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 marine ply for the body, which was then covered with aluminium sheeting, the last kits were produced in early 2000.
The original Locust kit was based on the Triumph Spitfire or Herald chassis to give the finished vehicle the look of a Lotus 7, this was quickly superseded by a all new Locust using its own developed chassis with the choice of using a Triumph Spitfire or Mk1/Mk2 Ford Escort for the donor vehicle parts to complete the car. The original design was by John Cowperthwaite and it was sold as the JC Locust by J.C. Auto Patterns. [1] The Locust used a ladder frame and a body constructed from three 8 ft by 4 ft sheets of 3/4" thick exterior grade or marine plywood alternatively MDF sheets. Once complete, the body tub is skinned with aluminium sheet.
Later vehicles were sold by T&J Sportscars who also introduced a larger Locust to compete with the Robin Hood kit car, this vehicle was Ford Cortina-based called the Hornet.
In 1995 the escort based Locust was taken over by White Rose Vehicles (WRV) who continued to sell the same model until 1998, seeing that Mk1 and Mk2 Ford Escorts were becoming rare they developed and introduced the new Ford Sierra-based Locust SIII. The Series 3 used a new ladder chassis with the Ford Sierra rear diff and could be built with Pinto or Zetec engines.
White Rose Vehicles closed in April 2000 so the escort based Locust classic was taken over by BWE Sportscars [2] who also made the Hornet [3] and the Grasshopper electric car for children. [4] The Sierra-based Series III was taken over by Road Tech Engineering which was renamed to the RT Blaze, this company closed in 2006 but only sold 15 kits. Bev Evans of BWE died on 10 April 2014. BWE Sportscars is no longer trading. [2]
"The Locust" - Early vehicles based on Triumph Spitfire or Herald
"The New Locust" - Using its own chassis with either Triumph or Ford Escort mechanicals
"Locust classic" - Slightly designed, now using only Ford Escort mechanicals with Ford Cortina front subframe
"Locust Hornet" - Later just called the Hornet, same construction as the classic Locust but based all around the Cortina for a bigger vehicle
"Locust S111" - The Locust for the new millennium, using more modern ford mechanicals
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 fibreglass nose and wings and aluminium side panels. Each car is highly individualized according to the resources, needs and desires of each respective builder.
The Lotus Seven is a sports car produced by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars between 1957 and 1973. The Seven is an open-wheel car with two seats and an open top. It was designed by Lotus founder Colin Chapman and has been considered the embodiment of the Lotus philosophy of performance through low weight and simplicity. The original model was highly successful with more than 2,500 cars sold, due to its attraction as a road legal car that could be used for clubman racing.
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.
The Ford Kent is an internal combustion engine from Ford of Europe. Originally developed in 1959 for the Ford Anglia, it is an in-line four-cylinder overhead-valve–type pushrod engine with a cast-iron cylinder head and block.
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.
Lotus Cortina is the commonly used term for the Ford Cortina Lotus, a high-performance sports saloon, which was produced in the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1970 by Ford in collaboration with Lotus Cars. The original version, which was based on the Ford Cortina Mark 1, was promoted by Ford as the "Consul Cortina developed by Lotus", with "Consul" later being dropped from the name. The Mark 2 was based on the Ford Cortina Mark II and was marketed by Ford as the "Cortina Lotus". Lotus gave the model the type number designation Type 28.
The Ford Pinto engine was the unofficial name for a four-cylinder internal combustion engine built by Ford Europe. In Ford sales literature, it was referred to as the EAO or OHC engine and because it was designed to the metric system, it was sometimes called the "metric engine". The internal Ford codename for the unit was the T88-series engine. European Ford service literature refers to it as the Taunus In-Line engine. In North America it was known as the Lima In-Line (LL), or simply the Lima engine due to its being manufactured at Lima Engine in Lima, Ohio.
The Ford Essex V6 engine is a 60° V6 engine built between 1966 and 1988 by the Ford Motor Company in the United Kingdom and until 2000 in South Africa although mostly in the Ford engine plant of Dagenham, Essex, which gave the engine its name. It is closely related to the Ford Essex V4 engine produced in displacements of 1.7 L and 2.0 L. Both engines share many parts since the Essex V6 was directly derived from the Essex V4; the 2.0 L Essex V4 and the 3.0 L Essex V6 in fact have exactly the same bore and stroke and share various components. In the same era, the Ford Cologne V6 engine was produced.
