Initiating...

There seems to be a lot of interest in this project, and I have not really even started it yet.  This seems to be the easiest way to keep all interested parties up to date on its progress.  

Hi, my name is Mike, and I have a car project. 

But, not just any car project.  Noooo... that would be too easy.  I am building a car from the ground up.  A good friend of my family one remarked, "You Hope's don't do anything normal, do you!" and so I plan on living up to that reputation, because I would hate to tarnish my family's good name.  

You are probably wondering what kind of car, that is, unless you looked around the page first before reading this.  So, go ahead and do that now, I'll wait.  Done?  Yep, a Caterham 7.  That is correct.  Here, have a *.  And you are probably also wondering, 'a 7?!  That's not too out of the ordinary, afterall, it IS one of the (if not THE) most popular kit car known to man.'  And again, you are correct.  Here, *.  But, not too many people undertake the monumental of assembling the car themselves.  Caterham sells them in turn key form.  Or for a bit less you can get the car in a box (some assembly required).  All the parts are there, well engineered and brand new so you don't have to worry about making a bracket to hold your rear differential in place and hope that it doesn't break when you are going around a corner at 97mph.  No, sir, only the crazy and the cheap attempt to do it them selves.  Hence, the 'low cost'.  Give yourself another * if you figured that out before I said something.  (Man you are really racking up those * today).

As most of my friends and family know, I am crazy (check) and cheap, well that is until I want something, then I have to have the best (... check anyways).  Thankfully my lovely wife and father are going to be watching over my budget to keep me in line.  Google Docs is great for share documents like budget and what you are looking for in a donor vehicle.  Thanks, Google!  Now, if only Google SketchUp could do finite element analysis...

Anyway, check back often, leave comments, suggestions, spare change, whatever.  I will hopefully be updating this as much as I have news to post.  I am planning on this project taking a couple of years to get to the 'done' stage, so I can progress into the endless tuning stage.  So, no promises.