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'Original' Ron Champion Locost
loggyboy - 10/1/17 at 02:51 PM

Apparently!
Locost 7 - Honda Fireblade engine

I wasnt aware there was a factory or a show car!?

bonzoronnie - 10/1/17 at 03:06 PM

That description sounds like a very healthy dose of BS

The domain www.ronchampion.com does not exist ( that's not to say it never did )

PSpirine - 10/1/17 at 03:15 PM

It does however look like the "much-rumoured" one-off aluminium chassis'd MK car built for Ron.

Not sure I'd ever want to take that on the road given the construction, but as a curio it's quite interesting!

bonzoronnie - 10/1/17 at 03:22 PM

quote:
Originally posted by PSpirine
It does however look like the "much-rumoured" one-off aluminium chassis'd MK car built for Ron.

Not sure I'd ever want to take that on the road given the construction, but as a curio it's quite interesting!



Had I not had access to this forum, I would be one of those bidding.

Would love to know if it has a V5 & its status

gremlin1234 - 10/1/17 at 03:45 PM

quote:
Originally posted by bonzoronnie
That description sounds like a very healthy dose of BS

The domain www.ronchampion.com does not exist ( that's not to say it never did )
it did exist 'till ~march 15 but last useful post about 2001
some of the site is available from the internet archive
for instance feb 2001:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010201055400/http://www.ronchampion.com/

[Edited on 10/1/17 by gremlin1234]

DRM Black7 - 10/1/17 at 04:26 PM

Looks pretty awesome, lots of MK bits on it.
But the Fr2000 reverse box!! Jesus! How badly is that mounted no wonder it ripped it's self free lol

Myke 2463 - 10/1/17 at 05:55 PM

Ron Champion had a showroom and workshop In Midland Road, Peterborough many moons ago before disappearing all from Google.

On 5 May 2000, the company moved to Peterborough in the county of Cambridgeshire . The company was dissolved on January 21 of 2003


Company Name.
Ron Champion Limited
Company number
03957333
Company type
Private limited with share capital
Incorporation date
27 Mar 2000
Dissolution date
Unknown
Type of accounts filing
Not Available
Latest annual returns
Unknown
Latest annual accounts
Unknown

slingshot2000 - 10/1/17 at 06:33 PM

I can remember seeing photographs of an aluminium chassis (may even have been in the second edition of Ron's original book). Ron was holding it in the air to demonstrate the light weight. I bet most of us here could hold up a steel version of the same chassis; it had no panelling or brackets. The steel space-frame of a Locost does weigh an awful lot.

There have also been numerous discussion's as to the pro's and con's of aluminium / steel, strength, structural limits, cost etc etc etc.
People even quoted FEA figures for both.

It may be a nice thing to own, but I don't think I would like to drive it hard.

SCAR - 10/1/17 at 06:56 PM

I read somewhere that Lotus had to resort to chemical bonding and mechanically fixing the ali to form the Elise chassis as welding resulted in heat hardening and fracture prone joints? Given that ali is so different to steel I don't think simply replacing the steel tubes with ali ones is such a good idea, I would expect a complete structural redesign would be needed to accommodate the change in construction material.
Car does look nice though

[Edited on 10/1/17 by SCAR]

gremlin1234 - 10/1/17 at 07:50 PM

aluminium chassis can work, Triumph raced spitfires at lemans with them in the '60s, also cars like the elise have them, however, the reverse box mounting shows some of the issues that may occur

wylliezx9r - 10/1/17 at 08:01 PM

quote:
Originally posted by gremlin1234
aluminium chassis can work, Triumph raced spitfires at lemans with them in the '60s, also cars like the elise have them, however, the reverse box mounting shows some of the issues that may occur


The Elise chassis is a complete different design ethos though it's all extrusions and box sections glued together it's not a space frame.

