A VERY cheap little fun kit car run around???

[Facial Hair Optional]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mk2-Fiesta-Spartan-Treka-kit-car-fully-road-legal-buggy-not-project-/121814536110?hash=item1c5cb64fae:g:1HYAAOSwhcJWOS13

Would get someone on the road for peanuts!!

[longtimecoming]

The problem with kits like this is it now difficult to re tax them, if it was originally registered as a re bodied Fiesta. The DVLA are now refusing to tax any vehicle not registered correctly and it will need to be IVA'd   'I think' But I'm sure some one will know the in's and out's of it all. I do know it is now becoming a mine field for these types of kits.

[Facial Hair Optional]

If it's on the road and being used will it not have already been IVA'd?

I don't understand this 'registered correctly' lark, I've seen it stated in a fair few kit listings on ebay over the last two years but have never understood what people mean by it?

Anyone? Ian?

[CC Cyclone]

Before the days of SVA being introduced in the late 1990s, you bought your kit and put all the bits from your donar car in it and then... Well then what was supposed to happen was not always entirely clear. Dvla were meant to come and look at it and then update the log book on your donar car to reflect the name of the new car, or alternatively give the new car a Q plate and a new identity. The trouble was this was little understood by some local offices and quite often didn't happen at all, meaning there are kits, such as the one above, running around in the original donar registrations, sometimes legitimately as they were inspected by the local office  but they gave them some inaccurate description like 'cortina sports' or fiesta 'trekka'

In the late 1990s just before SVA came in, the dvla held an amnesty for a couple of years in order to try and sort out historic problems. You simply sent the v5 off with the correct name of the kit noted on it and they sent you a new v5 to reflect that. Unfortunately many kit owners didn't take the offer upand now, kits still registered as donar cars or the like are not really properly registered in the eyes of the dvla. Unfortunately, if your v5 says fiesta, and the car clearly isn't a fiesta, the only real route to proper registration is now to put it through an IVA which most of these kits will not pass.

It is still a grey area, I still believe that if you can prove the dvla inspected and registered it at the time it was built and it has been used regularly since, ie you did everything correct at the time, I don't really see how they can now turn around and say it is now not road legal. A real grey area though.

Unfortunately people still also try to build kits and run them on a donar registration document rather than IVA them and as a result they are basically worthless - 'ringers' at worst.

[Facial Hair Optional]

Blimey! Thanks James, I never knew any of that!!!  Bit of a minefield if you are not careful then!

[Brandy Barrel]

And whatever happens you juat cant argue with these people, what ever they say goes..... All government offices are the same, do it our way or not at all.

[longtimecoming]

Just out of interest I contacted the seller and he confirmed the car is still registered as a Fiesta. I think it would be, like lot of similar kits, a massive headache to re tax. Shame because it's a fun little car, in the dry.

[Facial Hair Optional]

Any idea if it is currently taxed or SORN'd? Or when it was last taxed, that would give a clue maybe? If it's been taxed recently then I would think they would find it hard to argue about taxing it again?

[Camber Dave]

As I understand it, the existing keeper on the V5 can re-tax the car O/K

It's when the new owner tries to register and tax it that the problems arise.

I assume that the SORN and re-tax is a routine computer based activity, whereas new registration involves humans that spot the '2 seater escort ' or Fiesta 'sports' or non standard engine size. 

Also the brighter of the traffic plods spot wrongly registered cars. I think there was a story recently of a Ferrari look-alike that was , or threatened with, crushing for being listed as a Toyota.

[benchmark51]

This would be a nice, simple and fun car in a better climate. I don't really see why there should be a problem for a new owner. If it has a V5 and an MoT it is registered and all is required would be a change of owner.