Mango Fury 

Background to the Project

How It All Started - November 2001

There are several reasons for wanting to build this car. The first is probably something to do with age. A sort of mid-life discontent that will hopefully be satisfied by having a major project to get stuck into. Another reason is wanting to tinker with cars again after too many years of either having a company car or servicing my own car every 10,000 miles with nothing much to do in between. Finally, some of the blame has to be attributed to my good friend Simon.

Simon is the very proud owner of a TVR 3000M (left). Once I'd had a few outings in the passenger seat and one behind the wheel, the seed had been sown. I bought a few classic car magazines and seriously thought about a restoration project, Getting a classic was a possibility.

However, one of the magazines carried an advert for a second hand Westfield kit car. The thought of building a sports car as well as owning one was even more appealing. It was time to explore the world of kit cars.

Update - November 2006
Unfortunately Simon no longer has his TVR 3000M and his garage is sadly empty. Attempts to persuade him to get another TVR or to build a kit car will continue but, in the meantime, he is pursuing his other hobby as an accomplished rock guitarist in a Surrey-based band called The Sock Monkeys.

Choosing a car...

I requested a brochure via the Westfield Sports Cars web site. This duly arrived and although I was impressed by the professional nature of the literature, the likely price of a complete car was higher than I expected. But after reading through a few copies of Which Kit? and Kit Car Magazine I was convinced that there were kits out there in a more affordable price bracket.

In August, a visit to the Hickstead show, organised by Which Kit? magazine, provided the opportunity to see the contenders first hand. There are Lotus Seven style cars in abundance from Westfield, Tiger, Caterham and a dozen other companies besides and many of these were represented at the show but a handful of cars stood out as being that little bit different. These were the SSC Stylus (below, right), the GTM Libra (right) and the Fisher Fury (below left).

The Libra is both good looking and a practical everyday car. But, it is relatively expensive. With the objectives of building a car with appealing looks and within a particular cost target, the choice was narrowed down to the Stylus and the Fury.

The Fury won on the two counts. Firstly, it has a full-width bonnet that allows unrestricted access to the engine and front suspension whereas the Stylus has only a small bonnet inset into the front body section. Secondly, some of the design details make it, to my mind, a slightly nicer looking car.

An additional plus point is that the Fisher factory is a lot closer to home. SSC would have been well ahead on this point a few years ago before their move from Woking in Surrey to the depths of Wales.

On 2nd September 2001, I visited the Castle Donington Kit Car Show. Once again, Westfield showed how good their marketing department are. Quite how the young lady on their stand squeezed into her outfit is a mystery but it was clearly a crowd puller. I think they probably had some cars on display too!

Anyway, the important stand was Fisher's. Here, I chatted with Mark Fisher about building a car and sat in the cockpit of a rather nice Zetec-engined Fury and arranged a visit to the factory for later in the week.

Out on the Donington track a number of kit car owners were putting their vehicles through their paces and there were many cars on display in the car park .

Decision made...

On 7th September I visited the Fisher Sportscars factory in Kent. Mark Fisher took me out in the demo car, a Fury Spyder fitted with a Ford 1.7 litre Crossflow engine.

Some of the roads near the factory are in a very poor state but the Fury took these in its stride without transmitting much vibration through to the seats. The cornering, too, was superb with Mark pushing the car through sharp bends at impressive speeds.

Finally, I got to the drive the car myself. After very quickly getting used to the non servo-assisted brakes, I soon felt at home in the car and at the end of the run was convinced I had to build one myself.

I was also sure that the Fury version with full windscreen and doors was the variant to go for as the Spyder, with its low windshield, does not make for comfortable road use. It is probably great on the track when wearing a crash helmet, but, on the road there is not enough protection from the wind. I got out of the car after the test drive with the obligatory grin that comes with driving such a fun car.

I ordered the first part of the car, the chassis kit, a few days after the visit. With a six week wait for the kit to be ready for collection, I turned my attentions to the task of turning my garage into a suitable car-building environment by clearing a good working space and sealing the concrete with garage floor paint.