How do things now stand with the SVA tests and kit cars that use the original donor vehicle chassis? Such as triumph herald do they need one?

i think it depends on how much you change it. Are you thinking of the TR40 on ebay?

the vosa site will probably specify somewhere what needs an SVA

No the i am not thinking about that car.

but what about things like Banham's and Gentry's and VW things I seem to recall they did not once

The TR40 is really just a glorified bodykit though isn't it ?

Those Banham "things" and anything else that uses a cut down production car should be banned.......they just give kitcars a bad name.

Rebodied Herald's etc are ok because they have a chassis..but to cut down a naff old Metro to make it look like some weird Audi "TiT" is pants.......i worked on one of those RS200 things...but couldn't for the life of me see what held it together apart from a stack of sikaflex!!!!

If any ones interested somewhere I got the build video of the x99 when you watched that’s when you realise just how bad it is. It beats me why such a company can produce reasonable-lish looking cars (tong in cheek) and use some of the worst ever production cars as their base. Why it cant just be cost saving thing

If you use a beetle chassis complete then there is no need for SVA, but if it is shortened as many beach buggies are, then it will need an SVA. If you use a complete Herald chassis again it would not need SVA. I don't think things like the Banham use enough of the Metro chassis to qualify like this, but may be wrong.

I believe that the car will require an SVA if there is any modification to the original chassis, i.e. shortening a beetle floorpan chassis or cutting the roof, etc. of a monacoque chassis like a metro.
The TR40 would not need on eif it just had panels put on it, but if the roof was cut off to make it a convertable then a SVA would be needed.

Originally this was not the case but the rules changed at some point as I remember Banham cars did not need and SVA, and then the rules changed and they did, probably one of the reasons why the guy sold off all the cars to other companys.

banhams are dreadful cars...

Is it really the case that chopping the roof off requires an SVA? I didn't think that was the case, I thought you just had to notify the DVLA of a change in body type. If it is needed I would think there are a lot of Mini cabrios around which are illegal, and would need lots of body mods to get through SVA particularly regarding radii.

If you read the dvla website it tells you about all this stuff.

It is worked out on a points system, with different numbers of points attributed to "front suspension", "chassis" (or bodyshell) etc etc and you need a minimum number of points to not need an sva.