I was at a friends house the other night and caught the end of a program on sky called "and a sports car was born" or something similar and they were
steping through putting together a locost. It was a pre bought kit and didnt catch which but it showed you how to do everthing from chassis through to
brakes etc etc.
Has anyone else seen it and does anyone know if i can get it on video anywhere?
There was also and advert for "And a helecopter was born" where the same man looks like he will put together and fly a helicopter kit!
Humm buggered if he hasent put thet together quite right quite a long way down! 
Thanks in advance!
Do you mean 'A Westfield is bolted together from a large box of brand new parts, no expense spared'. If so I saw it as well. The only bits worth
watching are the track and car reviews. If I ever see that smarmy unfunny get in the flesh I'm going to punch his f**king lights out! A good program
spoiled in my opinion!
Chris PTM
not to impressed then chris?
from the tiny bit i have seen of that prog, im not too far off your opinion - seeing how to bolt brand new stuff together is basically mechanno and
NOT building a locost.
atb
steve
No I wasn't really impressed. This series of progs has gone from bad to worse since Mark Evans decided he was 'funny'. Our very own Mr Chris Gibbs
puts it best when refering to Caterhams and Westies, f**king cheque book sevens. Home built my arse! Throw £15,000 into a garage leave it for a
fortnight and out pops a car. If you've seen the program tell me how many of us have access to the manufacturers workshops on a week by week basis,
not many I think. Also his range of 'basic workshop tools' beggars belief! A little bit unrealistic to say the least.
The PTM 
i heard that there's gonna be a new book coming out soon
"how to build a sports car from a box of pre supplied brand new parts for a blank cheque"
sorry got that wrong its actually called the caterham build manual
Spot on PTM, set of tossers, and as for that Evans bloke - funny as a hole in a lifeboat.
And how come bits keeping apperaring on the car without him attaching them? you don't think...........gulp.........someones doing it for him?
Cheers
The Locost ambassador to chequebookseven land
The man's a vet and they set him on building machines. What's wrong with him, isn't he good enough for a cookery programme?. He gets to do a bit of
gardening sometimes as well doesn't he?. Somebody must like him,
f*%k knows why. If they give him enough money he might go away eventually, we can always hope. Driven's coming back on soon and that's another
programme spoilt by an annoying prat. I hate television just lately.
yours, Pete
quote:
gardening , we can always hope. Driven's coming back on soon and that's another programme spoilt by an annoying prat. I hate television just lately.
yours, Pete
Sounds like its not worth chasing up then. Only sore about 15 minutes so didnt have time to decide how bad it was just thought it may have helped but
by the sounds of it probably not! i have more like 15 quid to spend on mine not 15K.
Oh well back to the drawing board!
i think mr evans is funny. its not his fault that he got everything brand spankin new, inside his heated 60x30 workshop with compressor buzzing away in the background. and all built and finnished in 8 days. im seeing a doctor in the morning
If i had those chairs i'd get even less done
Annoying twat yes, cheque book 7 yes, but I still got plenty useful little tips from it: Fettling bits for GRP, never hear of them b4, bought a set
for £5 from screwfix, they're excellent, and countersuck poprivets, would never even new they existed ...
So for us complete novices to the world of home built cars there is a few little gems spread amongst the endless new parts and inane banter.
He should have gone the BEC route though and not just another Zetec machine....
anyone got it on video i can borrow,im in need of a larf
Yep i'll drop it over at weekend 
cheres dude,ill be werkin sat am,kipping pm,boating sun am,kipping pm,take your pick 
Last night I saw a kind of omnibus of 'A race car is born' - and I have to say I thought it was quite interesting. Must have been the end of the
series cos his W***field was finished and the whole programs were about trying out different types of motorsport - I saw a trackday at Donny, autotest
(which looks totally awesome), hillclimbing and a W**field championship race. And in all of this the guy wasn't too bad considering he hasn't done it
before (or so he says), and I thought he was reasonably funny too (should I get me coat?).
But like others have alluded to - the money they throw at that thing is rediculous, and the build information is undetailed to say the least - "Now we
have to fit an FIA approved ignition cut off switch that also isolates the fuel pump. Drill a hole in the scuttle and in it goes!" seems they fit
themselves into your cars wiring loom! Similarly funny was how easy it apparently is to swap all your instrumentation for a £3000+ SPA datalogging
Micro dash - again just plugs in! Assuming the westy kit was about 12 grand, they probably put about 30 grand total into that thing putting racing
bits and split rim alloys on it, and sending that geezer racing, not to mention the support truck, racecar engineer etc etc. Not exactly within the
reach of the man in the street.
