Junkyard Frogeye Sprite Build Ep.1 Project Intro, Story of Gaps the Sprite Zero-Budget Bugeye Build

Introduction film for Zero-Budget Frogeye Sprite Junkyard Rescue project.
First film in series covering whole rebuild from a bare-shell and ongoing repairs over 20,000+ miles of daily use. This film tells the history of "Gaps" the Sprite itself and the philosophy of the project, hopefully to explain some of the unconventional approaches taken to repairs & replacement of parts across the whole series of films. This is an old-school repair project to bring a very special car back from the brink. This is not a usual or conventional restoration project. Once it has been fairly brutally "fixed", this 60+ year-old motor car is not allowed a gentle retirement. Instead, it is put straight back to work earning its keep o the daily 50-mile commute along with trips far and wide all around the UK.
"Gaps" the Sprite is a well-known & well-used '58 Frogeye Sprite - used as a road & race-car for many years and mechanically improved by previous owners. Long-standing bodywork issues (the name "Gaps" comes from its famously-bad panel-fit!) combined with creeping rust meant that the car's well-sorted & competitive mechanicals deserved a better shell - in the form of an existing solid car, stripped for restoration many years ago. The remaining Donor Shell, rusty and with untidy welding & repairs from its time on the track - is not economically viable to restore back to "perfect" or to be "restored" in the usual way. With its many issues, this shell wouldn't justify a conventionally-sourced set of new replacement parts - mechanicals, wheels & suspension, interior, instruments & dash, glass, weather-protection, etc.(especially as the cheapest way to get all these bits is a complete project-car or US import, probably with its own, better shell!) In many cases, donor-cars like this would simply be robbed of chassis-tags to be used as basis of a new-build around a new-shell. But we have decided to keep "Gaps" the Sprite alive - and to bring it back to life & back On-The-Road in an unconventional way and on a near- zero budget, using old parts sourced for minimal cost and creative & innovative repairs. As well as being genuinely necessary for financial reasons (I'll admit that I am not in a conventional position to be able to afford a good, complete Mk1 Sprite, or to buy & restore a conventional, complete project-car) this approach was also essential to making this fabulously-characterful car viable and worth saving in any rational sense. (If I was going to do it "better", it would make sense to source a better car to do it with!) There are two additional twists to the tale. The first is that, as the replacement shell was prepared and re-built, the parts were removed from the donor over several months - and during that time "Gaps" would be kept up-and-running as an approximately-complete, functional motor-car (this was important - as we knew that if he was completely stripped-bare, we would just be left with a pile of rusty-rubbish that would be emotionally & intellectually as well as practically & economically beyond any sensible idea of re-building!) The final twist is that, despite the issues, the financial constraints and the age of the machine, this car was to be used - throughout - as a daily-driver, commuting some 50 miles every day to-and-from work... Follow the series of films as almost every part of the car is removed, replaced or re-made - wheels, suspension, instruments & dash, windscreen frame, interior, etc. etc.

You may come to this introduction-film to make sense of the project AFTER watching one of the work-project films (maybe film #2 where the car is completely "disemboweled" , with engine, gearbox and axle all pulled out during one crazy weekend) or maybe to see if we ever got it back together. (Spoiler Alert - we did). Or you may be discovering the project through this film. (if you do, welcome aboard, I hope you enjoy the film and watch some of the others). More films will be uploaded over the coming weeks and months.