MOD McGregor Replica from 21307 Caterham

[grandell]

Hi all,

So, many, many years ago, my uncle put together a Lotus 7 replica from a company here in New Zealand called McGregor, and I was lucky enough to help him build it. Of course, when the Lego Ideas Caterham came out, I knew I had to modify one into a replica of the car we built.

I bought a second Caterham set ages ago, and when my fiance was in South America for 6 weeks I took the opportunity to fill the lounge with Lego, fumble my way through half a dozen Bricklink orders, and build JB's Toy: Version 2

 

The original car

and the Lego version

compared to 21307

 

 

As you can tell, the main change is the colour. The front fenders are now colour coded to the body, and the suspension has been changed from black to LBG. The bonnet vents have been moved around slightly too, to match the original car better, and I made the same change on the Lego Caterham. It's a simple change, and from memory requires two 2x2 plates (any colour), two 2x2 and two 1x3 tiles (body colour), and two 1x2 tiles any colour. I can post more details later if anyone's interested.

 

The next most obvious change is the addition of a windscreen!! Not gonna lie, I'm super proud of this. Took me a good few days to get something I was happy with, and the fit is so tight, but it works. The angle is great, it lines up with the tiles on the side, and there were no modifications needed to the bonnet. Other than the vertical sides of the windscreen being a little flimsy, the overall look is pretty well proportioned, and not too bulky.
I'm hoping to replace the black clips with grey ones once they become more common (thanks Voltron!!)

It mounts to a beefed up firewall, and is a combination of hinges and brackets

The dash mounts lower than on the original set, but I think it still looks fine

 

New seats were created too, again to match the original a little better

 

Next up I wanted to remain as true to the original car as possible, which meant changing out the engine for a 4AGE Toyota unit.
My uncle sent through a couple of pictures he took while the build was in progress, to help guide me

And the final result, including modified exhaust out the correct side

plus a couple of other little details, like a steering column and radiator hose

 

Lastly was adding a spare wheel and license place holder to the back, using a couple of clips and a pneumatic T piece

 

 

There are still a couple of little details to go... I'm hoping to get the white 1x4 tiles custom printed with the license plate "JBSTOY", and maybe make a few other small changes.

Would love to hear your feedback, and possible suggestions on what else I can do to improve this model

 

Thanks for reading!