Westfield SE 1988
| Colour | White with Blue cycle wings and roll bar |
| Engine | Ford Zetec 1800 with Westfield 4-1 exhaust and twin 45 DHLA Dellorto's Webcon Alpha engine management. Dunnel lightened flywheel and uprated clutch. Diahatsu alternator |
| Gearbox | Ford Type 9 5 speed with RS2000 alloy bellhousing |
| Axle | MK1 Ford Escort 4.55:1 ratio |
| Front Suspension | Double wishbone Westfield design with Spax coilovers |
| Rear Suspension | Full Five link axle location - Spax coil over shock absorbers |
| Accessories | Full wet weather gear and tonneau |
My Westfield SE is a narrow body SE from 1988, the car came up for sale on the Westfield Sports Car Club (WSCC) website in October 2006 the owner had been carrying out an engine swap from a Ford Crossflow to a Zetec when a change of circumstances meant that he had purchased another Westfield and the old one had to go to make room in the garage.
A quick trip from Wem to Harrogate and the car was on a trailer back home. The Westie had been off the road since 2001 when I imagine was when the old crossflow engine expired. Barry the owner had then started a serious upgrade that over the next 5 years had seen Crossflow removed and an 1800 Zetec installed complete with a Type 9 speed the Zetec was thought to be an RS1800 unit from a Fiesta that would have been good for 130BHP in the Fiesta and arround 150BHP in the Westfield but unfortunately the engine is only a stock 105BHP and will be pushing out 135BHP at best.
The car also came with a couple of new seats that had not been fully installed and a new steering wheel that all in all made the car next to undriveable for me. The steering wheel had insufficient dish and made it far to close to the dashboard and the seats had runners that made them to high and also clash with the seat belt mounting eye bolts so that they could not be placed back in the car far enough. It was easy enough to remove the runners and sell them on and to remove the eye bolts and replace with standard bolts so that was the seats sorted and then a quick change of the steering wheel with an old leather dished item I had sitting about. Perfect.
Follow the links below to the changes made to the wiring, pedal box, dash and radiator and the Aeroscreen.
I liked the Westfield quite a lot but it's no Caterham is just a copy of the Icon and although they are competent enough as a sports car they are still basically a plastic body around a spaceframe and they don't bear close inspection in my opinion but for cheap laughs they cant really be beaten. My car was a one off and worth far more than i sold it for but the cars have a price that will never compare to the real thing. I cannot understand why people spend 10K plus building a westfield when a low mileage HPC Caterham can be bought without the horendous depreciation of the Westfield.
Conversion to Aerscreen and reduction in weight to the absolute minimum without spending and further money on the car was my final bit of work before I sold it - The weather in the UK in 2008 meant that the car was only used for a few hundred miles and the annual milage was propably trebled when the new owner drove it back to Germany with him.
The narrow body low line Westfield is the prettiest of the bunch and I really dont like the look or the size of the later fat bloater Wide bodies or the droop snoot look of the highline narrow car so there was no other option than to shift my attention to have a good hard save for the real thing.
So with the lack of use and the no real attachment to the car it was sold off quickly on pistonheads and I went looking for a replacement and although a Caterham is very high on the list I am no longer dead set on having one as there are some very nice alternatives that appeal to me and the ones at the top of the list are the Lotus Europa - Ginetta G4 - and maybe even another Alfa Guilia GTV or Junior.