Every so often me and a few friends come up with a plan to go racing, or perhaps hillclimbing on the cheap. Usually this involves some sort of road car racing formulae. One year it was the Fiat Challenge. That idea petered out when we found how hard it was to find an Uno with a solid shell and the right engine. Older stuff like 127s and 128s would have had a better retro feel but finding one of them with the right engine was even harder. Some people reckoned you could race on the smaller 1050 engine, but it appeared like you'd be at a huge disadvantage.
Anyway the current plan is to build a single seater, and we wanted something really simple. Having considered F750 in the past we looked at the 750MCs championships and spotted Formula Vee. Yup I could definitely build one of those. There isn't even the usual complex suspension design because they have a beetle front beam and most of the beetle's rear suspension too. More or less all you need to do is build a spaceframe to hold the two ends together. OK so I'm oversimplifying, but it's a damned sight easier than building, say a Terrapin.
The only sticking point I can see is the fact that they have the engine in the middle, and seem to achieve this through turning the standard transaxle round. The question for the VW boys is how do you modify a beetle transaxle to achieve this?
I don't want to start this if it turns out you need to spend a fortune on Hewland internals or some such.
Anyway the current plan is to build a single seater, and we wanted something really simple. Having considered F750 in the past we looked at the 750MCs championships and spotted Formula Vee. Yup I could definitely build one of those. There isn't even the usual complex suspension design because they have a beetle front beam and most of the beetle's rear suspension too. More or less all you need to do is build a spaceframe to hold the two ends together. OK so I'm oversimplifying, but it's a damned sight easier than building, say a Terrapin.
The only sticking point I can see is the fact that they have the engine in the middle, and seem to achieve this through turning the standard transaxle round. The question for the VW boys is how do you modify a beetle transaxle to achieve this?
I don't want to start this if it turns out you need to spend a fortune on Hewland internals or some such.