Next time you get into a classic British sports car, please promise not to grind. No one does it on purpose, but it sure seems like everyone does it a bit too often, based on the number of worn teeth you see in the gears on the table below. Everything you see is trash and went to the scrap pile for recycling because of bad habits by prior drivers.

If you are already a pro, you’ll find the video below an interesting study of what happens inside a gearbox when people are careless. And if you are still new to this universe, please watch the video so you can see what happens if you get sloppy.

You need to be at a stand-still to engage first gear with these non-synchro gearboxes. If you are moving at walking pace or faster, use second gear to start off, or come to a stop and patiently engage first. This way, your gearbox will last a good long time! The cluster gear above displays the worst case scenario!

There is nothing wrong with a non-synchro classic car gearbox. There is no reason to be afraid of them or to avoid them. But please treat them with respect.

This week, our display Bugeye (with custom “Luv Me” License plate) left for the trip to Harrison, New Jersey where the car will be entombed in a Condo until the next pandemic, and perhaps, beyond. In case you missed prior reports, this car was pulled out of the bushes and restored into a conversation starter in a condo common room where the car will be parked for life.

Perhaps rentals and occupancy will go through the roof once word gets out that THIS condo has a Bugeye Sprite in the common space, and for all we know, this could be the first of many British car hobby recruiting stations strategically scattered in metropolitan areas around the country. We’re open to the concept and ready to build more!

We faced a few novel challenges with this delivery. The car needed to be placed on the landing above a flight of entry stairs, and then rolled down a narrow hallway framed by metal building studs. With the help of a rollback trailer and castoring wheel dollies, the car is now parked in what will become a nice finished home, with a view!

She’s temporarily covered with a wooden structure built around it to protect it, as the space gets trimmed and finished, which will take the next four to six months. The site is at 1 Bergen Street in Harrison, if you want to go check it out once the building is finished!

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It’s a Bugeye with a Flux Capacitor!

It’s actually more of a Lava Lamp, and its brain lives in the grill of our speakeasy Bugeye we’re building, which will be departing for Harrison, NJ in about a week, where the car will be entombed in a condo lounge for life. She has no drivetrain, but puts on a high horsepower light show, which seems appropriate for the application.

I’m not one for the latest novelty at the local auto parts store but I love this LED kit we installed here, because it gives this display Bugeye just the right “Wurlitzer juke box in the corner” glow, and in this case, modern technology has made that vibe possible (along with 87 other light show programs!)

Here’s Austin again, stuck in the boot of our display car. We made the butt protector (for folks who might sit on and otherwise dent the back deck, and allowed just enough room for Austin to get into the trunk to help mount the license plate light and rear emblem.

I’ll let you know on Monday if he ever got out!

This week, Kenny put together the dashboard for the display car. Here you will see the finest non-working switches and dials in the land, all designed to entertain anyone who climbs aboard. I felt like a pre-school toy designer as we laid out the maximum number of cranks, switches and dials one can turn. The choke and starter both pull, but there are stop nuts on the back of the cables to limit their range and to prevent users from pulling the cables all the way out. Remember, there is no battery and no wiring harness in this car. This is an interactive sculpture!

Above you can see George’s green Bugeye, here from Indiana for a supercharger, five speed upgrade and interior upgrade. When we removed the carpet to replace the interior, the rusty floor pulled up with it, so this car will also get new floor panels on its visit.

Below you can see Denim, now without roll bar, ready to head to be loaded for California, and Jinx II, a nice unrestored red Bugeye, that just arrived from California in the same truck. One in, one out!

Below you can see the red hardura mat we just installed on “Harris,” which will soon be heading to Morris and Linda in Massachusetts.

And below you can see Rick’s Bugeye we restored, soon to be heading to Houston. We recently recovered the top dash bar in black vinyl, and it looks great, to complement the black knee crash pad that was already in place on this later Sprite dashboard (note the non bugeye/later Sprite key switch). This vinyl covering was correct for top dash bars, and it is significantly nicer than the raw aluminum finish that had been on the car, especially since this car already had black under dash trim.

It has been another very busy week! See you next Friday!

One of the many nice things about working with our new guy Austin is that he offers many great photo opportunities (and has a good sense of humor).

Here’s what Austin and the rest of the crew have been up to this week, as we work to transform the latest crop of classic sportscars and move them through our facility…

Mr Schade’s Bugeye needed a new hanging gas pedal since the original one was worn out and prone to jamming. Above, Austin is actually wrestling the old accelerator pedal bolts out of the floor pan…

Here, Austin mind-melds with a 74 Midget, as he removes the giant rubber bumpers from Andrew’s MG, so he can install new petite chrome ones…

Above you can see Fred’s Bugeye from New York with excessive rear end height. Terry put in some lowering wedges and now the car looks level and great… This is a common Bugeye problem.

And finally, above you can see Kenny preparing to install our flip nose kit on George’s Bugeye before it heads to North Carolina. Once installed you can see how he mounts the leather straps on the rockers in the photo below.

We’ll be back next week with more fun and transformation!!!

What a year!

A lot of Bugeyes have passed through our building this year, and it has been a wonderful ride for us. We are inching up on 300 Bugeyes sold, with two more sold this week. Thank you Bud in California (“Denim”) and Charles in New Jersey (“Kelly”) for propelling us toward the 300 car milestone (now 285)! Here’s our latest custom production, just coming out of the paint booth. We’ll be building this one up in the Fall.

Who would have thought we could build a thriving business based upon what was designed as a cheap sportscar that was never imagined to last 60+ years… through pandemics, fires and floods, no less!

And I continue to marvel at the fact that Bugeyes were made for just three years… and that 1960 was the last time anyone could purchase a new one. And yet the market is stronger than ever, with record numbers being realized for Bugeyes at auction in recent months.

This has been a big year for Bugeye Sprites.

Weather disruptions this month reminded me it hasn’t always been easy… a microburst/tornado passed through our area this week, knocked out power for the entire town of Branford and made a big mess of everything. Here you can see a few pictures from my route between the shop and our home. The last photo shows our backyard, after three large trees came down from three different directions, and wiped out many of our bushes and smaller trees. It took three guys all day today to cut and chip all the limbs that came down in our small yard.

In spite of the fact that this is our second multi-day power outage this month, we push onward, and hope these weather events are just temporary. Fortunately, the shop escaped damage.

More challenging is the daily innovation required given limited parts supply due to pandemic supply chain disruption and a slowly descending quality standard for aftermarket parts. It seems like everything we take out of the box these days needs some fabrication to make it fit or work properly, and this has become somewhat routine, particularly as we try to push the envelope on quality and reliability.

Alas, we’ll be back next week, when the power is back on, the gas generators go quiet, and we continue our march to 300 and beyond!

Thank you for your ongoing support!