Setting up the Workspace

Whilst Frank generously offered his workshop space, with its added benefits of…
a) being clean
b) having all the tools you could possibly need
c) having air conditioning
d) having other clubmans there as references
e) having Frank there as the ultimate reference

…part of the reasoning behind the clubman was to build something with Dad. He’s a frustrated engineer at heart I’m sure, and the challenge for both of us to build this thing is not insignificant. So we’ll see how that goes in Dad’s shed.

When I say shed, perhaps I should say hanger. Dad felt that an ordinary shed just wouldn't do. Keep in mind that my parents are on about 100 acres of bushland out the back of a small country town in WA, so space isn't an issue. Add to that my Dad's collection of "things that may be useful someday" and you can see why he needs the space.

I can't criticise my Dad's magpie tendencies too much, as no doubt all sorts of useful stuff will suddenly appear out of nowhere during the build, saving the 20km trip to the nearest town to buy something inane. It's also useful because it means there’s ample room to build a car – all right, a fleet of cars – in there. But I will insist on not using anything from the massive collection of rusty nuts and bolts, now matter how many cents I can save by using an old one.

So we shifted a heap of stuff around, I took away some old things I’d put in there when I left Australia 10 years ago (man, there were some bad fashion choices – with the Red Cross now, thankfully), and we made a space. The whole place needed a bit of a clean to remove the most obviously dust piles, plus we’re no doubt going to have to clean the cobwebs off the car every now and then.

The final steps were to add lights and some ventilation – it gets pretty hot in there. Thankfully there’s a fridge for beers / softdrinks etc – essential for any Aussie shed, but a few fans will be put in to blow a bit of air about….

I think at some stage, the car will return to Franks for some of the trickier / heavier work – for example, fitting the engine and drivetrain. We just don’t have the equipment to be moving engine blocks around. But the early stages will all be done down south.

Choosing the Engine

The engine is the other big choice, and there are quite a few of them. Again, Frank and I narrowed it down to three – Zetec, Duratec 2.0 or Duratec 2.3.

Both are fine engines from Ford. The Zetec is a little older, and a little less easy to tune due to some inefficiencies in the head, apparently. It’s also heavier, being an all-steel block compared to the Duratec ally block.

The other main difference as far as I could tell from the engines was the exhaust side – passenger for the Zetec, drivers for the Duratec.

While the Zetec is a fine engine, it appeared that the Duratec was overtaking it as the engine of choice for clubmans, so I decided to go that path. Plus, these things are loud regardless of where the exhaust is. Go out in a clubman and see if there’s a massive difference from the drivers or passengers side…..you’re still going to go deaf.

So, now the choice was which engine. The 2.0 litre is better for street, being a revvier, more flexible engine. The 2.3 litre is apparently better for massive high end power (can go to 300bhp). I was ultimately aiming for something with better street performance than ultimate high-end power, so I went for the 2.0 litre. Both are fine engines, however in all honesty the 2.3 is probably overkill. Plus, you need to have somewhere to go once you're bored with what you have.....

Choosing the Chassis

The next two steps were an agony of indecision – IRS versus Live Axle, and the various engine choices.

IRS is Independent Rear Suspension, where each wheel can move independently of each other. Live Axle is a solid rear axle, where if one wheel moves, so does the other. In theory, IRS gives better traction on rough surfaces, as each wheel can move independently to provide maximum grip. IRS will also cause the car to squat under high power loads, giving better grip off the line and when applying power through corners. By implication, IRS can also handle higher power limits, and is just less likely to spit you off the road.

Live Axle, on the other hand, is lighter and far easier to set up. IRS has all sorts of arms and linkages to get right before it handles properly. Live Axle is a simple case of bolting stuff together. You also have far fewer setup options for the rear tyres – simply bolt them on and go. If you want toe-in, bend the rear axle. With IRS would have all sorts of fiddly bits to tune and adjust each time.

