Hi Guys,

It seems to me that we're all building versions of Ron Champions 'Locost' design, or developments there of, so why do we have so many owners clubs?

I'm a member of the Locost Car Club and I'm aware of a GTS OC, MK OC, Luego OC etc....

My cars a Stuart Taylor car but aren't they all Locosts??

Would there be any interest, from members or club managers, in merging a few of these clubs?

We can argue about what to call it later

BUT it would give us all some serious advantages, like;

1) Increased leverage for club discounts.

2) Greater presence at Kit Car shows.

3) Reduced snobbery/elitiste behaviour (Se7ens have needed that for a while )

3) Larger area meetings, means more local contacts and friends to go driving with/help fix your car/go drinking with etc...

4) More Club organisers which would lighten their load

5) Club events would be much easier to organise as much greater chance of sufficient support.

6) Top quality newsletter

So what do you think?

Does it sound like good sense?

Seems like a no-brainer to me

sounds good. are the middy boys invited?

Can't see why not

and even the bec boys??

hmm we might need the server updated (even more) for that

It's a great idea. Do you think that the owners of £30K+ 'Locosts' would mix with us peasants?
Mind you they might now that 'that thread' has been deleted.

[Edited on 7/3/07 by Confused but excited.]

What's wrong with this club, I'm a paid up member.

This is a club is'nt it?

hear hear

mind you i'm a paid up member but i still get that pop up

[Edited on 7/3/07 by graememk]

I think this is a good idea, would enable much more due to the bigger numbers... I don't think it should take over from the established clubs, maybe these other clubs could be affliated (via a small subscription?) to the larger locost club, givining it's members membership of the larger club?

Reman;

Exactly what I was thinking. All based around the Locostbuilders website. The guys who currently run all the different Owners Clubs could share the jobs and ChrisW could continue to provide this magnificent resource.

We could all pay up via the sites Paypal Donate feature.







One Club to rule them all, One Club to find them, One Club to bring them all, and in the "light of knowledge and friendship" bind them

This is the second best idea since colin chapman had the first.

Long live the 7 by any name.

I'm not a member of any clubs myself, but IMHO people will always want to associate with other owners of the same marque in some way or another.

Again IMHO a Locost is a car that has been built from scratch by an individual and not a kit that has been bought and assembled (in simple terms).

Personally I am all for a more encompassing club with the benefits identified - I'd probably sign up as a member. I would however still have a stronger affinity with other MK owners.

talking about owners clubs,whats happened to mk owners club website seems to have gone awol,I to am not a member of any club and one big club based around maybe the lowcostbuilders,is a good idea

MK owners club, i'm going to have a chat with andy about it seeing as hes local, i think his son was redoing the site

Sounds a good idea to me - do Robin Hood get included Seriously though, they all share a common basis (maybe Robin Hood excepted) and would be really impressive all together at a show rather than seeing lots of individual groups of 7's scattered around.

Might struggle to get Caterham involved though, and WSCC is pretty big I think.

I agree with Nick. The Locost by definition (in theory at least) is low in cost. ie, Built from scratch using raw materials.

Our MK Indy therefore isn't a Locost and as such, we aren't true Locostbuilders. Our only association with Locost owners is through the use of this website, where ChrisW has kindly given specific marque owners, independent manufacturers sections. That is why we aren't members of the Locost club but are/were/will be again (delete as appropriate) members of the MK Owners Club.

Phil

Isn't there a Lotus Seven OC or similar, or do they only let in genuine Lotuses?

Even an Indy is 'locost' when compared with a Caterham (or an origisnal Lotus 7!). I think one large club would be good. Not a 'locost' club, but a 7/7-derivitives club. Everyone should be welcome. Enough of this bloody elitism! We all like to drive, some of us like to build - leave it at that!

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I agree with Nick. The Locost by definition (in theory at least) is low in cost. ie, Built from scratch using raw materials.

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Originally posted by grahamgg

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I agree with Nick. The Locost by definition (in theory at least) is low in cost. ie, Built from scratch using raw materials.

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But thats what an mk is,just that they have given you a helping hand to get you on your way.

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JAG had a very good idea about maybe bringing clubs together to make one big club,which would benefit owners in many ways.This would appeal imho to many.
if for example a club were organising a sprint meet or drag day the chances of many cars turning up would be good.
And you would probably get a lot more members joining where they would maybe not join any in the first place.
seems like the argument has changed to who would qualify to join.
and caterham are hardly lowcost,you seen the prices of them lately

I think there should only be one criteria for joining - you want to share the Kit car experience with like minded people.

