hello from the U.K! Building a Chesil Speedster

Glad you made it back to the fun stuff. Don’t forget to share your experiences and of course photos. We love photos. 

John,  nice site and nice work... I particularly likes the quote :

" Intermeccania "   for us owners of Intermeccanica it is a Mania  

The other part that made me laugh is you mentioned not driving it in the rain.  

As a London friend of mine use to say, rain, I never played on the pitch except when it was wet... 

I will look forward to your posts... Have fun Ray

Thanks guys.

Ray - well spotted, that just made me laugh too, now updated! Fair point about the rain, I may be restricted myself to the one day a year it's not damp here...

John, where I live north of the 49th parallel we need roll up windows and a good sealing top so I have an IM.  Roll up windows are the cats meow for inclement weather.  

Your site is awesome... Ray 

Curious how "kit cars" are registered in the UK.  Seems UK cars keep their license plate forever in the UK so does that mean you got an old license plate from a VW with the modified VW chassis?  Also, think someone said new safety features - like higher headlamps and an exterior fuel filler were also required.  Are their others?

Ray - Chesil does have wind-up windows.  Their solution isn't particularly elegant but appears to work well and could be replicated on US Speedsters.

Hi Wolfgang,

You’re right about registration. The chassis came with a registration document from the original Beetle (which is a 72/73 year). This is a ‘historical’ registration meaning that you can use the old black and white registration plates and also means you don’t have to pay road tax.

To register the car once it’s finished, you have to first put the car through an Individual Vehicle Approval (IVA) test which tests the safety issues you mentioned. It tests various issues including safety, like sharp edges (for people in the car and outside it), seat belt anchorages, build quality (fuel line runs, wiring), emissions, noise levels, brakes etc and covers the external fuel filler you mentioned. It also tests things like wing mirrors which have to snap back if contacted with something external, so it limits choice of some parts. Seats also have to have head rests which is why most Chesils don’t use the original style Speedster seats. 

Provided you keep a number of components from the original car (like chassis, steering, transmission) you can keep the original registration which is then changed to show a Chesil. This also avoids receiving a dreaded Q-plate registration which automatically identifies the kit as a kit car and which is seen to de-value cars for some reason. 

Have you seen any IM's in England?  They have all sorts of IVR safety items done to them like side markers, high point seat belts etc. and they are finished by some company in England. 

@Hansblix2001 John, good to know that you are able to get cracking on your Chesil project. I's sure I'm not the only one that will enjoy following your build. Thanks for sharing your build link. 

WRT weather, there is an axiom for the wet weather in the State of Washington..."If you can see Mt. Rainier, it's going to rain. If you can't see Mt. Rainier, its raining". 

@Hansblix2001- Hi John, read part of your blog (saving the rest for later). One point- if you re-set the rear torsion bars to stock specs (17 degrees?) the back will be very tall (and the car will look very silly). I suggest somewhere around 11-12' to start- it should drop the car about 2" from stock. Also note (if you're still thinking about them)- adjustable spring plates are very heavy- the set I have weigh 2530 and 2598 grams respectively. An irs double spring plate weighed 2514 grams while a single irs spring plate weighed 1779 g.

I've gone a slightly different route- as I probably will never play with the ride height (once set) and am looking to get the maximum width rear tire on the car I've taken the adjustable spring plates off the car, and since I'm using swing axle torsion bars (and caps) have cut down 2 swing axle spring plates to fit, and between the shorter torsion bars and new spring plates the car has dropped almost 9 lbs. My swing to irs spring plate weighs 997 g (I keep forgetting to weigh the other when it's off the car)- 

Also note the lightened irs pivot bolts- They went from 250 g (each) to (iIrc) about 130 g, losing another 4 oz each side.                                                                          

PS- just so you know- your pics are all backwards...

@Hansblix2001  I tried going to the Chesil site and it won't load do you know the site?

It's .biz not .com

:http://www.chesil.biz/Chesil_Home.htm

Just ignore "Swiss Cheese Al" - he likes to whistle in the wind.

@IaM-Ray and @WOLFGANG I tried going to their site (which is .biz as Wolfgang said) but it's not working for me for some reason - it did a couple of days ago. Maybe they're updating it? 

SOCers broke it!

Still doesn't work - www.chesil.biz refused to connect.

Yeah, looks like the server for the Chesil site is temporarily "indisposed".

Maybe a hole in their network.

I was in the UK about two years ago, spent a few days near Chesil, and was planning a trip to the Chesil 'works', although never did get out there.

If I recall, the company was in a state of flux at the time and ownership had just been transferred back to one of the founders (I think). The listed address was a rural home off a very narrow country road, with no outward signs of any business existing there (judging from Google Maps photos).

So, if their server is down, it could be the cat pulled the plug out of the wall.

Remember that light blue one that got pushed into the canal in UK?  That was a Chesil - it floats quite well!

https://www.alamy.com/a-chesil...-image221138290.html

WOLFGANG posted:

Remember that light blue one that got pushed into the canal in UK?  That was a Chesil - it floats quite well!

https://www.alamy.com/a-chesil...-image221138290.html

 

Evidently they are now making boats.

@Sacto Mitch correct, Chesil was sold to a company called Tygan, that then went into administration I think, so was bought back by the original owner (Peter Bailey) and became Chesil again. 

I'm hoping the website issues are pet-related and not a sign of something else!