How about a different interpretation of the rules. As I understand it, any car that has European certification has to have both a certified tow bar attachment point and a certified tow bar / trailer hitch. For this reason I have always argued the inclusion of a tow bar and electrics to be included in the price when buying a Tintop so as not to fall foul of the law.
In the case of a kit car, it does not have "European certification" in the form of a "type test" nor has there been the necessity to submit a full Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of the structure of the car to prove that all loads and stresses within the car are well within the legislated safety factors under all expected operating conditions. I believe however that Old Q did get Aston University to do an FEA on the H4? For a kit car the means of attachment for a tow bar is not necessarily defined or tested by the manufacturer as would be necessary for a full certification, i.e. another hour during the FEA work to prove that the mounting points have a desired safety factor. If the car itself is not certified then by inference it cannot have a certified tow bar arrangement. The implications of this are that if the police stop you and look for the vehicle certification identity (Either with the VIN or on the B post if I recall on a Tintop) they will not find one as the vehicle will only have either SVA or IVA, notification of which is not necessary on the vehicle, in which case testing of tow bar attachment points to a given standard cannot be mandatory. On a practical point, my Beauford had a factory tow bar attachment plate fitted as part of the chassis and this was totally ignored during both IVA tests - believe me the inspector did not miss a trick on anything else ( having had an accident reported back to him as an unsafe vehicle on a car that he had passed, which to his credit was later established to have been due to modifications made after the test) and things on which my car failed have sailed through at other test stations, in particular the rear seat belt attachments where the factory approach was considered inadequate and I had to build and weld in a 50 mm square tube frame inside the rear of the car to take the load - I have a much safer car as a result! The comment there was either prove it is strong enough by means of a "pull test" or use something that is "more than adequate" in the eyes of the inspectors, i.e. the "Brick Outhouse" approach. Any contact with VOSA will most likely lead straight back to the IVA manual. I read the early version (pre 2010) cover to cover and do not recall anything on tow bars so taking my experience into account, anything that we use to attach a tow bar to a fibreglass car will certainly be "more than adequate" in lieu of the need to spread the load over the fibreglass. As an example, my H4 tow bar is attached by 2" heavy duty angle iron strips either side of the boot floor at each side, the length of the boot floor with 3 off M10 bolts each side to bolt the angles through the fibreglass to spread the load. To these a Mondeo Estate tow bar is attached to the vertical faces of the outside angle iron. The Mondeo bar does of course have a certification and for much higher loads than I would ever want to pull. After ~ 10 years no distress has been noted on any of the components above. Sorry for the ramble but this whole subject seems to be a mess and not necessarily sorted out by the authorities even in the case of certified cars. Hamish -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eddie Sent: 04 April 2013 22:56 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Quantum Owners] More Towbars for Eddie Hi All I have tried to contact VOSA without success. Basically all I get is answer machines. I have had a look at the tow bar that I have and I am sure it is where Quantum started when modifying them for our cars. However......many new rules and regulations have now come into force. Due to these I am not happy about making new tow bars for our cars. This is due in part that I would have to get them made by a third party. If ons was to fail in operation, the litigation fall out could be a nightmare, so on this occasion I will have to leave this for now. Eddie -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Quantum Owners Group" group. 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