R300 alternative

[monaco]

OK Chaps,

I would realy love a caterham r300/r500, I love the looks and performance, BUT if you only had about £10,000 to spend, what would be an alternative ??

if such a thing exists !! I'm looking for the no-windscreen, full race stripped out and full cage look etc.

Is there anything that comes close in looks AND performance for this type of cash ???

[derekandrewjones]

Monaco

My first suggestion would be a bike powered seven, either a Westfield Megablade (like me) or a locost version, MK or ST do nice ones. If you would prefer a non-7 based car then you can get bike powered Fury's etc. If you dont want to go down the bike powered route (maybe want to use it on the road a lot) then you can get alteratives to the Caterham for a lot less if you look around.
Try www.blatchat.com or www.wscc.co.uk (westfield club, includes forum) or come and have a chat with us on the bike-engined-cars yahoo group.
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/bike-engined-cars/

Lots of owners have web sites and are happy to share in all of the details, whether good or bad ! Happy hunting !

Derek

[juansolo]

1/ Build an S2000 powered Westfield. A lot more involved than it sounds mind.
2/ Buy a 2nd hand Superlight (basically an R300 with all the right bits on it).
3/ Build a Sylva/Westie with Vauxhall XE or Zetec power.

They'd be my choices.

[simonbell]

Have you looked at Birkin?

I think they do a race car...at least in America, not sure if they advertise it here in the UK. It`s basically a Birkin with all the unnecessary bits stripped out.

One of these with a recon engine or even a bike engine shouldn`t be far off your budget abd will certainly be a hell of a lot cheaper than an R300.

My Birkin is around 560kg with 170 bhp from a zetec which eqautes to approx 300bhp per tonne. It is now going on a diet and some fitness training to try and get 400 bhp per tonne.

Simon