Help me out here

[ClaudiaMM]

A bit random. My nephew (a new adult, bless him) is suddenly into Kit cars, which is fabulous news, and I want to help him get started. Unfortunately, he thinks I'm very uncool and doesn't trust my advice, so instead, I'm putting a little information pack together with resources he might actually listen to  I'm including below, but I would love either some direct advice I could include or some resources you guys think are decent - thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmOTfRjr3oU

https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/blog/2025/05/ultimate-guide-build-kit-car/

https://www.carwow.co.uk/guides/glossary/what-is-a-kit-car#gref

https://www.iamroadsmart.com/groups/oad/topnews/building-a-kit-car

Will I win auntie of the year?

[alanrichey]

If he is going to be building one then the IVA Manual is absolutely essential reading

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/iva-manual-for-vehicle-category-m1

 

[AndyW]

And if he wants to look at lots of different kit cars, the Kit Car show is on at Malvern this weekend. Worth a look around if he can get to it. 

[Sparepart]

I looked at the links, reasonable enough. A "new adult" usually has a lot going on and a busy life etc. You know him better than me (obviously), first take a step back and consider whether or not to get him started on something that will take up a lot of his time. If he is rich, then of course a top price kit from Caterham can be built in several weekends with access to a decent garage and tools. Bit like buying a Lego kit to build a Star Wars object, buy the kit, follow a plan, and hey presto kit built and the itch to put it together and play with it is truly scratched, now move on to something completely different like Fly Fishing ..... you know what young adults can be like. If he is not rich, then kits that leave more for the builder to figure out and understand will take up more time and real concentration on the engineering principles involved in puting it all together. The danger is that he will run out of steam and after a year we will see the bits and pieces of his partialy completed project for sale on eBay. If you think that it is something you would like to see him doing then I would advise that finding web links to advice sites is useful but he can easily do this on his smartphone while eating his cornflakes, no, I would advise you to have a bet with him that he can't put a kit car together, a personal challenge from his aunt. If he accepts the challenge then job done, he will do the rest, if he doesn't then you will know that he is not really serious about it. OOps here I go again, on a soap box......too much advice probably.

[alanrichey]

What hasn't been mentioned of course, is the sensible option to buy a ready-built one and then customise it to how he wants it to look.   That has the advantage that he isn't thrown in the deep end and won't have to put the car through the IVA.   I am sure when I started I would not have been able to build a car from scratch, but after 12 years of tinkering with mine I think I have learned enough that I could probably build one now (Except I am too old now ).    Cars regularly appear on EBay, just make sure they are correctly registered.

 

[Jonty Wild]

Also almost certainly a lot cheaper to buy one that is reasonably well built and correctly registered. Perhaps get him to create and price up (roughly) a shopping list of the main parts he will need if he builds one, then add in 50 to a 100% - this is my guess others would know better.

[alanrichey]

Plus £1000 for the IVA

[phaeton]

Before he starts down the road he needs to find the details of a similar kit car to what he wants to build, then he needs to ring Howden, Adrian Flux & Graham Sykes to see if at 18 or as he hasn't started maybe tell them he's 20 & see if he can get insurance. I know I couldn't get add my son onto my insurance until he was 25 (I think)

It would be a shame to spend all the time on building a car to not be able to drive it.

[DAN@ADRIAN FLUX]

Hi.

If he needs any help with insurance at all then please feel free to drop me a line.

Regards,

Dan.