Westfield Sportscars
of Dudley Raod, Kingswinford
Westfield Sportscars are manufacturers of both factory built and kit versions of several two-seater, open top sports cars. Their main product line is a Lotus Seven inspired car - vehicles originally designed by Colin Chapman with only the bare essentials for motoring in order to give the rawest and most exhilarating driving experience.
Whilst Caterham Cars bought the rights from Lotus Cars, Chris Smith set up a rival company and manufactured kits with very similar styling and construction. This led Caterham to threaten litigation (based on Industrial design rights) in the late 1980s which was eventually settled out of court and resulted in Westfield improving and changing the design of their cars.
Whilst externally sharing a common look, Westfield and Caterham cars are somewhat different in construction. Westfield prefers to employ the same glass fibre body method that Lotus has traditionally used for their other models such as the Elise, Esprit, and Elan, rather than the aluminium used by Caterham.
Westfield has also pioneered technical innovations such as Independent rear suspension and a wider chassis, which other manufacturers have since adopted. The company has recently introduced a version of its SEi kit that uses donor parts from the Mazda Mx5 Miata.
According to figures given to the magazine Total Kit Car, Westfield produces about 450 SEi and XTR chassis each year.
In December 2006, Westfield became a part of Potenza Sports Cars Limited.
See Also
Sources of Information
- Wikipedia
- Powered Vehicles made in the Black Country by Jim Boulton and Harold Parsons. Published 1990. ISBN 0 904015 30 0