Westfield Elevens

Hello Everyone

I am located in the US and am considering the purchase of a new Eleven kit. Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with the US importer / distributor? They look for payment of half the cost up front so I wouldn't mind some comments on others who have gone through the process. Any commnets on what you thought of the quality of the kit vs expectations would also be appreciated.

Hopefully I'll have much more to contribute to this site in the future!

Thanks in advance.

I have had an extensive relationship with Manik Technologies, and I find Tom to be above board, and honest in his dealings.

I have built one kit that was delivered to me directly through Manik, and have worked with Tom on correcting builds for other owners over the past 6 or so years, and helping other builders. I also prepared Manik's own press demo car. That is the car that you may have seen in CD, R&T, Kit Car and Edmunds Inside Line.

He delivers parts and kits as promised, and pays as agreed for services.

EVERY component car or kit car company requires half (or more) up front. This is pretty much industry standard.

If you check the three W11 sites, this one, and the Yahoo sites Westfield_eleven and WestyXIownersbuildersdrivers, you wont find any negative comments about Tom or Manik.
Tom has always come through with parts and information, and is product oriented. You wont find a better guy to deal with in the kit car industry.

Westfieldxiownersbuildersdrivers is a site specifically for builders. There is a full build album there for my last RHD car, as well as an ongoing build by another. If you have an questions about the build, I have done it all... You can reach me through the Yahoo site WestyXIownersbuildersdrivers. https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Wes ... ivers/info

There is only one guy that has had a negative experience with Tom, and you should take his criticism with a grain of salt... He has complained loudly and shrilly, on the Westfield_eleven site, sans reason or rhyme. He has been described by vendors he has dealt with as "argumentative". He previously had no experience at all with British cars, let alone an old school kit car like the W11. He claims that his W11 has "handling problems" yet he has yet to take the chassis off the work stands. The car is not finished, and has never turned a wheel (or even touched a wheel to the ground in more than 4 years of build time). it is, at his rate of build, years from completion. He claims to be an automotive engineer, yet he can't seem to assemble the front or rear suspension on his car (there are pictures to prove this). Several people have called me to help this individual, but he refuses to listen to anyone and takes great pleasure in insulting me, and anyone who agrees with me. He has been banned from at least one W11 site so far. for simple vulgarity and untoward attacks against other established builders with finished cars. If you have any questions about his complaints, let me know, and I will give you the correct information, backed up by finished cars that can be driven and inspected, as well as extensive build documentation.

I am sure that you will find just about everyone is happy with Tom as a distributor.

My own direct experience in building the car is that the kit goes together easily, and when properly set up, handles well and is much fun to drive. My personal kit is now over 30 years old, and has more than 60K miles on it. I have built 3 of the W11s in RHD, both the late model of the kit, and did extensive work on an early kit, as well as a complete rebuild of my own personal LHD car. I have full build albums on the Westfield_eleven site, and on the Westyxiownersbuildersdrivers site.

If you are in the Los Angeles or Ventura area, I have a very nice car that you can drive. Several other builders have sampled the car prior to purchasing their kits.

I bought a kit from Tom and must say that he was a joy to work with. The factory, not so much........ My first kit was poorly crated and was badly damaged in transit when the crate fell apart. It took a few months for a replacement to arrive. In addition the sheet metal panels on the chassis were seemingly installed by a semi-trained ape. It appears that the whole concept of a piloted countersink was foreign to the factory as all of mine were full of chatters and ragged edges. Julian, the factory manager was non-responsive when I informed them of this. The kit arrived with many missing parts, but Tom was able to get them sent eventually and I was never delayed in my build, it was just annoying. The factory was never able to send a anti-roll bar that fit and after two or three faulty parts I just had one made here by Addco at my expense.

I am very happy with my car now, but you have to be prepared to do a bit of engineering and design yourself as this is by no means a fully developed bolt together and go for a drive experience. As far as the US Westfield "community" goes, perhaps you had better contact me offline...... To get a flavor of the personalities join the Yahoo forum and read the archived posts from a few years back. You will soon be able to get a feel for the way things were before it all blew up and the poster above was banned. The UK Westfield club site is pretty much useless for eleven info, at least it was back before I gave up on it, maybe it has changed for the better since then? The Yahoo archives have all you need as far as technical advice, just take the time to read the old posts throughly and wade through the verbiage and conflicts: there is real tech gold there.

