Tornado Australia

Andy Sheldon

Andy Sheldon

Tornado Sports Cars
We are now in the process of setting up an outlet for our cars, kits and parts in Australia.
Tornado Australia will be run and operated by Dave Stean.
Many of you will already know Dave from the Facebook Australian GT40 and Cobra replica pages.
Dave has been building replica cars in Australia for over 20 years now including Westfields, Cobras and GT40's. He has also restored a few classic Mustangs over the years.
Dave is well versed in passing the Australian design regulations and has already modified his Tornado TSC GT40 chassis to meet the required Torsion test standard.
We will now be producing a modified version of our GT40 replica kit for the Australian market which will also include the door side intrusion bars required to meet the regulations.
Dave is very much looking forward to helping customers in Australia build there own Tornado GT40 replica and also to supplying parts to those who already have a project under way. The pictures show Dave's chassis on a torsion test rig under going testing and a picture of Dave himself.
Oh and he is also a keen flyer of R/C model aircraft which is always good news!
 

Attachments

A

Dave

Thanks everyone, we have been busy with testing to get the paper work right for the Aussie cars. Looking forward to helping out where I can. Check out the Tornado Sports Cars Australia facebook page and give it a like. Looking forwrd to getting a build thread going soon.
 
Andy Sheldon

Andy Sheldon

Tornado Sports Cars
Michael

Yes the guy we appointed just seemed to loose interest.

And then barred us form all of the Australian GT40 FB pages that he moderates.

If anybody else is interested just drop me a line.

Thanks

Andy
 
M

Michael

Hi Andy , Thanks for the reply , its definitely disappointing , it would be good to have an Australian dealer , but as we know it can be difficult to get Cars registered
 
A

Dave

Ok , I was going to let this go but in the interest of clarity here’s my reply to a very frustrating situation

1- Tornado hasn’t been blocked from the fb pages, I have put post approval on to stop the bombing of the pages. A lot of Suppliers are on this list as people get tired of reading the same stuff over and over. The page is intended for Owners of all replica variants not advertising constant.

2- The Tornado GT40 as built from the factory does not comply with current Australian regulations, it’s nowhere close in many areas, I can’t sell a kit to an Australian Customer without opening myself to legal action. This has happened in the past to another agent with a different brand and they had to buy back the vehicle at great cost.
3- Being the Agent for Tornado just wasn’t worth it in the end , my deal was 5% discount. Add freight, GST , engineering, redesign and import duty and the kit / parts was suddenly twice the price. People inquiring would get upset as they had pricing from the UK and would say they will go direct, ‘why should I buy it from you’ which I could understand. I also had to pay all the Engineering and development of the chassis to pass requirements here.

4- The factory chassis is so weak in chassis torsion that it fails Australian requirements by a long shot…it’s thousands of Nm short of requirement.
I asked Andy if he wanted to help / contribute to chassis improvement development the answer was no, so I developed the chassis I had, it cost thousands to get to spec. I asked for a chassis drawing so I could add
The extra bracing required so he could make an Aussie chassis in the UK and he again did not send a drawing, I asked for him to develop/ include a collapsible/lockable steering column again it was to hard.
I then requested that we build the Aussie chassis with the Aussie requirements here under Tornado license, the answer was no. What can I do??

5- I developed a car that was legal in WA, it won’t comply in other states of Australia. I sold the car to Denton (on this thread) with intentions to advise him along the build knowing he will face some more challenges, I was done with GT40 replicas.

6- Looks like Denton may be taking on the Tornado Australia role. I wish Denton and Andy the best.

I was hoping to let it go quietly, it just wasn’t worth it to me, add the liability if there was an accident in Australia and you come to the conclusion it’s not a viable proposition.

Good luck to all involved.
 
M

Michael

Fair enough , i just didn't know what had happened as i was looking for a GT40 kit ,but i understand your decision , Australia is no doubt the most over regulated country on earth , and we don't have many options as far as kits are concerned ,All the best
 
N

Mike L

Mrgtr said:
Fair enough , i just didn't know what had happened as i was looking for a GT40 kit ,but i understand your decision , Australia is no doubt the most over regulated country on earth , and we don't have many options as far as kits are concerned ,All the best
Click to expand...
Check out our regs in NZ....many things that you can get away with in Oz will fail here. Then other things we can do you can't go figure.
 
J

JP Verweij

Building a kitcar or replica and getting it road legal will be near impossible now in the Netherlands to, as new 2022 EU regulations mandates,

Intelligent speed assist.
Sleepiness warning system.
Alcohol interlock prepared.
Automatic emergency brake system.
Lane assist.
Backup camera & sensors.
Dead spot sensors.
Blackbox.
Of course, it has to meet modern emission regulations.

Dutch IVA (RDW) just approved a Lancia Stratos replica (Lister Bell) which was fully build around an Alfa Romeo 4C, basically its still a 4C with all its safety components and brake features and emission, they just swapped its jacket.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top