IT looks like a Lamborghini Aventador sportscar but underneath it is a full-blown Sports Sedan.
Steve Vigurs’ 37th and last creation, the Vigurs SV V8, hit the track for the first time over the weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park.
The English-born engineer has built a myriad of fast cars at the Steve’s Toyshop Race Team over an extended period and the Vigurs signals the last hurrah.
This one is the most exotic. While he has utilised his basic chassis and roll cage formula, typical Indy-type uprights and Supercar suspension, the body was a different matter.
A plug produced the moulds from which the body panels were produced, similarly to the way Kerry Baily built the Aston Martin that Mark Duggan races now.
The car is powered by a NASCAR Chev SB2.2 V8 fed by a carburettor and matched to a transaxle. Typical of many of Vigurs’ builds, it is left hand drive, allowing addition room on the right for engine ancillaries given many tracks in Australia run anticlockwise.
The cockpit of the V8-powered beast. Photo: Garry O’Brien.
Sports Sedans rules don’t allow for mid or rear engine configurations, so the engine sits up the front, under the windscreen and adjacent to the driver.
The build project stretched over several years but actual time spent on the car was 13 months.
Mark Tutton, who has raced an Improved Production Holden Commodore, is the new owner of the Vigurs and shook the car down in unofficial practice.
It was a trouble-free day and it was decided to continue into the weekend in round one of the NSW Sports Sedan Championship. As Tutton acclimatised himself with a big jump in horsepower, the car’s lap times came down with each outing.
The Vigurs SV V8 at Sydney Motorsport Park. Photo: Riccardo Benvenuti, NSW Sports Sedans.
Vigurs attended over the weekend, his last as retirement beckons.
His first build was the original Mazda RX7 raced by Bruce Banks and a second RX7, one of three cars that Banks used to win the 2013 national series. That year he also used a Vigurs-built Chev Camaro that became Steven Lacey’s four-time state and club championship winner, as well as Dean Camm’s Chev Corvette at the final round.
Vigurs also built the Camaro that won the 2017 national title with Birel Cetin, as well as several Cortina and Commodores, two Rovers, a Lexcen, a Calibra and even a Porsche 928.
After he sells the only car left, the state title-winning Camaro and spare engines, the time will come for him to give it away and now look to doing some travelling.