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Drewkit New Reader
10/21/24 2:22 p.m.

Hi Guy's, New here and just picked up this mid engine Kit chassis "roller" Came with a dead 13B and a Lotus transaxle. I can not find any info on what chassis it is based on or made by ? Any help would be really appreciated. Thank you

Colin Wood Associate Editor
10/21/24 3:04 p.m.

Not too sure what it could be, though there are some very knowledgable folks here when it comes to stuff like this.

At any rate, looks super cool and I'm eager to see more.

APEowner GRM+ Memberand UltraDork
10/21/24 3:07 p.m.

I can't help but wonder if that's homemade rather than a kit.

Indy - Guy UltimaDork
10/21/24 3:32 p.m.

In reply to Drewkit :

First off, Welcome to GRM, you're gonna love it here.

I'll let others chime in, but the front suspension appears to be Triumph Spitfire inspired / derived. Pic for illustration:

dculberson MegaDork
10/21/24 3:34 p.m.

Neat. Looks home made, to me, made to pick up suspension points from off the shelf components. I bet there's a donor involved, although to me it kind of looks like you have front end parts in the rear as well as the front given what looks like tie rods connected back to frame mounted bushings. Thus taking a "steerable" knuckle and fixing the steering so it can be aligned but doesn't turn from the rear.

I wonder if you could find any markings or part numbers on the components to figure out who made them and trace them back to a donor. Given the 13b engine, maybe it's an RX7 donor? Your rear upper control arms don't look too different from an early (1979-1985) RX7 front upper control arm:

maschinenbau GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
10/21/24 4:32 p.m.

In reply to Indy - Guy :

Good eye. Those are definitely Triumph parts. Even has the trunnion bearing instead of a proper lower ball joint!

maschinenbau GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
10/21/24 4:46 p.m.

Okay so that's no Lotus trans. It's even better. That's a Renault NG3 trans. They were used on special versions of Renault 18's. I say it's not a Lotus trans because that rear suspension looks like Renault front suspension. So this builder heard Lotus was using Renault parts in the rear, and thought heck I could do that too. The steering arm link location gives it away.

And it's actually better, the NG3 trans is the "strong" replacement for Lotus Europas when they break, because the NG3 came in the oddball Renault Fuego, which had a turbo version and a suitably stronger trans to handle the power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Fuego

And with the Triumph front suspension, what you've got here is basically homebuilt or very obscure Lotus Europa kit car chassis. The Europa used that same front end. But yours has a rotary engine. Hell yeah!