Hi
Amazed to find this thread. I build this car back in 1986. I found pictures of it in Flickr. You've probably seen them but here's the link anyway.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/midasracer ... otostream/I used a smashed MG Metro as the donor vehicle. It was A reg as I recall. I needed to change the front and rear subframes too as they'd been damaged in the accident. I used the MG steering wheel, and fitted Cobra highback fabric covered seats. The pattern was a bit like the original XR3 pattern.
Once the car was up and running I realised that there was something amiss in the gearbox, whining noises in third and fourth as I recall, so had the gearbox reconditioned and at the same time had a 2.9 diff put in in place of the 3.44. It was a bit like having a 5 speed box with no first, but since the car was so light it was no problem. I also fitted Lumenition ignition as the Ducellier distributor was a pain to set. The other mod I did was to fit nylatron bushed in the front suspension lower arms and for the anti roll bar. These gave you more negative camber, which made the car great fun on roundabouts. Latterly there was some problem with the engine or gearbox and so I sourced another complete unit from a scrap yard and swapped that in. That would have been 1990 or 1991. Can't remember what the problem was, but I was then back to a 3.44 diff.
One thing the factory offered that I had done was to have 4 nuts bonded into the roof to allow a roof rack to be fitted. Never used them.
The other 'fun' thing I had was 100W bulbs in the driving lamps. Amazing lighting.
So, it was built in Peterborough, lived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne for 4 years, then Bedford for about 9 months.
It cost about £5000 to build all in, and I sold it nearly 6 years on for £2000 - not bad in real world terms, although in 1986 £5000 would have got you a 1970 Lotus Elan S4...
It was my daily drive from October 1986 to Jan 1992 when I bought a 1990 Lotus Elan. Can't remember the mileages but seem to recall having it from about 30,000 to 82,000 on the speedo.
Main problem I had was that the colour faded badly. Also being an early car it had to go back to have the top front suspension mounting points refibreglassed.
I sold it in May 1992 to a colleague in Sunderland area. I'll send you his name if you PM me. I'm not sure how long he had it or who he sold it on to.
If you're interested I can send some scanned pics of the car back then.
Anyway great to see it is still around
David