Toniq makes kit car available for sale
Toniq-R reaches critical phase, and makes it onto C4
November 2004 Toniq-R update
The two big news items from young kit car company Toniq this month are that the car and the process of building and designing it are to be televised, and that it now has a price tag and is available for sale. Toniq also provides a detailed insight into the design and engineering challenges facing the company, below.
The long-awaited Toniq-R is now available as a complete turnkey car from £16,995 (delivery spring 2005) or as a kit from £3,995 (delivery 6-8 weeks from deposit). The kit includes all the unique Toniq-R items as well as pretty much all the ancillary compoents you need.
Toniq aims to get the car off to a photo shoot near the SVA testing stage, closer to the end of the year. Potential customers wishing to come and have a look/sit in the car with a view to ordering a kit or complete car, please contact Ian Gray on 0115 944 7644 or ian@stuart-taylor.co.uk
Toniq on telly
Toniq has announced that the Toniq-R will televised next week, on Wednesday 17 November at 9:30 am on Channel 4. The programme was made by TV production company Evans Woolfe and tells the Toniq-R story.
From the designers' initial drive to build a car, the early sketches, and the engineering challenges they faced, the programme finishes on them driving the car (with big fat grins) for the first time.
Toniq adds that next week, from Monday 15 November to Friday 19 November C4 is screening half-hour shows on Channel 4 at 9:30 am looking at all aspects of the engineering industry. Although aimed at GCSE and A level students, they reckon there is much that will interest "many of us car mad people."
Design issues -- final tweaks
Toniq designers Will Baxter and Colin Williams explain what they have been doing in the last month.
"Looking in more detail at the problem that we faced with the top of the carburettors sticking out of the bonnet, Ian had the idea that we should mount them on an angle, to lose vertical height, so that they lay over the top of the engine more, and in less of a vertical plane. This, coupled with the repositioning of the accelerator cable-mount dropped the height of the top of the engine and carburettors by a remarkable 30mm, allowing the top of the carbs to fit 3mm below the underside of the reinforced bonnet - precision engineering!
"As you can see from the images, we first tested 
the shape and size of the inlet sleeve in nylon which was offered up into position. Once happy with this, we used our local supplier to machine an aluminium sleeve from a solid block. This was then cut into two sections, down the middle, to avoid heat cracking between the four air inlet pipes.
"If you look at the shape of the white nylon example held in my hand you can see it is narrower at one end and flares out to hold the carburettors on an angle below the bonnet, this shows how we tipped the carburettors.
"Future cars will be offered with a post 2000 
Fireblade injection engine which avoids this problem as the injector units can be fitted in a more appropriate position without having to worry about the bonnet or the carburettors working on an angle. Having said that - this car works well, so earlier carburettor engines will be available too.
"The front indicators have been moved from the stalks on top of the front headlights, as we thought this looked ungainly and gave the car a bog-eyed stance, rather than the precision aggressive look we are aiming for. The two images show the hole in the nose and the bars that come out of them to house the aluminium (soon to be anodised) bars. Keep a look out for these lights when we next photograph the car as a whole and see the difference it makes."
The company adds that it's proud to be associated with Stuart Taylor Motorsport (STM), which has just finished the last rounds of the 2004 race series with outstanding success. The Toniq-R shares many components with both the Locoblade and the Phoenix, indicating, says Toniq, its racetrack potential.
For more, www.toniqr.co.uk is still running but Toniq encourages you to have a look here www.stuart-taylor.co.uk site for more Toniq-R details.
eMither said:
The Toniq-R is available to buy as a complete turnkey car from £16,995 (delivery spring 2005) or as a kit from £3,995 (delivery 6-8 weeks from
deposit). The kit includes all the unique Toniq-R items as well as much more: Chassis, Arm Set IRS, 11 Piece Body, Light Set, Roll Bar, Paddle Shift Kit, Engine Cradle, Aluminium Set (includes floor), Aluminium Wing Stays, Seats & Runners, Shocks & Springs Set, Pedal Box and Master Cylinders, Copper Brake Pipe Set, Aeroquip Hoses. Contact Ian Gray on 0115 944 7644 or ian@stuart-taylor.co.uk to order
So, just wheels, engine, gearbox, diff, steering and brakes to add...
>> Edited by Guy Humpage on Friday 12th November 15:34
Nothing like getting someone else to do our marketing for us! You can complete a Fireblade engined car from the £3995 kit for about £10-12k depending on specification. All cars will need painting, rather than a gel coat, which also means that every owner can choose any colour in the world for their car.
Will
Co-founder Toniq Ltd
Will Ferrari said:
Thanks Guy,
Nothing like getting someone else to do our marketing for us! You can complete a Fireblade engined car from the £3995 kit for about £10-12k depending on specification. All cars will need painting, rather than a gel coat, which also means that every owner can choose any colour in the world for their car.
Will
Co-founder Toniq Ltd
Honest answer! How does a £4k kit get to £10-12K?
Genuine question.
XM5er said:
Honest answer! How does a £4k kit get to £10-12K?
Genuine question.
Try out the build cost estimator on Madabout and it will list the sort of things you may need when building a kit car.
You could probably knock off quite a few bits from the list with it being a 7-esque type and bike engined, just get the estimate and work backwards knocking the price off of things you don't need.
TBH it's quite refreshing for a company to be honest with their estimate of how much it will actually cost to build.
Cheers, John
www.Madabout-Kitcars.com
cymtriks said:
So how much did it cost and how long did it take to get the project to this stage? I'm sure a lot of us would be very interested in this!
Well done toniq by the way.
Q1.How Long did it take?
1 year full time for the concept car. Then 2 more years mainly part time for the production vehicle. So it's now 3 years (Oct 2001- Oct 2004)from Design Brief to driving car.
Q2.How much did it cost?
The 1st year concept car alone cost £12k for materials and 8,000 hours of our student labour (£5 an hour = £40k) and free University facilities for the year (estimated at £10-20k).
The development costs have been covered by the shareholders, which I will not go into detail on, but to look at some costs, we have mould the entire car twice (£few thousand each go) and display at Donington 3 years on the go (£300-600 each), websites, marketing brochures, painting the 2 development cars, all the mechanics in the first drivable car, tooling up costs for roll bars, tweaks to Stuart Taylor chassis, new rear suspension arms (all these are £many hundreds each). And then they'll be all the hours of work we did every weekend.
I hope this helps, I know its only a guide but we've not done it to a cost, we've done it for love of cars and you can't quantify the value of that.
If you want us to produce a one off car to your design we'll happily do it all for £1million, including 12 months free road tax & a fuel tank of fuel.
Will
Toniq Ltd
XM5er said:
Thanks Guy,
Nothing like getting someone else to do our marketing for us! You can complete a Fireblade engined car from the £3995 kit for about £10-12k depending on specification. All cars will need painting, rather than a gel coat, which also means that every owner can choose any colour in the world for their car.
Will
Co-founder Toniq Ltd
Honest answer! How does a £4k kit get to £10-12K?
Genuine question.
Easy! If you use new or recon components.
Alex (Stuart Taylor Locosaki builder)
Engineering at the Cutting Edge, on Channel 4 featured the Toniq-R today at 9.30am, rather than the scheduled 9.30am tommorow (Wednesday 17.11.04). So I am afraid anyone who was planning to watch it has now missed it.
The show told the story from design brief all the way through to the 1st running car.
Will
Toniq Ltd
>> Edited by Will Ferrari on Tuesday 16th November 11:12
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