Gary Rafter, kit car maker
I've made three cars and I'm in the middle of making a fourth. So I suppose I'm a compulsive car builder. A few of us have set up the Irish kit car club and we have a garage in Clondalkin. There are lads who like to slag us and say "it's a plastic car" but that doesn't bother me. They are usually replicas of cars from the 1960s or 1970s, or earlier. Manufacturers can only take out a 30-year patent on a car's shape, so after that expires the kit car companies can start copying them. The most popular kit car is the Lotus Seven, but you can get Ferraris, AC Cobras and loads of other models.
The cost can be anything from €8,000 up to about €20,000 for the kit. The only other things you'll need are parts from a donor car such as the braking system, engine, drive shaft and axles. Recently lots of the lads have started using motorbike engines and sticking them in cars. They're very high-performance. So for €10,000 you could be on the road. Even though you've built it yourself, the Government still treats it as a new car and charges VRT. We've been lobbying the Government to remove VRT because we feel we're taxed on our own labour.
It's very social, and we do kit car runs. I'm organising a track day in Mondello Park in June with around 40 cars and we're doing a Round Ireland run later this month. The kit is similar to a flat pack, with a metal chassis and all the fibreglass panels. Ninety per cent of it is actually very simple. Anybody who can assemble flatpack furniture can assemble these cars. The other 10 per cent is the wiring of the engine, and we have a few experts in the club who will do that at the end of the build because it's the one thing that can be quite dangerous. If you get the wiring wrong the car can go on fire.
To build a Lotus Seven would take about 150 hours, an AC Cobra would take 400 to 500 hours. My wife would probably say there are kit car widows. But Saturday is my day. Other people go out and play golf, I just go to the garage and work away on the car. There's a great sense of satisfaction. And I know every nut and bolt in the car and can fix it if anything goes wrong. I suppose it's like people who do DIY. You're making something that is a bit different. The biggest thrill is pulling up at the lights and guys rolling down the windows to ask where you got the car. And you can say: 'I actually built it myself.'
See: www.irishkitcarclub.com.