World Class Motorsports

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WCM's Lovely Lotus Usurper
Text by Bill Moore

Colin Chapman knew a thing or two about cars. He knew, because he was a racer, that lightweight is always the way to go when making a vehicle stop, go and turn. And, of course, it was Chapman who designed and built the Lotus Super 7 - which has been copied, revised and, in some cases, improved over the years.

Now, Texan Brian Anderson has come along and tweaked the LSIS car with a few tricks of his own. In fact, he's been so successful that he says, "We produce the highest-performing, standard-equipped production LSIS on the market - and at the best price!"

Those are fighting words coming from the boss at World Class Motorsports, which is based in Lancaster, Texas. For anyone not geographically blessed, that's 15 minutes south of Dallas.

But Brian backs those words up with a few facts:
1) "We have won every autocross, road race and car show we've ever entered!" and
2), he offers a few of those performance figures that start most men drooling: 0-60 mph acceleration in 3.5 seconds; 60 mph-0 braking in 100 feet. More, Brian says, "It out corners and outbrakes just about anything else on the track".

Best of all, WCM is offering its customers a choice of radical cars to choose from. Interestingly, both cars are delivered to your door as a finished automobile for the same amount of money: $28,750 (Approx £18,869).

The first is called the Ultrabusa, which Brian has been producing for the last six months. The name comes from the fact that the 1,000-pound (480kg) automobile is powered by a Suzuki Hayabusa 1300cc motorcycle engine with a six-speed transmission.

The second version of the LSIS that WCM is selling is called the Ultralite S2K, which is currently powered by a Honda S2000 motor that produces 240 horsepower and is itself connected to a six-speed transmission. That car has been in production for over a year now, and started off with a 1.9-liter Saturn engine. This version of the car, by the way, weighs in at 1,200 pounds (525kg).

What's the difference? The lighter car corners slightly better than the Honda-powered car, but the Honda-engined car is faster out of a corner. At the end of a lap, they're pretty much even.

That's only part of the WCM equation, though. Brian says, "To make it faster, stop better and handle better, we took a complete start-from-scratch approach. That included determining ride height, wheelbase, center of gravity, roll centers, instant center, steering radius, size and weight of brakes, brake controls, pedal adjustments, stress, crush zones, safety equipment, gear ratios, tire and wheel size - and then designing a chassis to tie it all together."

Common sense from 30 years of building a wide range of automobiles was combined with computer stress analysis and other CAD-CAM operations during a six-month period to produce a finely tuned LSIS.

On the nitty-gritty side of things, the braking comes from four-piston billet aluminum calipers working on 12-inch drilled rotors. (Discs) Getting the handling right required a bit more tinkering and includes double, fully adjustable A-arms with chrome moly rod ends, double adjustable aluminum coil-over dampers, adjustable sway bar (roll-bar), custom aluminum hubs and forged steel uprights. In the end, those changes to the front-end means it's two and two-thirds turn lock-to-lock, and the rack and pinion steering turns the car in a 26-foot circle.

At the back, there's a limited slip differential, a 10-bar independent rear suspension with chrome moly rod ends, those aluminum coil-over dampers and an adjustable sway bar to go with the brake package.

Overall the pieces all work nicely together, but the real test of this magic comes when the rubber meets the road. And, in this case, you'll find that sticky Falken Azenis tires, 225-45/17 at the front and 245/45-17 at the back enhance laws of physics.

Oh, but Anderson wasn't quite done yet! "We also wanted to accommodate larger drivers, so we widened the chassis five inches (total width inside is nearly 44 inches) and increased the leg room to fit 6'5" drivers." Overall, the WCM car is 67.5-inches wide, with 19 inches for the driver and 17 for the passenger, all-sitting inside the standard LSIS wheelbase of 88 inches.

Before Brian got into producing his own line of cars with a visual link to the Lotus Seven, he spent 30 years building street rods. Then, when asked to build a few Birkin's and Caterham's, he built a few of them as well. That experience gave him an insight into the cycle-fendered cars that Colin Chapman first created so many years ago. "I discovered," says Brian, "a lot of design flaws that other companies didn't want to take a lot of time fixing."

One man's flaw is another man's opportunity. "I saw a lot of potential in the car," says Anderson, "but those other manufacturers hadn't kept up with the times, and they were definitely lacking performance-wise."

He is quick to point out that his WCM cars will beat the competition on a head-to-head basis with these other manufacturer's cars if you're comparing apples with apples, and not apples with pumpkins. Brian says that Birkin and Caterham have exotic, $75,000 cars that have been finely honed to press the very edges of the performance envelope, and - naturally - these might be a bit more competitive.

World Class Motorsports currently has five separate facilities for the production of its cars, including fiberglass shop, chassis shop, machine shop, an assembly area and an office that altogether give the company 10,000 square feet of space.

When Hubert Shrader, a 62-year-old machine shop owner from Yukon, Oklahoma, wanted a car, he visited with Brian several years ago and ordered up a Birkin. Recently, he went back for seconds - and got himself the Honda-powered S2K. "I like that engine," he says. "My brother-in-law has an S2000 and I knew it would fly in a 1,200-pound car!"

And, well, he was a bit hesitant about the Suzuki-powered car. "Quite frankly," says Hubert, "I didn't know all that much about motorcycle engines. And, of course, it would have a motorcycle shifter as well, and I wasn't sure I'd like it."

What the 6'2", 220-pounder liked, though, was the additional space the WCM sports car would give him! "It's more roomy and comfortable than the Birkin," says Shrader.

But all those things aside, he and his son, Eric, are going to race the S2K in Sports Car Club of America Solo II competition events, with Eric doing most of the driving. "It's almost too much of a hot rod," says Hubert who has had a wide range of performance automobiles throughout his life, including Alfas, BMWs and a Studebaker hot rod.

Shrader is a man who falls in love with a car. He admits that by saying, "I tend to keep a car a long time. I tend to fall in love with them." And, when it comes to his latest love? "I'll probably wear it out!"

We don't know about wearing a WCM out, but we do love the lengths to which Brian Anderson has gone to produce a car that would impress even Colin Chapman! TKC