Trey ever tried driving a dune buggy or sand rail? Very fun but with four tires. You just got to be careful to keep hands in side if you roll over. Thats my other vehicle addiction. Three buggys and a chenoweth pre runner rail.

 

Negative, I think I'd prefer the dirt bike.

 

I would love to have a street rail as a daily driver. Lighter than air, and emissions-exempt if done properly.

Trouble is that every single chassis I've found for the T1 drivetrain uses a swingaxle rear suspension and either a stock torsion-beam front, or a swing-style, ultra-long-arm design suitable only for drag cars running bicycle tires on the front.

 

Miatas are used as the base for just about every other type of kit car, surely there is a buggy you can make using the miata double-wishbone or something.

 

The problem is that there are no 1975 or older Miatas available to use as donors. (Also, the Miata drivetrain is relatively heavy, and not well suited to mid-engine / rear drive implementation.)

Were it not for this, I'd have shut up and bought an Exocet long ago.

 

Ah yeah, California problems. I forgot.

 

Joe, have you looked at FWD engine + transaxle combinations? Maybe not much selection pre '75... was there anything sold in the US? Rabbit came out in '74.

If you can work with something from the 80's then the choices open up.

 

Why isn't Joe building a Locost?

 

DING, DING, DING! Folks, we have a winner here!

But Joe is tall, so he needs to build the 442 chassis Locost instead of the standard Seven which is effectively limited to guys 5'8" and shorter.

 

****, I have a bad case of dirt-bike fever.

 

Dirt bikes are win. I rode mine into/under the back end of a Tacoma on Friday because I am a noob, it was raining, and I did not leave myself enough following distance. Amazingly, I am unhurt and the bike will only need $100-150 to repair. Kind of bike I have (don't have any pics pre-crash):

 

I'm after one of these:

 

Why don't you just put whatever engine you want in it, and tell them its somthing else with an efi conversion if applicable?

 

I have dreamed about it. Hell, that's how they build the Atom. But as you note, there really aren't any decent FWD options pre-76. The automotive world pretty much sucked at that time. The Celica and Corolla were RWD until '85, the Civic sucked ***** in the '70s (as did the very few American FWD platforms), Mazda and Datsun hardly had anything worth mentioning in the US at the time, etc.

No, the proper solution for a mid/rear vehicle is a type 1 VW engine mated to a 914 transmission. They're cheap and light, and aftermarket parts support for them is mind-blowing.


Nope. 1975 is the hard cutoff. After that, nothing changes until OBD-II. Used to be a 25 year rolling exemption (in which case my Miata would be exempt in two years) but they killed that a while back.


Joe's welding skills suck. And he's lazy.


Because when you register a homebrew in CA, you have to go to a Referee Station for initial inspection. And the refs aren't idiots- they specialize in kitcars, engine swaps, grey-market imports, etc.



That, and Joe is going through sort of a transitional period right now. It's not a good time for him to be committing to major investments of time, space and money.

 

Menopause already?

 

Net providers begin warning of illegal downloads - New York News | NYC Breaking News

 

I like how one post on Facebook about buying a dirt-bike is a trigger for everyone to post dirt-bike gore.

 

When your product is too expensive for the market, use litigation to supplement income.

 

“I hate business people,” said Kayne West. “Since when was making art about getting rich?”

 

This just in:
Sitting on the sofa and eating cheetos is more safe than riding a dirt-bike.