DIY Kit-Car.

Today's collaboration with Cellar Image of the Day brings us this photo of a DIY Kit-Car, a car you can assemble yourself - as covered by our partner Spluch some months ago:

Mitsuoka Motor, a Japanese company, has just unveiled a micro kit car "K-4", equipped with a 50cc engine on its classical tested sports car body, developed for the do-it-yourself customers in Tokyo. It is composed of more than 500 parts and takes approximately 40 hours to assemble. The Kit-Car measures just under 2.5 meters (eight feet) long and can run at up to 50 kilometers (31 miles) an hour. The expected cost of each of this vehicle is US $6,460.

Link | Be sure to check out Cellar IotD for more fun pics!

Nice 1930s Benz-ish styling, but for that kind of cash, 50cc is nowhere near enough nads for this thing! Where can you take a car that only goes 30 mph?

If you want to built a *real* sportscar on the cheap, look to something like a Locost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locost) or one of the myriad of other Lotus-7 knockoffs. Why end up with a 30 mph gokart, when you can build a road-worthy real car? Straight talk from Sid.

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

As Sid already said, I think the most well-known Lotus 7 kit-car knock-off is the Caterham Super 7: http://www.caterham.co.uk

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

Yeah, the Caterham is way way way sweet, but I didn't mention it since you aren't going to do one for anywhere near $6K. Actually, Caterham owners would get a little miffed at calling it a "Lotus-7 knock-off", since Caterham actually purchased the rights to continue the marque from Lotus in the 1970s. The rest are knock-offs, whilst the Caterham is a "continuation" of the marque... Which is partly why it costs more! :-) Make mine British Racing Green with a yelow bonnet. And, I'll take the "clamshell" fenders as mine as well. Anyone ever watch "The Prisoner"? Definitely a Neato TV show in its day!

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

well, i don't care, i don't fit in any of those... ;)

Abusive comment hidden. (Show it anyway.)

This is obviously for the "in-town" commuter around Tokyo, though considering the traffic, not sure I would feel very safe in that. For the price and the market I think they are going after it is perfect. Would work in as long as the weather stayed nice I guess. Rains and even snows in Tokyo. Not my idea of a comfortable comute to work even if it were only a few blocks in that stuff and no roof.