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.....It took Ronnie the best part of a year to prepare the car. He built and fitted the cage himself with tubes from work. The measurements came from a suitable cage and then he just welded it all up - he's a welder by trade, so no worries there and all the cage cost was time. His work ethic for that part of the process? Ronnie says measure twice and cut once and you won't go far wrong.
"I got the second-hand seats and harnesses out of the local paper from a rally car in Aberdeen," Ronnie explains. "They were £60 for the pair."
Inside the car he's also added some more gauges, including that track day essential, an in-yer-face rev counter with shift light: "I've got it set at 6800 rpm and I get to that all the time," says Ronnie. Not with a bog standard 950cc engine, you don't mate, but more of that later.
"The wheels came from another Fiesta I bought to break for a couple of hundred," recalls Ronnie. "I wanted that car for the wheels and the driveshafts."
The car is fitted with XR2 discs on the front - and standard drums on the rear - the largest he can squeeze behind his wheels. He doesn't want to swap from 13s due to the cost of rubber to coat them.
He describes the anchors as OK on the road, but borderline on the track - they do start to fade towards the end of his sessions. He pays £50 for a day at Knockhill and that can be up to 8 sessions a time. Sure it's a fun day out, but also a long day; he'll leave home at 5 am and won't be back until 8.30 pm.
The car was built in a mate's garage and that mate then painted it using paint Ronnie got from work. Hence it's a matching colour to loads of bits on oil rigs and tankers scattered across the North Sea.
So what's the engine story then? "I took the original engine out straight away and dumped it," Ronnie explains. "I bought a second-hand 1600 crossf low with twin Webers to replace it. I hoped it was OK, but the head was porous which did the crank and it wasn't worth rebuilding.".....
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