Long term future

Time to fight back – we need to change the image of the industry

Having just spent a couple of years of long nights and weekends in the garage, my pride and joy is approaching the dreaded IVA. It makes me realise just how much bureaucracy and red tape is involved. The problem is the “grey suits”, we simply do not fit neatly into all the boxes they have to tick. We are individuals and officialdom hates nothing more than individuals. I can see that in time, with the EU involved, the rules and regulations will become so complicated, ridiculous and long winded, that it will mean that building your own car just simply isn’t worth doing, at which point they  have won and this industry will disappear into the mists of time.
But I believe we have all the weapons we need to fight back. First of all, look at what we do, most of us get hold of a donor vehicle, strip out the engine, gearbox, brakes suspension etc to rebuild and put in our new kit car. This is an absolute classic case of recycling. Most of the energy and resources that went into making the original are being used again and not thrown away. We then put them into a powder coated chassis and cover them with aluminium and grp panels, quite simply something built for the long term, not a throw away rust bucket designed to fall apart after a few short  years, how good is that for the environment. And then there is the finished car itself, my donor car weighed half as much again as the finished kit, now we all know that means is it will go a lot faster than the original but we should be telling people what it really means is that when driven at the same speed it will be more economical. The engine has been rebuilt, I didn’t do that for the extra power, it’s so it’s outputting less emissions. I’m sure if someone did a survey, for every kit car completed there have been at least three polar bears saved.
We can use all the same buzz words the politicians love and jump on the same bandwagon, it’s just a matter of presenting the image that we are not a lot of crazy petrol heads with dirty finger nails but a group of caring eco-warriors. Let’s face it, if we were doing it with washing machines we’d be heroes.
Seriously though, if building a kit car could be viewed as recycling, what Politian would dare try and stop it, maybe we could even get one or two on board – now who’s that one who races Aston Martins?