At work yesterday our regular carrier driver truned up as normal but this time he was clutching a copy of a caterham brochure.

I have never seen the bloke before as i dont work in the goods in/out area but i saw him and the brochure and went to have a chat (before i knew it was a ceterham one!)

He then went on to tell me that he has an R300 which he built himself. He said he built it in 5 days (is this possible?).

Then the violins had to come out because he was telling me how hard it was to fit the rear arches it took him a whole hour per side! and then we got on to fitting the seats, that was a real pain in the arse because he had to lie on the floor with one hand under the car and one wobbling the seat to line up the holes

So once he had stopped whining i told him he was getting no sympathy from me because i have worked outside in the snow on mine! and when i asked how long it took him to make the dashboard he looked at me a bit blank lol.

I explained that i know many people who have made from scratch their own chassis and have made bucks for making grp body pannels - so dont expect and special treatment

I suggested he have a look on here to see that getting your hands dirty does not mean handling used banknotes!

Time will tell if he pops up i guess lmao

If you know what you're doing it's possible to build a Caterham from their "kit" in two days.

It's just a bolt up job, all electrics, dash etc are prefitted and the rest of the items are pre-fabricated to just bolt in place.

Many of the guys who build them up have absolutely no experience of dirty hands or practical skills.
Fair play to them, at least they are having a go at some part of building and owning one rather than just buying and driving.

That's the difference between being clever and being educated!

If he owns an r300 then who cares how he got there, im sure he doesnt, he just saved himself a couple of grand on the assembly cost, they are superb cars.

As robs suggests, for those who are not practicaly adept changing a wheel is a challenge, so assembling a car is damn good effort. Well done to him.

I can change an engine (with the help of our home built engine hoist) but I can't change a wheel on our Volvo, it welded itself to the hub.

Adam