I suggest that you contact other US builders directly as opposed to on public forums and hear what they have to say: there is something to learn from everyone! You could do worse than contacting the gentleman who purchased the "magnificent W11" in the thread a couple of lines below this one. Not being a builder he may better be able to give an unbiased opinion since builders like myself have a lot of time and effort committed and that makes it hard to be impartial.

My ongoing relationship with the factory has been fine. I order parts about twice a year, and the parts are usually delivered as promised and on time. I have never had a problem.

My three anti sway bars were fine to install, though one had to be cut .5" at one end and the sleeve rewelded. I also recommend replacing one set of the rod ends so that you have both LH and RH threads, with a LH and RH threaded end link so that the bar can be easily adjusted without disassembly.

The kit does take some handwork and fitting of some parts. The rear axle brackets require proper alignment and welding, and if you order a quick release steering wheel hub, you might want to machine your own adaptor sleeve. Pictures are all in the build albums found on the sites.

My kit was delivered about two years after W11 Builder's. As far as the assembly quality, the later kits were built up for Westfield by an outside contractor (Westfield now contracts the work on the W11 kits) and the workmanship was quite good. Not a scratch or chatter mark anywhere. Things have changed over the years, and I have not heard of a problem with the kits in some time. There are plenty of pictures of the RHD kit I assembled on both the Yahoo sites, so you can see the workmanship for your self.

Generally, the "fitting" involves just some filing, minor bending and some cutting. There is no real need for wholesale fabrication if you use the standard radiator, and stick to the basic kit assembly. Some minor machine work makes for a very nice fit for the steering rack connector cut from the original Spridget steering shaft.

It helps to have had some experience with kit building, or experience with early tube frame racers and the British cars that they were made from so that you get an idea of the standards and practices of the time. And if you don't, there are quite a few people that can help with reliable knowledge and practice.

RHD kits can be had with separate front and rear brake master cylinders (the firewall is already drilled for the cylinders and floor hinged pedals), with a proper balance bar brake pedal made by Westfield. This greatly improves brake feel over the standard Westfield tandem master cylinder supplied with the kit. You can't easily install twin master cylinders on the LHD kits as you will have to fabricate your own hanging pedal quadrant. There is no increase in build difficulty, setup or cost if you go with the racing twin master cylinder setup. The master cylinders are cheap, and available from Wilwood, as they are standard Girling pattern parts.

I think that the biggest thing to remember is that the W11 is really a tube frame race car with its roots back in the mid '50s. Keep it simple and try to understand the original intent of the design and you will have lots of fun.

There are two Yahoo forums. One for builders/drivers, with an exclusive , restricted membership group totaling about 35 actual owners/builders (westfieldxiownersbuildersdrivers).

The Westfield_Eleven forum has 250 members, but less than 10 cars (most have sold or moved on. No more than 8 members have posted on that forum in the 8 years that I was a member), maybe. The moderator of the old Westfield_Eleven group has not owned his car for more than 5 years. I reworked it at my home for the new owner just after he sold it. They average less than a post a month for the year. As far as finding gold in the early posts, well... It was a lot less about building than about socializing about the cars that were never driven (the Moderator's car had less than 3500 miles in 20 years of ownership). There was virtually no information about car setup, or how to make the finished kit work properly.

This has changed over the years, and there is lots of reliable information available from the owners who have actually completed and driven their cars. A few of us drive our W11s extensively.

It is true that most of the communications between owners on the forums occurs off line, via direct E mails. I get about 15 E mails a month from owners from all over the world. Having worked with a few different make specific sites (I moderate two international marque specific forums), I can say that most of the really important communications go as PMs, generally due to Yahoo's use of participants information to generate spam...

I have a pretty good list of US builders that have finished their cars, and a huge amount of build information and reliable vendors. Westyxiownersbuildersdrivers has builders who have used LSDs, double bearing hubs, CR 5 speed gearboxes, Datsun gear boxes, custom radiators, double adjustable dampers, and have successfully backdated the late chassis for better ride and handling. There are even guys that have made their Weber carbs work properly, and have built their own engines.

Yes, there is lots to learn... the trick is separating the wheat from the chaff...

