Thank you folks for all your replies and helpful advice. My wife and I visited Marlin cars this week and met Terry (avec support superstructure) and Mark Mathews.
Mark took us out (individually of course) for a test drive. To say that I am impressed would be something of an understatement.
Nice thing was we tried the car with the hood up to begin with and then with it completely removed.
Now the car is better naked without hood, but three things I noticed:
1). The hood looks a hundred times better in the flesh.
2). It is still easy to get in and out of the car with the hood up.
3). The pneumatic tensioning bladder used really works. No drumming or flapping noises even at high speed. Engine noise is more obtrusive however Mark said that you can blank off the intake ducts at the back of the head rests when building which significantly reduces the noise.
I won’t go in to detail as to what we liked about the car as I would be preaching to the converted as you guys have already bought one.
However I will say that all of this is against a backdrop in so much as the previous day we had tested for two hours (by ourselves) a 200BHP Seven-type car by another manufacturer (not that far a way from Marlin - guess which?).
Which even though it was a brilliantly designed and constructed car and the people there were wonderful and a very professional. It just proved to us that this type of car is not for us. Not yet anyhow. If we were ever to go down the Seven route in a few years time, then that would certainly be the company for me.
The end result is that we will be placing our order for a 5exi at the end of the year, with a view to start building spring next year.
At which point I will then no doubt be bombarding this BB with a million questions.
Anyone know where I can find a mechanically sound but wrecked (body) R200 vi or BRM or MGZR160? Oh yeah they got to be cheap
.
Regards
MikeN