It all comes down to what you want to do with the car. For track-days and smooth surfaces, Live Axle is better in that it’s lighter. If you can rely on the roads being smooth and steady, you can fling the thing around as well as an IRS. For roads, especially country roads, an IRS might one day be the difference between taking a corner and visiting the shrubbery, especially if you’re not the best driver in the world.

I’m not the best driver in the world, and I like to drive on country roads with all their pot-holes, gravel and undulations. Indeed, once you see where I’m building the thing, you’ll note that it’s probably a few hundred kays from any smooth surface.

So I went for the IRS for a couple of reasons – I’ll be on some rough roads and I want to feel that the car has the best chance of keeping me there, simple as that. The Live Axle provides more “fun” in terms of sliding the back end at lower speeds / power, which I must admit I quite enjoy. But I’ll still be able to do that with the IRS, I’m sure…..

Choosing the Manufacturer

The first thing to do is to decide which Clubman to build. There are a huge number of options out there, from Westfield to Caterham to Fraser to Birkin to Elfin…..the list goes on. Given that I have no experience what-so-ever in the mechanical department, I decided to limit my choice to the local companies, leaving Westfield and Birkin.

The first thing to do, obviously, is visit each company. First trip was to Frank at Motowest, the local Birkin distributor. Frank runs an LPG and cruise control installation business, but you wouldn’t know it given the shop floor is covered with in-progress kit cars, plus the odd rare racing bike or two. It’s a well set-up workshop with all the tools and equipment you could need to build a car, plus he’s happy with people having their projects on his floor (or all over his floor when an oil-line gives way…..)

My impressions of the Birkin were good – it’s an extremely close replica of the Lotus 7 / Caterham, with similar lines and dimensions. The fixtures and fittings to my inexpert eye all looked to be extremely good - the car just worked as a unit, and looked less like a kit car that's been cobbled togther and more like a production car quality. All the parts fitted into an overall whole.

What I also liked was that Frank stood and chatted for ages on the car, the options, the abilities, the other options, how the other cars were coming together, how his car was coming apart for improvements then going back together etc. I certainly didn’t get the feeling that I was being sold anything, or that there was any sort of pressure. Which is nice when you don’t have a clue.

The next trip was to Westfield. Westfield is a name I knew in England, and it would be interesting to see what it was like over in Aus.

The Westfield’s in WA are imported chassis from the UK, modified for local standards and the dreaded ADRs. The showroom there is also littered with in-progress Westies, plus a few Cobras (one of the other lines of the Replica Motor Car Company).

Again, quite an impressive setup, plus I got to take the demonstrator out for a spin. I hadn’t driven a clubman for a while, so it was fantastic to take one out again. I must admit to being a little surprised at how squirrelly it was in the back end – nothing scary, I just knew that there was some back-end activity available when required ;-)

This was a great deal of fun, until I discovered that the throttle would stick in the fully open position if you floored it. I found this out when I lifted off the throttle as the bus in front of me slowed to a stop – and the Westfield kept on launching itself at the back of the bus. Luckily, I managed to turn the engine off complete and use the ample brakes to not wedge myself under the rear end, and roll it backwards into a car-park, much to the amusement of a few onlookers.

Not that it coloured my opinion – these things can happen, and it’s not like it was a serious fault, but it did dampen the amount of fun I could have…..Other points I liked about the Westie was that it was wider, giving more room for driver and passenger and making it a little more practical.

Overall, however, I decided on he Birkin – it was closer to my Caterham, and in my opinion looked more like what I was after. As I have said (and will no doubt say many times), I’m no engineer, so I cannot comment on various qualities around chassis design and suspension setup. I just bought with my eyes and heart and went for it.

My history with the class and other cars

I'm now building a clubman (more on that later), but I have had one in the past. I used to live in the UK, and when I was in Leeds (and therefore close to the Pennines, the Yorkshire Moors, and hundreds of twisty roads) I thought about getting a little sports car to run around in.

