Roger Stockton wrote: > Another thought is that some of the sportier VW kit bodies > (Manta, Bradley, etc.) seem to have rather large (wide/high) > door sills, so it might be more appropriate to build battery > tunnels along each side of the floorpan rather than blindly > copying the EV1's single central tunnel.
And "blink" went the little dim bulb in the back of my head. Marauder http://www.kitcar.com/marauder/home.html builds kit replicas of some very sexy sports racing cars. Proper tube chassis, bodies, bits and pieces, the whole schmeer. (I believe Steve Lough's ION 1 was a VW-based Manta from Marauder.) Why not talk to them about a limited run of one of their kits that includes everything you need to mount batteries, motor, etc. to your group's design? These kits are rather expensive normally, but a purchase of maybe 20 should drive the price down considerably. A knowledgeable ME from the EV1 group could volunteer the expertise needed to adapt their existing chassis and keep the design costs for the project to a minimum. (I'd leap at the chance to do this if I had the time to give.) I'm not sure if you could get this many turn-key cars made without running into certification issues. If it was a problem, a separate company could be selected to handle the assembly and it would still be a kit in the eyes of the law. There are plenty of other kit car companies, some of which are capable of a project like this. See http://www.kitcar.com/kitcarmfrs.html. Food for thought? Chris
