC Cobra models, with a slightly modified structure to adapt it to modern safety and technology requirements and obtain the European road homologation certificate.
Reliant Motor Company was a British car manufacturer based in Tamworth, Staffordshire, England. It was founded in 1935 and ended car production in 2002, the company had been known as "Reliant Motor Company" until the 1990s when it became "Reliant Motors" and then finally became "Reliant Cars LTD" after production had ended of the Robin as the company was restructured to be a car import business. It is now a dormant company and the only entity left is a separate parts company created called "Reliant Partsworld" which produces parts for Reliant vehicles.
Marcos Engineering was a British sports car manufacturer. The name derives from the surnames of founders Jem Marsh and Frank Costin.
Westfield Sportscars is a manufacturer of both factory built and kit versions of several two-seater, open top sportscars. Their main product is a Lotus Seven inspired car – vehicles originally designed by Colin Chapman with only the bare essentials for motoring in order to give the rawest and most exhilarating driving experience.
Robin Hood Engineering Ltd was a British kit car manufacturer based in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire. The factory covered 30,000 square feet (2,800 m2) and was on a one and a half acre site.
Ginetta Cars Limited is a British specialist builder of racing and sports cars based in Garforth, Leeds, West Yorkshire.
Rochdale cars were a series of mainly glass fibre bodied British sports car made by Rochdale Motor Panels and Engineering in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England between 1948 and 1973. The company is best remembered for the Olympic coupé made between 1959 and 1973.
Locust is a kit car inspired by the Lotus Seven. It was first developed in the mid 1980s as a cheap kit car to be built onto the chassis of a Triumph Spitfire, it was later developed into a full kit car which used its own fully designed ladder chassis - unlike others using space frame. The car was famed for its cheap to build construction using MDF in the body, the last kits were produced in early 2000.
Dutton Cars, based in Worthing, Sussex, England, was a maker of kit cars between 1970 and 1989. In terms of number of kits produced, it was the largest kit-car manufacturer in the world.
Sylva Autokits is a kit car manufacturer based in Lincolnshire, England. Sylva was founded in 1981 by Jeremy Phillips and has developed and produced a number of small and lightweight sports cars. Sylva cars have won a number of 750 Motor Club Kit Car championships.
Burlington Cars was a British kit car company originally based in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. They moved to Northampton in 1988 becoming the Burlington Motor Company reforming as the Burlington Design Group in 1989. Kit production seems to have stopped in around 1992. Founded by Haydn Davis the cars were at first of the "plan and pattern" car) type similar to the JC Midge. Like the Midge it uses a Triumph donor and constructs a body of plywood on top of it, i.e. a body-on-frame design.
Factory Five Racing, Inc. (F.F.R.) is an American automobile company that designs and manufactures assembly kits, chassis, bodies and related components for replicars and sports cars.
Fiberfab was an American automotive manufacturer established in 1964. Starting with accessories and body parts, they progressed to making kit cars and fully assembled automobiles. They became one of the longest lasting kit car manufacturers.
Haynes Roadster is a replica of a Lotus Seven home-built according to a book Build Your Own Sports Car: On a Budget by Chris Gibbs (ISBN 1-84425-391-0). A Ford Sierra is used in the car as a donor for drivetrain and suspension components.
Mills Extreme Vehicles (MEV) is a kit car design and manufacturing company based in Gloucestershire, England, founded in 2003.
Almac is a New Zealand-based kit car company founded in 1984 and located in Upper Hutt. Almac cars is a part of Almac Reinforced Plastics Ltd fibreglass product manufacturing a company founded in 1971 by Alex McDonald. McDonald's interest in kit cars started while he was living in England, having purchased a Jem Marsh Sirocco. Jem Marsh founded the Marcos car company.
Alternative Cars Limited is a New Zealand-based kit car company that manufactures fiber-glass bodied cars based on the 1950s MG TF. The company was founded by Russell Hooper, a medical supply representative, as Kit Kars Limited in 1984. In 1996 Kit Kars Ltd changed its name to Alternative Cars Limited. Initially the company operated from the owner's home, until moving to a small 600 square foot workshop in Auckland.
New Zealand had a long history of small garages and vehicle enthusiasts modifying and creating sports and sports racing cars. Out of these interests grew the New Zealand kit and replica car industry with the introduction of fibre-glass car bodies in the 1950s.