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.
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.
GCS Cars traded initially from Orpington in Kent, UK and produced the Hawke. Although similar to the Burlington SS in some respects, the GCS Hawke was developed completely independently by the partners in GCS Cars with considerably different dimensions overall. The Dorian/Burlington was designed to fit on a Triumph chassis, although Dorian later developed a chassis that it is believed was using Escort parts. The GCS Hawke was designed to fit on a ladder-frame chassis to accept Cortina/Sierra parts. This led to the bodyshell and wings being considerably wider than the original Dorian/Burlington car. It is an open two seater modelled fairly closely, but differently enough, on the Morgan. Whereas the Burlington body tub was constructed of glass-fibre, wood and aluminium, the Hawke has a one-piece GRP bodyshell with integral floor. It can take a variety of engines from Ford and the V8 Rover. The company was founded by Garry Hutton and Collin Puttock.
JC Midge is a hand built car i.e. a "plan and pattern" car designed by John Cowperthwaite. Like the Locust the body is made of aluminium skinned plywood or MDF and using a purpose made grille or one from a donor, such as a Wolseley 1500. Unlike a Kit car only a few parts were available, the rest being from the donor car or hand made by the builder by sticking paper patterns on plywood or aluminium and cutting round them with a jigsaw. The starting point was a set of patterns and instructions costing £35 and the designer claimed it was possible to put a car on the road for £800.
Backbone tube chassis is a type of automobile construction chassis that is similar to the body-on-frame design. Instead of a two-dimensional ladder-type structure, it consists of a strong tubular backbone that connects the front and rear suspension attachment areas. A body is then placed on this structure. It was first used in the English Rover 8hp of 1904 and then the French Simplicia automobile in 1909.
The Eagle Mk1, commonly referred to as the Eagle T1G, was a Formula One racing car, designed by Len Terry for Dan Gurney's Anglo American Racers team. The Eagle, introduced for the start of the 1966 Formula One season, is often regarded as being one of the most beautiful Grand Prix cars ever raced at the top levels of international motorsport. Initially appearing with a 2.7L Coventry Climax inline 4-cylinder engine, the car was designed around a 3.0L Gurney-Weslake V12 which was introduced after its first four races. In the hands of team boss Gurney, the Eagle-Weslake won the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix, making Dan Gurney only the second driver at the time, and one of only three to date, to win a Formula One Grand Prix in a car of their own construction. Excluding the Indianapolis 500, that win in Belgium still stands as the only win for a USA-built car as well as one of only two wins of an American-licensed constructor in Formula One. It was also the first win for an American constructor in a Grand Prix race since the Jimmy Murphy's triumph with Duesenberg at the 1921 French Grand Prix.
Marc Nordon Racing is a kit car manufacturer specialising in bike engined cars or BECs and in particular, Lotus Seven Replicas. They are based in Harrogate, England.
Marlin is a British sports car manufacturer founded in 1979 in Plymouth as Marlin Engineering and now located in Crediton, Devon, England.
Jeffery Macandrew-Uren, was a British engineer, racing driver, race team manager, tuner, customiser, and entrepreneur. He won the British Saloon Car Championship in its sophomore year. He was a driver and team manager for Ford Motor Company's rallying efforts, team manager with John Willment's racing division, and team manager for AC Cars' 1964 Le Mans team. He later created a series of performance-oriented engine-swapped custom Ford models.
Mills Extreme Vehicles (MEV) is a kit car design and manufacturing company based in Gloucestershire, England, founded in 2003 by Stuart Mills and Julie Wilson.
The Cortina Savage is a custom performance automobile based on the Ford Cortina. The car was designed and produced by Jeff Uren and his companies, Race Proved Performance and Racing Equipment Ltd., and Jeff Uren Ltd. Production of the conversion started in the mid-1960s and was applied to multiple generations of the Cortina, with the Mk2 Savage built in the largest numbers.