Thank you both for your replies. Great information that is quite helpful regarding the dealer and the company. I think its always wise to get the opinion of people who have walked down this path previously.

I would be building the car myself. I worked for a british sports car shop as a mechanic in high school and college and have continued working on the cars as a hobby since. I do everything myself with the exception of stiching up an interior. I've had many different kinds over the past 25 years, including an S2 Seven that I purchased as basically a chassis and suspension bits. The car came out beautifully (it went to make space for an Aceca that came out of a chicken coup but became a fantastic driver and unfortunately is no longer with me - the biggest mistake I've made in the hobby as it was my all time favorite). I currently have a 65 Morgan +4 and an 05 Elise. The Elise would go to make room for the Eleven.

If I do the Eleven my intent would be to make it as close to an original car as I could, given the limitations of a different chassis, glass body, etc. I would be putting an FWB in the car, 15 inch wheels, amongst many other details. When I go through a car I always keep things as they would have been done when the car was new and I would go that route with the Westfield as far as I could. There are alloy front and rear body sections that Mike Brotherwood has which I have considered but from a cost to value standpoint I think this would be going a bit overboard.

The biggest thing keeping me from pulling the trigger right now is time. My professional life is quite busy right now and I have two 5 year olds who also keep me quite busy. I am not the type to buy something like this and let it sit in the garage for 15 years only to be sold as an unfinished project. Given your responses this is what I am considering over this weekend. They are going to do another run soon and I need to get an order in if I want the car this summer.

Thanks again for your thoughts! I'll let you know when I decide.

If you want to build an xi as close as possible to an original, including the fwb, and 15in wheels etc, then why not go the whole hog and build on a reproduction xi chassis, it may well be easier? As for cost, i built mine for about the same price as a budget westfield build, (mine is A-series powered). Yes its alot more involved and will take much longer to do but is possible, lots of people about to help and most parts fairly easy to get hold of......

It's easy to build a more accurate looking car with 15" wheels, race tires and the trim parts on the Westfield chassis, and the Westfield chassis is quite a bit more rugged, as the space frame extends through the tunnel.

Also, there is already proper conversion kits for the 5 speed transmission, and the car goes together easily. The body is fitted, and everything that is supposed to fit from the donor car, fits. I have done 4 cars with the 15" wheels, LSD, and CR 5 speed. No problems were encountered along the way (the wheels fit perfectly, with the original sized race tires, and the handling is perfectly period and authentic with the proper setup. Period correct trim parts and additional power were fitted as well, along with a custom cut instrument panel. Nothing special has to be done other than putting the right dampers and ride height on the chassis. Hell, even if you don't put on 15" wheels, you really need to change the damper length to get a reasonable ride.

I suspect that building the car on a reproduction W11 chassis might be a bit more expensive, and require quite a bit more fettling of the parts to make everything fit.

The advantages of an authentic chassis would be a better solid axle rear suspension (longer rear trailing arms), and the possibility of a ball joint front end. Having the properly angled instrument panel would be nice as well. However, such a kit does't really exist, and a lot of additional work would be needed as opposed to just screwing together a wire wheel W11, or buying an already built one, and making the changes.

As for build time: The car is fairly easy to build. I put the rolling chassis together, with the engine and transmission assembled, sans wiring, in about 3 weeks. The whole car was done in about 6 months, with quite a bit of special fabrication that I had to wait for. These were authentic cars, but without your expensive FWB. I used a 1380 Spridget, with an output of 125+HP. At the time of the arrival of the kit, the engine and transmission were already assembled and ready to plug in. The donor had been stripped and disposed of, and the components were properly refurbished. The kit was essentially a bolt together proposition. Custom parts included the radiator, duct work (sheet metal fab done at home, over an afternoon), and the exhaust header. Quite a few parts were exchanged for restored/improved bits, like the Mini Mania front spindles and double bearing hubs in the rear, along with the competition axles (mandatory with the LSD).

There is no real on that the car should take 15 years to build, let alone one year. If you plan your work, you can finish it in less than a year. That means building your engine and trans assembly, rear axle and having the front end ready to bolt on. Not difficult, as you will be waiting longer for your engine longer than it will take you to assemble the chassis. It is just not that hard.

Yeah whatever.

Some folks must be accustomed to getting paid by the word......

It's just a simple question but what a lot of opinion