After viewing a Lotus 7 and finding far to small for my ample frame work. April 2005, a wacky idea: I’ve always want to build a kit car, how hard could it be?
Five years later and a shiny freshly painted Marlin Sportster rolls out of the garage. It was a long, at times frustrating but very rewarding journey.
Before choosing the right kit I attended the Stoneleigh kit car show with my brother Richard (who also works here at M4), this was to be a project we would both work on.
I had a few requirements for the donor car. At least 6 cylinders and rear wheel drive. Given the recent decline of rear wheel drive Ford models the choice soon fell on BMW.
In 2005 there were very few kit cars that had BMW in mind as a single donor vehicle, in other words a car from which you could take almost all components to use in the building of the kit.
We both very much liked the 1930 Alfa Romeo styling traits of the Marlin Sportster which took traditional forms and updated them in a roadster format.
This being our car of choice the donor fell down to either the 1980’s BMW E30 3 series or the 1990 E36. The E36 was still quite an expensive option so we settled on the E30.
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- Marlin Sportster
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- Stoneleigh
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- Donor BMW
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- BMW 2.5 straight six
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- Stripped Interior
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- Engine extracted
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- Tough nut to crack
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- Garage of bits
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- Empty shell
The very best first step in a kit car build it to make sure your donor components work. To that end I purchased a 1988 BMW E30 325i Touring for the hefty sum of £850. We both used the car for around a month before disassembly, the engine pulled very strongly even though it idled a little high. The gearbox was a bit loose but not too bad considering the 115,000 miles on the clock.
After two week break from work we were left with an E30 shell on the driveway which a nice man with a flat bed picked up for £25 and a garage full of bits!
Coming soon part 2: Picking up the bits and getting started.
If you’re hungry for more now you’re welcome to have a look at our complete build website or some of these other excellent kit car resources on the web:
- Marlin Owners Club
- Mad About Kit Cars News / Mad About Kit Cars Forum
- A GOO-STER is born – GreatOldOne’s Sportster build diary
- Peter-Jan’s Sportster Build – Sportster build based on the Ford donor car
- Martin Clan’s Sportster Build Page – Martin Clan’s BMW Sportster Build Page
- Simons Cabrio Build – Marlin Cabrio with BMW M20 Engine
- Peters BMW Marlin – BMW Sportster Build Page
- Jeremy Ward – Sportster Build – M Powered Sportster Build!
