LocostUSA.com

I grew up in the UK and always aspired to own a kit car, I once took a 3.0 V6 Dutton Phaeton for a test drive and it scared the life out of me - I was probably only 18 and pressing the accelerator pedal while braking was quite a formative experience! I’m now living the American dream, initially in Texas and now Arizona. I brought an unfinished project with me from Texas that sat in my garage for 3 years and after a 3 month push, it’s now ready for a 2000 mile road trip back to the Good guys car show in Texas with my brother who’s flying in to join me as part of his 50th birthday fun. To me, it’s a Lotus 7 on Steroids, 400hp, 3300lbs, over 8’ wide and a blast to drive. Most love it, some hate it - beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say!
I’m now planning my next project which is likely the complete the opposite scale - a lightweight small engine Locost 7 - a different kind of fun to build and drive, hopefully this one won’t take so long to build…
I’ll share some pics of my current car as soon as the Admins approve this post, thanks!

I've seen pics of your car, and I think most of us here are going to love it, or at least admire it from afar, but at roughly triple the weight, ten times the horsepower, and dang near double the width of a Lotus 7, I can't say I'm going to think of it as a "Lotus 7 on Steroids." I think of the Lotus Super Seven as a Lotus 7 on Steroids. Which doesn't mean I don't love it, just that, to me, it's more of a Hot Rod on Steroids than a Lotus 7 on Steroids.

Don't get me wrong, this group is quite wide open and welcoming to non-traditional builds (hence the name of this Building Non-Traditionally forum), and let me be the first to welcome you aboard.I'm looking forward to it.This is your second approved post, so you can now post without adult supervision! I'm sorry it was a hassle for you to reach this point, but you wouldn't believe literally thousands of spams we get in our search for genuine car builders such as yourself, so everybody has to jump through a couple of hoops to get on board.

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Locost builder and adventurer, and founder (but no longer owner) of Kinetic Vehicles

Thanks, I appreciate the warm welcome and comments! I’m sure Colin Chapman would be challenging the weight and I’d be listening intensely to his suggestions - I bought the car as an unfinished project, the vision was amazing, but some of the poor execution resulted in disassembling the whole car and building it up again; the chassis and body supports are way over engineered, which goes well with the heavy engineering style, but not great for weight. C’est La vie, lots of pointers for the next version
Here’s a pic - Thanks to my neighbours for hosting more pics here - https://www.centurialinc.com/jeep-rod
The chassis is custom rails with a cross frame, running Dodge Ram truck front and rear suspension. The body tub is a smoothed Jeep CJ7, finished with white bed liner. Engine is a 5.7 Hemi from a 2013 Dodge Challenger. She’s sitting on 22” rims that track surprisingly well considering their size. She’s a blast to drive and in the few weeks since being finished, we’ve entered and won at many local Car shows - I love building things, the recognition is the icing on the cake!
For my next project, the intention is build something much, much smaller, maybe using a Suzuki Samurai body tub, but my challenge is what engine to use, I’m thinking something really small and turbocharged - what do you think?