kirkhams in Australia
 

Hi all,
new to the forum was thinking of getting a kirkham built here in the next year or so.Does anyone know if there is any distributors here or has anyone engineered the Kirkhams here in Victoria .Dont want to make the same mistake i made with my Eleanor .

There are a few Kirkhams in Australia that got through and registered on a loop hole.
From what I know that hole has been closed.
As for buildng and complying one in Australia, I am not saying it could not be done (because anything can be at a cost) but it may be a costly exercise.
The difficult part would be in prioving the chassis is complaint (require torsional and beaming test) and if you go with the Kirham suspension parts (and why would you not) is that these I think would need to be tested for strength and no doubt other tests (since they are custome made and not from a compiant vehicle)
And you would need to run a modern engine or LPG.
Another option I had briefly looked at was the possaility of mating a Kirkham alloy body to an Australian supplied (allready complied) chassis.
In my case I looked at buying a chassis from Classic Revival (Ian was willing to supply a bare chassis with all suspension mounting points fitted) Kirkham do sell bare bodies, and you would need to make a birdcage frame to join the 2 together.
In this case again you would need to run a modern engine.
A 3rd option may be to find a registered car that has been in an accident (complied chassis and vin number allready there) and retro fit the Kirkham body, if you looked for an older build car you should be able to find a small block carbie fed complied vehicle.

In any case not a cheap exercise.

kirkhams for sale
 

there are 2 kirkhams being built at the moment in perth by rmc which will be for sale when they are australian compliant. give them a call

Will the kirkham bodie fit on any chassis or just on classic revival?

I did not get into the specifics of it, I stopped when I realised it was going to cost about 30-50K just for the alloy body (can not remember exact numbers).
But to my reckoning as long as your donor chassis is a 90 inch wheel base then it should be possable to make it work.

I chose the CR as it is 90 inch and is also a round tube chassis rail now.
Being a ladder frame it is also fairly flat with raised areas for front and rear suspension.

Will give them a call.But i rather get the car built in Victoria as i can pop in to see the car and have more control over the build

ELNR67,

If you really want a Kirkham and have the money to spend to have one built, i would consider doing as Boxhead says and importing the body only and using an Aus chassis. I think you could make any of the kits work that dont use a monocoque design and not the DRB (as i think its longer?).

If you are wanting to go down that path and need someone in Vic to build it, i would go and talk to Doug Pearce Engineering. Doug has build many cobras and im pretty sure knows all Australian Kits pretty well.

Liam

Probably best to line up your engineer first and have him go through the rules you'll need.

My understanding is that the Kirkham is a pretty faithful replica in a lot of areas and if that is true for the frame then side intrusion is likely the be the biggest stumbling block.

My recollection is that there are a number of items where the opinion of the engineer comes into play any when the engineer was going over my cobra (pre-build) he gave a number of items a tick and was prepared to go with some of the things that came with the kit because 'that's the way they made it'

I dont think the torsion/beam will too much of an issue.

Once you know what you need out of the chassis (spec wise) you could try emailing the Kirkhams and seeing if they can provide the specs from their range and you'd then know what you were up for.

LoBelly

Yep, talk to an engineer.

And stick with the same one right through.
In Vic I think Enklemanns are well respected.

I think the Kirkham chassis could either already be compliant or be made to fairly easily including side intrusion.

My biggest concern was the suspension parts, as I think an engineer would want to see reports on twisting, flex, welding and material composition?
I could be being over causious but best to be ready for the worst.
That was my main reason for wanting to look at a different chassis supplier, one that used known approved donor parts.

Or
Give me the money
I will buy it here in the USA, drive it for a year (register it under my name) and bring it back with me when I return to Australia then gift it to you for nothing ;)

Hi Gents,

I've been going through the research process of investigating a Kirkham into Aus.

Unfortunately, neither of their current frame designs are compliant in their current forms.
In correspondence with Kirkham, they have rated their frame at about 2500Nm per degree, which is well short of our legal requirement.

I'd guess this is were RMC in Perth seem to have hit a bit of a brick wall.
(Along with complying a reflective shinny skinned car due to the non-compliance with ADRs... but that's another story.)

This alone is not a deal breaker for the Kirkham kit in Aus as you can obviously make modifications to improve the strength. The problem is shipping a car to Aus. Then removing the Body to make the mods, only to have to put it back, is not possible without big Dollars. This is especially as the body is not removable from a Kirkham without cutting it!
This cost looks like it will blow it out of the water for me.

However in true Kirkham fashion "ie: always willing to help" David Kirkham has advised me that the boys are looking into seeing what can be done to strengthen the frame to meet ADRs.

If this were done at the Kirkham end before the body was fitted, most all else I guess could be negotiated through... without much more trouble than a regular kit I'd guess. Other than the point of getting a reflective shinny skinned car through ADRs...

If anyone knows anything further I'd love to know about it.


Kind regards,
Anth

Seriously - is this even an option to get it through ADRs? %/

You may have trouble now getting an import approval even for a roller out of the states. I tried to import a partially built RCR GT40 and Canberra decided it was too close to a complete car to bring. With no compliance, its going to be an expensive gamble.

I think the best option is to do what boxhead said.Put the kirkham bodie on a Australian complied chassis.That is unless the Kirkhams can make there chassis meet Australian ADRs.
I think i will wait a little and see what unfolds

Like Box said - it could be done, but it'd be an incredibly costly exercise.
Why spend all that money trying (most likely in vain) to reengineer a body that's designed for a glass body? There was a Kirkham body / Factory 5 chassis Cobra that was for sale in Ebay US recently. To put it politely, it looked hideous because the chassis didn't suit, and the builder didn't have the time / willingness / expertise to make it looked like the two belonged. There is such an intricate support structure required, and a lot of old school talent required to wrap the body around the framework that it wouldn't be feasible for you to ask someone to do it.

Or does anyone build a aluminum cobra here like the kirkham?

Both CTC in Warragul VIC (aka superformance australia distributors) and G-Force (Rob) in Perth can do an alloy bodied cobra.

CTC will do it... I've asked, but at the same time I'm not sure they totally recommend it, as they tried to talk me out of it. Give them a call, and say hi to Shelly, Colin & Kevin.
They have been most helpful with my research, and their cars are top notch... and hard to fault.
I was ready to hand in my hard earned & move on one they hand in stock... but missed it by days.
I might still bite the bullet and go CTC for one of thier SPFs anyway...

Cheers,
Anth

There website is not very good and looks outdated,it does not list prices.Same with rmc,there website is even worse and the links dont work.What did they quote you for a alloy roadster?

PM Sent.
Suffice to say it wasn't cheap %/

Cheers
Anth

Believe me, a Kirkham is much more than an aluminium body !

Soul.