SPECIALIST
SPYDER ENGINEERING
The Fenland town of Whittlesey near Peterborough may be an unlikely venue for a link with Lotus, but Spyder Engineering is a company that is full of surprises. Highly skilled fabricators, they can count self propelled road sweepers, modular buildings and conveyors for the food industry among the companies portfolio. But it is for restoration, chassis replacements and suspension repairs on classic Lotus cars that the outfit is best known in the classic car world.
And we are not talking about just like-for-like swaps here, either. For 30 years the company has been building spaceframe versions of the Elan sheet metal backbone chassis, a product they developed in the mid-1970s when the demand for the regular chassis simply outstripped supply. When Ford later brought out its 16v Zetec engine, Spyder realised that its chassis only needed a few tweaks before it could accept the modern DOHC unit: sacrilege to some traditionalists, but a logical development to others given that the Elan was originally powered by a DOHC version of Ford's Kent motor.
Since then. the chassis have been developed so that owners can now choose to fit Ford's MT75 five-speed gearbox too, not to mention bigger brakes along with the hubs from a Sierra and Spyder's own improved rear suspension with an added wishbone for improved durability. The Spyder Elan is a reliable classic Lotus with many modern benefits of which we feel certain Colin Chapman himself would have approved.
It is not all about going faster though, as the company's list of classic Lotus products includes such modern day essentials as a rear seatbelt mounting kit for the Elan +2. And while it is the Lotus name that is most readily associated with the company, Spyder also offers both a volume and a prototype chassis design-and-build service for sports cars, racing cars and other special projects. Recent creations include the chassis for a replica of a 1938 straight eight Alfa Romeo, as well as a proprietary chassis for a front engined/rear wheel drive sports car designed with Ford parts in mind.
Naturally enough, building new chassis has given the company the skills and equipment it needs to repair old ones too, including taking torsional resistance readings, alignment checks and carrying out any rectification work needed.
The workshop facilities include CNC punches, mills, drills, Mig and Tig, shotblasting and painting, and the Spyder workforce prides itself on offering a quick turnaround with extreme accuracy. But then with a background in Lotus cars, You wouldn't expect anything less.
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Spyder Engineering Limited. Station Road Industrial Estate, Whittlesey, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. PE7 2EY.