But still, even people who put a factory kit together deserve a tiny bit of respect - I mean most people wouldn't do that even if they had the money.
And lets face it, how many of us would already be on the road in a Cat***am, Dax R**h etc if we weren't so poor/tight?
Anyway, dunno why I'm defending the guy - I HAVE seen him on gardening programs. So I'll stop.
Liam
[Edited on 20/10/02 by Liam]
The hill climb looked good buti cant get my head around auto tests,it all looked a bit sad to me.A bit like the bloke on the telly with a motor go
cart trying to spin it 180degrees and burst baloons with a pin in its arse,i think prog was called you bet.
Probably the sadest piece of television i've ever seen IMO
ME. Should have done a damn site better in the racing after all the tuition he had whilst building his "A Car is Born" Cobra.
When he was at Donnington they asked him if he had done anything like it before and he said "NO". Bloody Liar!
How come the throttle spring problem only showed itself when hillclimbing and not when he was road testing it?
Got no bottle!
As he knew he would be taking it racing, why did he build it with a screen on?
Pointless expense to me and certainly not necessary for SVA.
Same for fuel tank!
They never got that expensive data logger kit working properly. I suppose the next episode had there been one would have been at the manufacturers
getting it sorted.
Mind you they spent at least half a day at Rocckingham to get it sorted. That must have cost a fortune!
Good show really
Terry
Saw the last programme
After reading these posts I now fee less inadequate and more self satisfied and smug as I've gone down the book route.
Makes me feel that SKY is for cheque book Charlies --wait a minute ----I'm a sports fan --that's why I(we) have it
--Phill
quote:
Annoying twat yes, cheque book 7 yes, but I still got plenty useful little tips from it: Fettling bits for GRP, never hear of them b4, bought a set for £5 from screwfix, they're excellent, and countersuck poprivets, would never even new they existed ...
If you think this program was expensive, you should see the others : A car is reborn I seem to recall the total figure reached around the £80000 mark,
for a Jag E type!! And the Heli was about £85000 straight off without avionics, workshop space, professional help (when the divvie drilled the hole in
the undercarriage too big and tempered the metal) training to fly, testing the thing.
The only one that was cheaper was a car is born which he built a cobra (pilgrim sumo, ughh) for about £15000 I seem to remember, he aimed for £10000
but decided to put a 5.5 litre Chevy V8 in rather than a 2 litre pinto (would have thought that would be a no brainer) which obviously cranked the
price up. I haven't seen all of a car is born, but the bits I have seen seem to be less of him pratting around and more about him actually building
the thing, I think it gets progressively worse as the series' go on, so you can expect a motorbike is born to be absolutely unbearable.
Well..... i don't care what anyone say's. i loved 'A racing car is born' and i found it very usefull as well as entertaining.
My guess is that Westfield built 2 cars, one which they converted a fair bit and one to go racing in the Westfiels championship race in france. If you
look at the car ride hight at the french race meet you will see that it's a damn sight closer to the ground and thay have swapped the coil over shocks
as the springs are red and not the orig black that was put on. Also there are no side pannels in the cockpit.
Many people seem to be missing the point regarding the build. It is only to get the thing up and running so they can then show you how to convert it
slowly to race spec. I found the build to be quite useful but it did miss bit's that i would have liked to have seen.
Ok that's my 2p worth
Captain Syngeon Radclif Retiered (Mrs)
oh yes very Monty Python!
He does state at one point when his mechanic is setting the car up for the track, that it's a hassle using multiple cars as they have to keep changing
settings.
Wish I had his problem!
Got a box set of DVDs of the series from price drop T.V. (£25) Recon one piece of information on the drilling of fibreglass (use a blunt drill
apparently) may have saved the total cost of the box set had I drilled a nosecone or whatever with a sharp drill.
I totally agree with comments about it not being that informative but it sure beats the hell out of a lot of the other drivel thats on the box when I
get back from the garage, and the girlfriend enjoys it as well so it means I dont have to watch people arguing with each other on Ricky Lake
I think i am about to alienate me from this forum but i am so disgusted by a lot of peoples attitude. I am a lover of all things with a motor hand
built ,machine built or knocked together in a garage. I personally was planning to build a GT2 but due to it not being ready in time i bought a
megabusa basically because i wanted something i could have on the road in a fortnight.You are judging all people by how much they spend or how much
effort they put into a car, i think that being interested in motorsport is enough. I have been to westfield meets and they dont bang on about how they
built there cars for £2.50 and 2 pints of lager nor do they go on about how expensive it was they just talk about racing driving etc. I accept that a
few of the caterham owners etc are arseholes but so are so called locost builders if they judge everyone on what they own.