After that I don't car what the club's called (doesn't have to be Locost anything), what car you drive (Locost, MK Indy, Sylva, GTS, MNR or Caterham/Westfield) or what your attitude is to me and my car.

If I don't like you I'll talk to those I do like and vice-versa but the benefits of such a large group of like minded Petrolheads CANNOT be overstated and would serve us ALL much better.

So now we've decided it's a good idea who wants to start the argument over what this new club will be called

[Edited on 7/3/07 by JAG]

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Originally posted by smart51
Isn't there a Lotus Seven OC or similar, or do they only let in genuine Lotuses?

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eeerrrrmmmm you can't take part in ANY Lotus Seven club event without a genuine Lotus 7 (Lotus or Caterham).

They don't even allow the Caterham 21 boys to join in

Here in Belgium we have a Seven club, not aimed at any brand or self built.

and in holland there's even a large KitCarClub wich has around 250-300 members right now (me included even though I'm Belgian) I think that is the best solution as it doesn't matter wether you have a 5k locost or a 30k ultima, they share 1 common thing, they're all kitcars.

But I think it's difficult to merge the clubs that exist right now.

Main benefit about a general kitcarclub is that people who own a kitcar that has dissapeared from the market have a place to go.

It would also give the Industry a bit of a shoulder to lean on when it comes to regulation changes.

Im a member of ne7ers. Several marques are represented inc Westfield, Caterham, Robin Hood, ST, MK, Mac#1 and probs others that i cant remember. This works for me as its NE based and easy to participate in meets etc.

Im also a member of M1MOC, not quite so local but always a worthy run out when meets are arranged (usually Factory open days).

I dont consider myself a true locoster nor my car a locost for reasons well covered by Hellfire already.

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Originally posted by Werner Van Loock
(me included even though I'm Belgian)

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Originally posted by JAG

So now we've decided it's a good idea who wants to start the argument over what this new club will be called

[Edited on 7/3/07 by JAG]

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Bumped this again - looks like a good idea to me.

I think it's clear from the Replies that some MK owners don't want to be asocciated with the the Locost, for whatever reason, what about everyone else?

cheers

Chris

Don't think it should be limited to 7's since there's plenty of unusual machinery being developed/build by people on here.

I think the mindset of the people here is more important than what marque they drive.

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Originally posted by DarrenW
Im a member of ne7ers. Several marques are represented inc Westfield, Caterham, Robin Hood, ST, MK, Mac#1 and probs others that i cant remember. This works for me as its NE based and easy to participate in meets etc.

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Sounds like an interesting idea and might be nice. However.

In reality I don't think you would be uniting everything into one big club, but starting off another small club which would ultimately fizzle due to being too broad in its attempted member base.

We start off with the assumption that everyone should come over here from the other forums. That assumes that people who hang out on those forums would be happy to leave their structure, post count, small group of friends or whatever and be absorbed into this one. I think that's unlikely, if someone tried to encourage everyone here over into some other superclub forum, I wouldn't go. Would you?

You could start a load of new sections on here and end up fracturing the forum into people who hung out just in specific areas, I think there's already an overwhelming amount to try and keep up with (as for reply to everything interesting.. forget it).

Or you could keep it as it is and have everyone building their myriad different cars asking all their manufacturer-specific questions in the existing categories. This would worsen the "signal to noise ratio" for people like me who aren't interested in and have nothing to contribute to those discussions. Likewise for the pure kit builders who aren't interested in hearing what grubby bits of old sierras will mate with grubby bits of other old sierras.

That would result in questions getting lost, attention drifting away, general "dilution" and loss of the spirit and cameraderie that we still have a lot of.
There's a feeling here that we're all or mostly all in the same boat, struggling along learning as we go, making mistakes on a budget, inventing and lashing things up, leaning on one another's knowledge. I like that feeling and it would be diminished if I had to pick through a mass of conversation irrelevant to me.

I think this forum gets things just about right, for me at least. There is a focus on locost building with a varying proportion of stuff bought in from kit car suppliers. Full on kit builders are welcomed and have their own little sections for specific conversation, and are pointed in the right direction where manufacturer's own forums exist.

It would be nice to have more group buy clout or whatever, I just don't think it's feasible as something that would work. You could extend the idea to all seven-esque cars, all kit cars and replicas, all sports cars, all cars ever...

There are forums like pistonheads already, and plenty of seven-ish clubs. Apart from the reasons above why I don't think it would work, personally I like being part of a reasonably small and focused community and I think that's why this and many other clubs work at the size they are, and you don't have a superclub already.

If you want to create a superclub then by all means go for it and I wish you every success. I might even sign up for the discounts

But please don't turn locostbuilders into that superclub. I think we would all lose something important.