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. It was this car that introduced me to track days and provided my first taste of 'performance' cars. The arrival of my two children resulted in me replacing it with a more practical, 5-door Subaru Impreza Turbo. Whilst this was a quicker car (in a straight line), it simply didn't excite me.
A few years before, my elder brother had built a Sylva Striker and I got to drive it at the Llandow circuit. I realised that his car had the handling, performance and involvement of my Elise, for a fraction of the cost. It also had much lower insurance and running costs. When I bought my S1 Elise in 1999 it was considered the perfect compromise between every day usable and a good track car. And it was and quite possibly still is. But, I had got to the point where I was looking for a little bit more power. My experience with the Elise also made me realise that I could also live with something a little less practical, especially as a third car. Lotus on the other hand, took the Elise in the other direction with the S2 version and have made it more comfortable, heavier and less track focussed.
Richard , a friend at work had also built a Sylva Striker but with a 998cc Yamaha R1 engine as the power plant. It took just one ride in it for me to realise that this was the sort of car I was after. Something slightly scary and demanding total respect of the driver. His car weighed in at around 380kg and produced around 170bhp. The performance simply captivated me. 0 to 100mph arrived in less than 8½ seconds. It cost Richard about £12,000 to build and the quality and his attention to detail had to be seen to be believed. Whilst I could live with an aeroscreen and no reverse gear, I'm not a huge fan of cycle-winged cars. Further research led me to look at a number of similar cars though.
sold a mid-engined, Fury Menace , which when I was looking was a relatively new design. I was hoping not to break any new ground, as I didn't have the time and experience to resolve the issues I might come across.
Phoenix is very similar to the Fury but has slightly more attractive rear bodywork. It also has an excellent record in racing and Stuart Taylor have done a huge amount of work in updating the tubular chassis for race use. It was slightly cheaper than the Fury in road going form.
now sell a mid-engined R1ot which is very light, cycle-winged and was far too new for me to build one. First impressions suggest it is a very track focussed car, though the first one passed the SVA test in July 2005. Even I have my limits though and this is just off the top of my extreme scale. Awesome machine, if that is what you are after though.
was also fairly close to me, which was an advantage. I started my build properly in October 2005 and originally planned to finish it in 8 months, which was hugely optomistic. Things happened which slowed me down. I was ill for a while, I'd forgotten about holidays and the usual DIY and house maintenance jobs don't go away. From chassis arrival to SVA test pass eventually took 17 months.
I started the project with virtually no knowledge of car (and bike) mechanics. I learnt a huge amount whilst researching my build. My planned specification was based upon 80% road and 20% track day usage and had an emphasis on superb handling and maximum driver involvement. High performance is an additional benefit of my chosen engine. I planned to use light-weight components as far as my budget would allow, with the focus on reducing unsprung weight.
This picture was created to show roughly what I was aiming for. As you will see from the rest of this site, I got pretty close. My Fury is a thing of beauty to me, it's a little bit mad for UK roads and even now, just raising the garage door has my pulse rate shooting upwards. It's a massive adrenaline hit and life without it would simply be a little bit boring.
You can now follow my Fury related updates and improvements on Twitter.
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