Alongside Stuart Mills at MEV, one of the most prolific kitcar designers around at the moment is Chris Welch of Tribute Automotive and he really doesn’t hang around when it comes to creating innovative, original and ‘inspired-by’ designs cleverly using donors that are affordable and suit the projects perfectly.

Not one of his current NINE models (eleven really if you include two soft-top derivatives of fixed-heads) should cost you more than £7000 to build including purchase of the donor car. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.

Chris is a real character and has a superb and razor sharp sense of humour. For example, one of his models, the A352, was so-called because he and his trusty sidekick Dan, were stuck for name, so called it after the A-road their workshop was located on! Another, their D-type replica, has a price that mirrors the year that the Jaguar original was unveiled – 1954!

So, let’s have a quick run through of Tribute’s current model range:

Model                         Donor                         Kit Price                     Estimated DIY Cost

MX250                         MX-5                           £1970                          £4000

MX250 Convertible      MX-5                           £1595                          £3800

250SWB                       Z3                                £4995                          £6550

250 SWB Convertible   Z3                                £3995                          £5550

Kobra                          Z3                                £2450                          £6000

Z300S                          Z3                                £1995                          £6000

A352                           Spitfire                        £1954                          £6000

D-type                        Spitfire                        £1800                          Call

MRS200                     MR2 Mk3                       £2500                          Call

Mistral                      —–                               £795                            Call

Newport                      2CV                            TBA                            TBA

For more information contact www.tributeautomotive.com or 07901 544 241 or for Tribute full builds contact Nubodi Automotive…www.nubodi.moonfruit.com