A kit car is an automobile that is 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.
Radio-controlled cars are miniature model cars or trucks that can be controlled from a distance using a specialized transmitter or remote. The term "RC" has been used to mean both "remote controlled" and "radio controlled", where "remote controlled" includes vehicles that are controlled by radio, infrared or a physical wire connection. Common use of "RC" today usually refers only to vehicles controlled by radio, and this article focuses on radio-controlled vehicles only.
Caterham Cars is a British manufacturer of specialist lightweight sports cars established in Caterham, Surrey, with their headquarters in Crawley, Sussex. Their current model, the Caterham 7, originally launched in 1973, is a direct evolution of the Series 3 Lotus Seven designed by Colin Chapman. In the 1990s the company made the Caterham 21, a two-seater soft top alternative to the MGF and Lotus Elise,. A track-only car, the SP/300.R, a joint project with Lola was released for customer testing in 2010 and was scheduled for release in 2013. On 27 April 2011, Team Lotus owner Tony Fernandes announced that he had purchased Caterham.
Heathkit is the brand name of kits and other electronic products produced and marketed by the Heath Company. The products over the decades have included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, robots, electronic ignition conversion modules for early model cars with point style ignitions, and the influential Heath H-8, H-89, and H-11 hobbyist computers, which were sold in kit form for assembly by the purchaser.
Kitbashing or model bashing is a practice whereby a new scale model is created by taking pieces out of commercial kits. These pieces may be added to a custom project or to another kit. For professional modelmakers, kitbashing is popular to create concept models for detailing movie special effects. Commercial model kits are a ready source of "detailing", providing any number of identical, mass-produced components that can be used to add fine detail to an existing model. Professionals often kitbash to build prototype parts which are then recreated with lightweight materials.
The original Stalker V6 Clubman, produced in 2001 by Brunton Automotive is a kit car replica of a Lotus Seven.
Ready-to-assemble furniture (RTA), also known as knock-down furniture (KD), flat pack furniture, or kit furniture, is a form of furniture that requires customer assembly. The separate components are packed for sale in cartons which also contain assembly instructions and sometimes hardware. The furniture is generally simple to assemble with basic tools such as screwdrivers, which are also sometimes included. Ready-to-assemble furniture is popular with consumers who wish to save money by assembling the product themselves.
Model building is a hobby that involves the creation of models either from kits or from materials and components acquired by the builder. The kits contain several pieces that need to be assembled in order to make a final model. Most model building categories have a range of common scales that make them manageable for the average person both to complete and display. A model is generally considered physical representations of an object and maintains accurate relationships between all of its aspects.
A knock-down kit, knockdown kit, knocked-down kit, or simply knockdown (KD) is a kit containing the parts needed to assemble a product. The parts are typically manufactured in one country or region, then exported to another country or region for final assembly.
The Toyota Sera is a 3-door 2+2 hatchback coupe manufactured and marketed by Toyota from 1990 to 1996.
A custom-built or homebuilt computer is a computer assembled from available components, usually commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, rather than purchased as a complete system from a computer system supplier, also known as pre-built systems.
An electronic kit is a package of electrical components used to build an electronic device. Generally, kits are composed of electronic components, a circuit diagram (schematic), assembly instructions and often a printed circuit board (PCB) or another type of prototyping board.
Dutton Cars, based in Worthing, Sussex, England, was a maker of kit cars between 1970 and 1989. In terms of numbers of kits produced, it was the largest kit car manufacturer in the world.
The Moskvitch was a 20th-century Soviet/Bulgarian passenger car. Between 1966 and 1990, the Balkan factory in Lovech, Bulgaria, assembled the Soviet-designed Moskvitch 408 from complete knock down (CKD) kits.
Australian Motor Industries (AMI) was an automobile assembly firm that was significant in the early history of the automotive industry in Australia.
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.
The Blakely Bernardi is an automobile produced in the 1980s by Blakely Auto Works of Princeton, Wisconsin, USA. Blakely produced a number of automobile models, including the Bearcat and Bantam. This model is named after Enrico Bernardi, Italian inventor of the gasoline internal-combustion engine and automobile pioneer. The Bernardi was available as a completed car or as a kit of parts to be assembled by the buyer.
The first generation Honda Civic is an automobile that was produced by Honda in Japan from July 1972 to 1979. It was their first genuine market success, eschewing the air-cooling and expensive engineering solutions of the slow-selling Honda 1300 and being larger than the minuscule N-series. The Civic laid down the direction Honda's automobile design has followed since.
Bulgaria's production strongly depended on auto imports from the Soviet block earlier and currently depends on other European and Asian countries. Presently, Bulgaria introduced its own domestic supercar company, SIN Cars.
