Delving into the Sammio archive that resides in the 3lbs/1.5kgs of grey sponge that inhabits my cranium (contents may vary with alcohol consumption), I believe that the front wheel-arch 'issue' lays at the door of customer demand for a six cylinder Vitesse powered option:
Going way back to the roots of the project, the original designer/developer wanted to build himself an homage to the Porsche 550 Spyder, but didn't like the price of the available kits.
As he had a background in 'rodding and fibreglass fabrication, having started a number of specialist vehicle companies over the years, he took a 1950's 'Nikkri' fibreglass special bodyshell and, as he happened to have an old Triumph Herald sitting about, set about adapting the Nikkri shell to both fit the Herald chassis and look more like James Dean's favoured chariot into the afterlife.
For reasons known only unto himself, the designer then sold the unfinished prototype to someone else, who finished it, drove it to Le-Mans and then advertised it on ebay. Crucially, the listing included a link to the designer's 'rod business, and it wasn't long before enquiries started coming in as to whether the bodies would be available for sale.
As the designer had taken a mould from the prototype, he was able to begin production and The Sammio Motor Company was born.
With its sloping, pre '67 Beetle headlights and sensuous curves the car looked a fair bit like a '550, even if the front mounted, water cooled four-pot motor would cause convulsions amongst Porsche purists -
Once a few had been sold, enquiries started coming in asking if the more powerful six cylinder Vitesse could donate its mechanicals to the car.
As the bigger engine wouldn't fit under the 'German' style bonnet, the designer set about modifying a bonnet that could take the six-pot. The result was dubbed the 'Italian' style bonnet due to its similarity to the 1954 Mille Miglia winning Lancia D24 Spyder -
Unfortunately, once customers started to try to actually fit a Vitesse motor under the 'Italian' bonnet, it became apparent that for some of us, if you did get the bonnet over the engine, it sat at such an awkward angle that it ruined the line of the front wheel arches. This was my first attempt at fitting the bonnet -
I just wasn't happy with the resulting look, so set to with the angle grinder, cutting a large section out of the bonnet, hence my large scoop (the secondary scoop on mine is mainly there for aesthetic reasons). I also had to lower the radiator a lot more, rotate the dynamo down and fabricate a new lower bracket for it to prevent them fouling, ending up with wheelarch gaps like this -
Overall, my car took two years to finish (partly down to starting with a rotten chassis) and I either had to, or decided to alter or modify about 25% of the body as it left the mould. I personally saw that as a positive thing, a challenge that stretched my engineering skills and left me with a real sense of satisfaction that I just wouldn't have got from just bolting a Caterham together.
After all, with enough time and effort and a modest amount of money invested in the project, the finished cars look like this -
Here endeth the lesson.
