The Birkin

The Birkin
The finished article

Monday, February 19, 2007

....and once more back to Perth

Well, nothing was happening on the car, plus I was getting a little concerned that there was little that I could really achieve until the car was painted. I mean, I was bolting in all sorts of things, but not torquing them up because it all had to come out again once it was ready to paint, so why not paint and then build it once? Could take a long time otherwise....

So the car came back to Perth yesterday, bolted onto the painting frame and on a trailer. It was an extremely odd drive, with the nosecone about a foot from the rear window and just over the roofline of my brother-in-laws car. Also got a few looks from people passing by.....


Anyway, it's now back in Frank's workshop - this weekend I'll be in drilling and prepping, then it will be off to the painters. The intention at this stage is still to paint it Hothouse Green, but I'm wondering what that would look like with copper threaded through it. Might be more trouble than it's worth, but I'll have a chat to the paint guy and work something out.


Once that's done, I'll be able to put things into the car for real and stop pretending ;-)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi there, I am moving over to perth in feb and am wanting to build a lotus 7, how do I go about getting on the road? is there any certification nedded etc

JDoc said...

Good question - but where to start. The basic steps are:
1. Get a letter from Vehicle Licencing giving you permission to build an ICV
2. Build the car!
3. Get an engineer to inspect the vehicle and provide an inspection certificate
4. Take it to a vehicle inspection centre, and they'll check it and sign it off.

Of course, this assumes you're building a known brand - if you're going the Locost route, then there's a lot more to consider. Get the wrong engineer and you could be doing torsional rigidity tests etc. Also make sure you choose a compliant engine - again, speak to an engineer.

There's lots and lots on this at www.oz-clubbies.com

Hope this helps....