Introduction

Welcome to my Pilgrim Sumo build! This site's aim (if you haven't already guessed) is to chart my progress as I attempt to build a replica of one of the greatest cars that has ever been produced.

The idea for building a kit car started 3 years ago with one of my many trips around the Internet looking for automotive news and exotica. As is the way with these things a few hyperlinks later and I ended up at the sites of Caterham and Westfield and I turned my surfing towards kits cars in general. A bit of googling later and I had turned up kits for cars as unlikely as the Ferrari 355 and the Lamborghini Diablo and amongst them all was one of my very favourites - the AC Cobra.

I chose the Pilgrim Sumo for three reasons. The first is the price of the kit. The Sumo has plenty of choices for building to a budget, and I don't have unlimited funds for this project! The second was the reputed ease of building the kit, which in turn was brought home to me by my third reason - Tony Breski's build diary. Tony's diary kept me occupied for much of 2001, reading how his own Rover V8 powered Cobra was progressing. Although he doesn't know it, I owe him a huge thanks for enthusing me enough to start my own project.

My basic mechanical expertise is pretty good (having spent 3 years keeping a rusty Nova on the road at university), but I've never attempted anything this complex before. I'm going to need to learn the art of engine building, welding, fibreglassing, automotive electrics and upholstering to name a few and I'll probably learn an assortment of new and interesting swear words along the way for good measure as well!

The real and the replica
(click to enlarge)

1967 Shelby Cobra

Pilgrim Sumo MKIII