18 April 2012 - Inspection Day
Inpsection day is a bit of a traumatic time for all kit car builders, but us in Sammio-land have it relatively easy. The key factor for me buying the Sammio Spyder kit was the fact that I could use my Vitesse donor, and keep the same registration number and registration date, hence free road tax as it is Historic status. It does not need the full IVA/SVA approach and of course avoids that cost!
The reason for this is that it is classed as a Rebodied Classic, and the inspection is simply a 15 minute check at the local DLVA/VOSA office. That said, a few builders around the country have had challenges getting the local office to understand the process and accept the car as a rebodied classic, so Gary very kindly helps get them through at the Bournemouth office. Sice I live about a mile from the local Bournemouth office, I had kept in touch with Gary and as I was local to him as well, he offered to pick the car up and take me and the car to the inspection. Now that is customer service for you!
This was the car as it is ready for the big day....
And when we got to the inspection office, it stayed on the trailer, and the inspector checked the engine number, chassis number and had a quick look over to make sure the chassis was all intact. Job done in about 10 minutes, and we were on our way home!
After giving Gary a crate of beer for his time (he wouldn't take any money!) and unloading the car, I set to with the angle grinder and removed a couple of non-structural chassis bits that were in the way - namely the rear outriggers and the front bumper supports.
The removal of the front bumper supports enabled me to get the bonnet on for the first time and I started to have a play with the alignment, bearing in mind I had hacked off 40mm from the body on the passenger side! Luckily, it all seemed to fit quite well and it seemed that the bonnet was oversized to begin with. The important thing in my mind was to make sure the wheels fitted in the wheel arches and the rest I could easily adjust.
The bits that got cut off didn't go to waste as they were recycled into bonnet hinge mounts!
The only issue I had was that the thermostat housing was a little too tall, and hit ont he bonnet, causing it to spider-crack, so I cut off about 2" from the outlet pipe and left enough to connect the pipe to. This gave me just enough to avoid having a scoop in the bonnet. Or so I hope!
