8 comments

  1. My 2nd car at 17 was a Bug-eye. Purchased for $600 as I recall. Great little car that could be driven flat out every where I went. Ok…. so “flat-out” was barely 70 mph. and on the new interstates I needed to be careful of being run over by big rigs. and when it rained, it was just as wet inside with the top up or down…. and the side curtain ” windows ” were yellowed so you couldn’t see though them if they were installed.
    …. on the plus side, it was possible to have sex in that tiny space……but at 17 you had to take advantage of any opportunity you had.

    But that example does not have much of the original Sprite left. just what remains of some exterior body panels pasted onto a home built tube frame death trap go cart.

    Where can I buy one?

    2. I think a full custom chassis is necessary in this case. Between the torque of that Hemi, its weight and that of a transmission that can handle the power, the stock body and frame would have been wrung like a dish rag the first time you really stepped on the throttle.

      1. There was no frame or chassis, it was an early Unibody made from pre-rusted British Layland “Steel”. and there would have been no way to shoehorn a Hemi into the space provided for the 987 cc original engine by the original sheet metal.

        So yes, the only possible solution was a complete rework with a shell pasted over it.

        1. I assumed some sort of unibody(ish) construction. A relative of mine has a piece of property that came with the carcass of a bug-eyed Sprite. When we got around to moving it down to a garage it didn’t so much drag behind the towing vehicle as… slither.

  2. And the crowning glory, is the “BMCD” license plate frame,
    for those of us who were around then.
    Kjell Qvale would be proud.

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