For what it's worth, here are some ramblings of a 3-year FF guy, formerly
a Sprite racer for 5 years.
I've found that FFs are much easier to maintain ONCE PROPERLY SET UP than
a production car. They were engineered to take the stress of racing in
their "stock" form...you don't keep breaking things and have to replace
them with high priced, racing application parts. They are also much
easier to work on because everything is exposed and easier to get to.
For example, you don't have to do a head stand underneath the dash to
adjust a throttle cable.
For the most part, parts are CHEAPER, because you are very limited by
specs. The motor, for example, is a stock Ford 1600 xflow from a
Cortina, Capri or early Pinto. Many parts are off-the-shelf at Western
Auto. Others are easily obtainable from a variety of sources.
Regarding marque, my feeling is that level of preparation is more
important than marque. Several marques are more prevelent--Lotus, Lola,
Titan, Hawke, Winklemann, Caldwell--probably because more were produced
to begin with. There's a great book that (someone out there can help
with the name and source) name that discusses and evaluates 150 marques
of FF. Read it before you buy anything.
Safety is another issue. Open wheel cars tend to launch eachother when
the wheels touch!! What would probably be just some minor body damage
with production cars can be a major incident with open wheelers. As my
comrades who read this might agree, I'm still pretty nervous going side
by side into a narrow turn alongside of someone I don't know.
Overall, the're a hellovalotof fun. The level of control and feel
compared to a production car is radically improved. And while the
approx. 100hp motor doesn't snap your neck, you can carry a lot of speed
thru the turns, resulting in quicker lap times than a lot of higher hp
production cars.
Virtory Lane (www.victorylane.com) and Vintage Motorsport are national
magazines with plenty of FFs advertised for sale.
Prices range from $8-25K.
Andy '70 Winkelmann WDF-2
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