Personally, I like small cars. I like going fast, sure, but I really like acelleration and cornering. Top line speed in a clubman is never good - ancient design means a poor cd (co-efficient of drag). Basically they're a brick at speed and hit a wall at around 180kph. Later designs are getting better, but it's still the same concept.

So that ruled out all the usual "big" car options - my two choices at the time were a Lotus Elise and a Caterham.

Long story short - basically everyone had a Lotus, and few people had a Caterham. Plus, the Caterham had everything the Elise had and more, in my opinion, plus it just looked amazing. The classic lines of an older sports car (I love MGBs and Triumph Spitfires, by the way) with the handling, accelleration, braking and overall performance of a modern car.

So the Caterham is was. The basic spec for the car was:

• Caterham SuperSport


• 1.6 litre K-Series engine uprated to 145bhp


• Six-speed gearbox


• LSD


• Anti-cavitation tank


• Uprated front brakes


• Built in fire extinguisher (for scaring passengers)


• All weather gear (it's the UK!)

And it was pretty damn fast - 0-60mph in about 6.2 seconds in a motorised tea-tray. Enough to get me going, anyway.

Over my year's ownership, never missed a beat, apart from once when the alternator cooked the battery (leading to plumes of acid vapour pouring out of the bonnet - very dramatic), and once when I hit a patch of mud on a back country road and understeered into a bank.

Oh, and once coming around a corner on a one-way lane and meeting a tractor with a forklift attachment coming the other way. Very exciting.....

But really, it was a year of just driving somewhere for the hell of it. Downsides were based on where I had to keep the car - I was living in the centre of Leeds, so I left it at my clients factory. Every time I wanted a drive, I had to walk 15 minutes, go through the gates, take the cover off the car (it was outside....), change shoes, put the steering wheel on, take the roof off, then drive out. It would take 30 minutes from start to finish, which really does take the edge off.

I've made damn sure that I now have a place which is undercover and within seconds of my front door for the new one.....

I've also owned a few other fun cars - from a Mitsubishi Cordia (that blew up), to a Suzuki Swift GTi (that travelled with me to the UK and was sold to a Kiwi who was going to race it), to a Porsche 964 /911 Carrera 4 in Dubai that was a hell of a lot of fun but damn expensive to maintain.

What is a Clubman?

There are loads of websites that can tell you all about the history of the clubman, and the original Colin Chapman designs leading to the Lotus 7 - I won't list them all here because if you're reading this you've probably heard of Google which is really all you need to know. However, what's more interesting from my point of view is - why would someone want a clubman?

The clubman to my mind is the ultimate driving experience - there's no other way of feeling more connected to car, the road and the environment (sometimes too much so for the last one) than in a clubbie. There's no power steering, no power assisted brakes, no trick electronics to keep you on the road - and there doesn't need to be. The clubman as a design is so lightweight, easy to drive and communicative that all of this additional stuff just doesn't need to be there.

"Modern" vehicles have all these wonderful features designed to take away your ability to drive the car. They separate you from the road and the conditions through layers of electronics designed to make you "safer". So, if you push a modern car too hard through a corner, it may electronically adjust the drive to the wheels, ignore your throttle inputs and safely steer you through the corner. All that means is that you think you're a better driver than you are, and you might end up pushing the thing to the point where even the electronics can't save you - and you're certainly going to fast then to save yourself.

The clubman simply does away with all of that and tells you all of the information you need to know in order to drive the car. You know how the car is reacting, you know when your pushing too hard. The nice thing is they're so capable you rarely (OK, I rarely) pushed it beyond it's limits before I got scared and backed off. Just means I wasn't trying hard enough....

So there you go - if you consider yourself a driver in the purist sense of the word, then you need to have driven a clubman at least once in your life. If you do that, it's a short step to buying one, and a slightly longer step to building one. You won't regret it.