The kit car world has, for too many years now, been clinging onto the venerable Ford Sierra as its single donor vehicle of choice. Fortunately, the ratty old Dagenham dog has become so rare these days, that kit car manufacturers have been casting around for alternatives.
And Kent-based GKD Sports Cars has come up with a fine alternative: The BMW E36/E46 3-series. It's rear-wheel drive, it's in plentiful supply, it's cheap, and it can be mightily powerful. And, let's be honest, it feels a fair bit more exotic and befitting of a bespoke sports car than using the innards of a Sierra.
The rest of the GKD Legend, the bits that aren't from a BMW (and aside from the suspension, the body panels and the spaceframe chassis it's a surprisingly small amount), actually started life when GKD founder Peter Lathrope acquired the rights to the old Ginetta G27, but it's been so thoroughly re-engineered and tweaked that there's barely anything recognisable left over.
The finished product is actually noticeably larger than, say, a Caterham, but apart from the general size of the thing and the 'mess-o-pipes' as six exhaust manifolds become one, it looks at first glance like your usual Lotus Seven-alike.
At 750kg or so (for this particular car), however, it's really quite a chunky machine.
Having said that, with a whacking-great straight six in the engine bay it hardly needs to be a featherweight. It's quite an easy fit to get everything together as well, reckons Peter, saying that the whole driveline is pretty much a 'drop in and drive' affair.
"It is now," smirks Jason Spencer, whose car we're driving today and who has the honour of being the first chap to slot a big-power six underneath the bonnet of a GKD. "I've done most of the development work!"
Jason, who started off with an L-plate E36 M3, but dropped in a 3.2-litre motor from a 1999 M Roadster when the original engine died on him, reckons the whole project owes him around £13k. That's not a lot of money for a car that, if my usually rubbish maths is for once correct, gives a power-to-weight ratio of 457bhp per tonne (for reference a Caterham R500 gives a shade under 500bhp per tonne). Sufficiently fast, in fact, that I'm quite glad of the fact that this car has a full roll cage, especially since Jason initially takes the wheel, and I am not a good passenger...
One thing that would have also been helpful is a helmet, because Jason is not a fan of windscreens. But I don't have mine with me, and Jason isn't wearing one, so I don't want to look like a wuss. It makes the first part of the journey (with me in the passenger seat) a rather alarming one, however, especially since I can see more or less nothing above 60mph, despite wearing decently-sized sunglasses.
I might not be able to see where I'm going, but I'm sure we're getting there pretty quickly. And the gurgling roar from the straight six is rather intoxicating. Although Jason doesn't seem to need much in the way of revs. "it's just so torquey you find yourself changing up early, around 4000rpm, but the best of the power's still yet to come."
Once we've stopped for a bit of fuel it's time to swap over. Aside from the moderate awkwardness of clambering in through a roll cage, the GKD's cabin is actually quite accommodating, with a most un-Caterham-like amount of space for feet, arms and buttocks.
On the move it's immediately obvious that this is also a surprisingly approachable car. The clutch, gearchange and driveline are all easygoing and friendly (though the E36 gearbox does seem oddly long of throw for such a focused performance car, despite its slick action), while the comparatively chunky 258lb ft of torque renders a hyperactive throttle response unnecessary.
This lazy (ish) power delivery, combined with low-geared steering actually makes the GKD feel more like a muscle car than a lightweight hyper-focused machine like this has any right to feel. Heck, it even rides rather well, soaking up the lumps and bumps of Lincolnshire's improbably rippled country roads with the aplomb of a much bigger car. It's downright weird.
But it's also downright good. If you want a car that can do sprints or hillclimbs - and probably decimate all but the most focused opposition - one day, then trundle you to and from work another, then it's hard to think of anything that's more impressive (hyper-Caterhams or Ariel Atoms et al included).
Downsides? Well... If we're being super-picky the steering is a little
sluggish for my taste (but that could be remedied in any number of ways and I wouldn't want to spoil the car's approachable on-road behaviour), and the pedal positioning in Jason's car, particularly for the brakes, isn't quite spot on. Oh, and I'd quite like a windscreen. But these are niggles (and subjective ones at that); the idea of a six-pot BMW drivetrain in a kit car is a fabulous one, and one that GKD has executed with considerable skill. It is quite a car.
And that's before you consider the budget hot hatch price. And the spine-tingling six-cylinder yowl. And the 0-60mph in three-point-something...