SCAR - 10/1/17 at 08:23 PM

The point is the Elise isn't welded, they couldn't do it and as far as I know the 60's racing Triumphs didn't use an ali space frame or ali monocoque As far as I am aware they used a separate steel ladder chassis like the road cars, only the steel body panels were replaced with ali. I think the lightweight racing E types might have used an ali monocoque but don't know how they were constructed.
If welded ali tube worked for space frames I'm sure there would be some in RGB/seven style racing.

gremlin1234 - 10/1/17 at 09:20 PM

quote:
Originally posted by SCAR As far as I am aware they used a separate steel ladder chassis like the road cars, only the steel body panels were replaced with ali.
the original lemans spitfires did use ali (rather than steel) ladder chassis. however, I totally agree that neither the elise or racing spitfire are 'spaceframe'

JC - 11/1/17 at 07:06 AM

I saw the aluminium chassis with my own eyes back in the day!

I think there was a thread on here about whether it was a suitable material or not.......

StevieB - 11/1/17 at 07:30 AM

quote:
Originally posted by SCAR
I read somewhere that Lotus had to resort to chemical bonding and mechanically fixing the ali to form the Elise chassis as welding resulted in heat hardening and fracture prone joints? Given that ali is so different to steel I don't think simply replacing the steel tubes with ali ones is such a good idea, I would expect a complete structural redesign would be needed to accommodate the change in construction material.
Car does look nice though

[Edited on 10/1/17 by SCAR]


The Elise chassis was designed from the start to be bonded - the designer was obsessed with the strength of extruded aluminium window frames which is where the inspiration came from that led to the Elise chassis design.

I've often thought the way to making an aluminium locost chassis would be to build a monocoque using aluminium honeycomb panels, much like the method in Pashley's motorcycle engine race car book. Again, uses bonded and riveted joints, not welded.

nick205 - 11/1/17 at 08:48 AM

I'm sure I recall seeing a photo of Ron Champion single handedly holding a Locost chassis in the air. Having moved an MK Indy steel chassis I can only guess that the one he was holding was made from Aluminium. (As mentioned above) knowing how unsuitable an Aluminium chassis would be I'd not like to drive that car myself!

SCAR - 11/1/17 at 08:50 AM

The new Everest Seven could be with us soon

It would be nice to see someone try an ali chassis using large section extrusions. Probably need to include some castings though which could be the problem. Motorcycle manufacturers have been making bike frames like this for some years.

[Edited on 11/1/17 by SCAR]

MikeRJ - 11/1/17 at 11:33 AM

quote:
Originally posted by gremlin1234
aluminium chassis can work, Triumph raced spitfires at lemans with them in the '60s, also cars like the elise have them, however, the reverse box mounting shows some of the issues that may occur


It's not a material problem, the reverse box mounting is an appalling lash up which made failure inevitable. Even if steel had been used it would have broken at some point.

[Edited on 11/1/17 by MikeRJ]

MikeR - 11/1/17 at 11:43 AM

I feel old ....

I remember Ron setting up the company and it going to the wall, Luego (who made the parts) taking over supply direct to the public and then going ....

The ali chassis was a demo and isn't suitable for real world use. There were many discussions on this forum 10+ years ago about it.

alfas - 11/1/17 at 12:05 PM

that car / chassis is nice as demo...but it should be kept as demo....in "real" life (road or track) this chassis wont last long, i would even call it dangerous!!

[Edited on 11/1/17 by alfas]

alfas - 11/1/17 at 12:09 PM

here a vauxhall (similar elise) alloy-chassis:

locost7-online.com - 14/1/17 at 07:34 PM

I also saw the chassis back in 2000/2001 ish at stonleigh or autosport show , didn't think it would catch on we had a huge discussion about its strength on locostbuilders I think or yahoo groups or something like that
I saw it on eBay, it's only round the corner from me

slingshot2000 - 15/1/17 at 01:16 AM

quote:
Originally posted by alfas
here a vauxhall (similar elise) alloy-chassis:

Wasn't the VX chassis basically an Elise chassis, adapted to accept Vauxhalls running gear and bodywork ??

loggyboy - 15/1/17 at 10:06 AM

quote:
Originally posted by slingshot2000
Wasn't the VX chassis basically an Elise chassis, adapted to accept Vauxhalls running gear and bodywork ??


A S1 elise yes. Just as lotus brought out the S2

Scoot - 20/4/19 at 11:42 AM

I have this car. Going for mot today and will be up for sale very soon.