Floor!

Very excited, my garage floor tiles have arrived!

That is all.

Garage progress

Now that the kit is ordered, rather than twiddle my thumbs, I need to crack on with getting the garage ready as there is still quite a bit to do. I have ripped out the old electrics (which wouldn't have passed any modern test), an old workbench (which I will replace with something bigger) and started painting the walls. To make it more comfortable in the winter I have put up a ceiling (thanks for the help Dad) which I intend to insulate and board over in time, which will give me a great ceiling space to store lightweight parts like body panels. The beams are really close together, so I've had to cut part of one of them and move it over to allow for a decent sized loft hatch.

I've currently got no lights and limited temporary power in there at the moment, so that will be the first thing to sort out. I was going to paint the floor, but after spending some time on my knees painting the walls I've decided to buy some proper rubber tiles instead, as this will be a much nicer surface to work on and should also help with the insulation a bit. There are also plenty of things to throw out or sell to make a bit of room.

Right, I need to get on with it. Anyone want to buy a fridge freezer or a mini moto?

Factory Visit

The only way to order a kit car is to visit the factory, meet the people and go for a spin in a finished car, so that's what I did at the weekend. Myself and a friend had a blat up the M1 to Nottinghamshire and spent a few hours with Keith and the team. First up was a tour of the factory, which was pretty much exactly what I was expecting, being a small industrial unit stuffed with parts. It was a bit messy, as they were in the process of finishing off a new clean room for the manufacture of suspension and other precision parts and also making way for a new milling machine that was being delivered the following week. There were half a dozen or so built and half-built cars (not all of GBS origin) having various things done to them in the workshop.

After that, it was time for a trip out in a company demonstrator. The Mazda Zero was out on a magazine photo shoot, so once all its fluids had been checked the faithful old Ford Zero was fired up. I was always going to buy the Mazda, as it's slightly more cost-effective, but it didn't matter too much as the Ford demonstrator had stainless steel panels and a bigger engine, which made it a bit heavier and meant it had roughly the same power-to-weight ratio as is ultimately possible from the Mazda. Given that this is over 250 BHP per tonne, it doesn't hang about and with Keith being an ex-rally driver, the drive was fantastic.

All that was then required was to specify what I wanted and pay a deposit! In the end I went for:

• Extra front cross bracing (this cannot be added later, so I thought the extra stiffness was worth it from the start)
• Lowered floor (to allow the seats to be mounted on adjustable runners)
• Cobra hoops (rather than the standard roll bar)
• Sport front wings (I think they look a little better that the standard cycle wings)
• Orange GRP panels
• Black dashboard
• Black rear diffuser

Colour-wise, I've always thought some colours work on certain cars and some don't. I liked the yellow, orange, white and red but have already seen lots of yellow and red Sevens on the road. I own a white car (the dreamy 1.4 Polo), so I decided on orange. I think it will contrast very nicely with black wheels, chassis, dashboard and rear diffuser as well as many of the GBS machined parts, which happen to be orange and black. I nearly changed my mind though, when I saw how many orange panels there were ready for delivery in the warehouse!

As others have said, everyone at the factory was really friendly and very enthusiastic, happy to talk through everything in great detail, which helped to reinforced my decision to go with GBS over one of the more established brands.

Seeing as the factory is a good 3 hours away in a van, I intend to go back up and collect everything in one hit, which should be in about 12 to 16 weeks. Can't wait!

A strange thing to do

Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start), why try to build a car? Well, I've always wanted to, it's that simple. I've always liked building models, having an extensive Airfix and Lego collection as a kid and always thought building a whole car would be fun, albeit a bit more challenging. A new house now gives me the space to do it and my life savings are ready!

Why choose a Seven-style kit? It's a classic design and everyone knows what it is. I've never really understood the desire to build a car that apes something more expensive, an old MR2 with a Ferrari body stuck on top, for example. I prefer something a bit more original (if you can call one of the most copied car designs ever original!). It's also about ratios: thrust-to-weight and cost-to-fun and a Seven is a whole lot of bang for the buck.

Why a GBS Zero? When I first start looking at kits years ago I thought I would go for a Tiger Cat, it was very cheap and at that time, that was important! More recently I started researching properly and found the Cat was discontinued and nothing else from the Tiger brochure really slapped me in the face. Westfield and Caterham obviously had the pedigree, but that comes at a premium when toting up prices. The Dax Rush has always been lovely to look at, but again it's expensive and Dax have recently sold it off to another manufacturer.

I'm not sure how I originally came across GBS, as they didn't even exist when I first looked years ago, it was probably just a simple kit car manufacturer search on Google. The Zero looked very nice, was very competitively priced and a bit of research online found many happy campers, praising both the quality of the car and the company itself. More investigation was required. The next kit car show was in Exeter, a bit of a trek from Surrey but worth it to chat with Keith from GBS, look over the car and talk to people who had built one. Decision made!

Finally, why write a blog? Well, to start with, the Zero does not come with a build manual! Assembly comes down to knowledge, common sense and help online in the form of forums and blogs. I will be making full use of that community and if I can add to it in any way, great. It's also nice to have a record for my own benefit I suppose.

Now, first things first, what needs doing in the garage?