I judge people on there personality and how interested they are in motorsport not how they managed to swap a 4x4 diff for 20 benson and hedges.
Mark evans who you all quickly judge is an extremely intelligent person who has a love of all motorsport,so what he bought a westfield (which he also
modified for racing).
I personally think I can smell jealousy over the fact he can spend all day building cars and whatever else takes his fancy and we have to endure 9 to
5 poo jobs.
I personally thought you where better than this and on a whole where car enthusiasts that believe in sharing knowledge not condoning people for the
kit they chose to build.Rant over.
I couldn't give an arse what other people build, I'm building mine and its fun.
[Edited on 7/8/04 by Benzine]
How dare you assume we all work. I think you are guilty of the same as you accuse others of. I could spend all day on whatever I want and throw as much money as I like at it. You've never heard me say a bad word about Westfields or their owners, but why set a deadline of a fortnight on building a kit when you can buy one ready done for just 3 times as much. I think the guy on Sportscar is Born is fair game for anyone who wants to take a pop at him as he is a tosser with a crew of helpers doing the donkey work, you don't think he's really doing it all himself do you?
Snoopy i bought a a kit and built it of a night and a couple of weekends with the help of a couple of mates.
After visiting mk and speaking with martin i was certain he new what he was on about and really wanted the gt2 due to its style and quaiffe diff
option but when it didnt look like it would be ready i opted for the westfield which you should take as a compliment as mk was my first choice even
though i had the money for a westfield. I still plan on building a gt2 but this winter instead.
As for mark evans we all have are opinions and if you watch the series inbetween cut edits unless someone dirtied his overalls and completely filled
him in on the build manual yes i think he did build it himself with just help,also the programmes are made on shoestring budgets so i dont think they
could stretch to an army of helpers.
I think these series are pretty good.
It's TV remember, not a replacement for a build manual. It has to appeal to the general public with thier 20 millisecond attention span and it
has to all fit into x amount of episodes.
For us builders, it would be nice for a 200hour long DVD showing exactly how everything was done and all the problems, but you won't get that on
TV for obvious reasons.
As for Mark Evans, he seems very enthusiastic about it which I like, although I have found myself talking to the telly and telling him to "shut
the fcuk up"!
Having read the whole of this thread and the slagging off of Mark Evans for no particular reason, I thought I would mention that in one of the many
series he has done, he featured a white MK indy powered by a Bike engine and driven by a race instructor. I think it was 'A race car is
born' during his learning to drive section. Can Snoopy confirm this?
What do you think of him now?
Cannot believe the bile being shown on this forum. Probably all have a go at me now simply because I own a Nissan
Gotta agree with you Mark, very sad to see people so preoccupied with what othrs are doing, jeez, get a life. Get on and build that locost, come and
talk about it here with us please, but leave the bitchin.
IMHO!
Didn't make a TV programme about it, didn't make any money out of it, didn't make a spectacle of myself in public. What's special about Mark Evans. They could have televised any of a thousand builders and got a better picture of a motor enthusiast. I wouldn't watch it if you paid me, just my opinion, thank you for yours.
surely anything that exposes car building is a good thing? since the series, at least vaguely interested family and friends know kinda what im up
to........
I cant see what the problem is - even if he didnt do it all himself, so what? some guys on this site make their own chassis. Some dont. They open the
wallet and buy it. I'm sure that if, for example, Hicost added the total money spend on his car, it'd scare the bjesus out of me. But not
put down in any way.
There seems to be a lot of macho b*llSh*t here sometimes about 'doing it all yourself'
Nobody does.We are all helped to some degree.
I agree with what someone else said previously - ' get on with my own build, stop fishwifing about who spent what on where'
Btw. I completely agree that the guys a bit of a tit, but thats never prevented me, or anyone else, from building a car
I find him slightly irritating sometimes, but not too bad. anyway, reason I'm posting this reply is a heads-up that showing on H&L at the moment is "a 4x4 is reborn" or something like that, and he just rebuilt a rover v8 engine. fairly interesting for me.
I am glad quite a few people agree with me that although irritating mark evans beats the s**t out of soaps.
I have been watching a 4x4 is born and the v8 rebuild was very interesting.