Joe Lee sends us in these great shots of a French BSH kit done up for racing. You can read more about it and see some awesome pictures of one of the sexiest little sportscars, kitcar or not, around, at this site en Français.
It’s a two piece body on Renault R8 mechanicals on a custom chassis. Assembly time is fairly high at about two hundred hours. I think it looks a lot like a Porsche 906 but another writer who is not so friendly describes it as a baby Ferrari P4 — and not in a good way (meaning that the proportions of the car just look “wrong”)! It was very light and managed about 200 kph.
Not bad for what, a 1300cc engine?
Of course you will always have some bad critics.
As the daughter of Max Saint-Hilaire, I remember what was the dream of my father to offer the possibility to the middle class to get to have the feeling to drive a Ferrari or a Lamborghini (Porsch.. to be honest, I never heard my father comparing his cars with Porsch cars). His passion sport cars and especially Italian and English cars (like ASHTON MARTIN) or perhaps the dutch car SPIKER. He built some BSH and they all have different Renault engine and profiles What I would like to remind you too, he had first the idea of KIT CAR in FRANCE. He was perhaps one of the first one in Europe.
Do the GROUP 5 means something to you. In France till the 80th, we could race with his own built car; it was cars which belong to GROUP 5. It was great!
Why only company cars should race.
Of course, you have to imagine the situation, not a team of engineers etc. to support or help you.
I had the chance to race 1 or 2 time on one of the car of my father (the last SAINT-HILAIRE built not a BSH), I was 16 years old and the youngest co-pilot in France. Was probably one of the last one as no one couldn’t be a co-pilot without driving license after the 80th .
Do you know as well that a BSH raced at the 24h LE MANS!!
My last words: please try to DREAM and you should know NO RISK NO FUN!
I especially thank my father who wanted and still want to give the possibility to some of us who can’t afford a FERRARI to realise a dream “HAVING A SPECIAL SPORT CAR”….
Valérie
Valérie SAINT-HILAIRE, daughter of Max SAINT-HILAIRE