Road Legal Buggy

elbono

Hi

I'm hoping someone here can answer my question, I'm building a off road gokart/buggy with a full roll cage and I'm hoping to make it road legal. Does anyone know what the requirements are with the Irish government on making it road legal?

I've heard different things like all you have to do is get it insured and pay the tax and away you go. Obviously i'll have to do an NCT, is this where they catch you?:rolleyes:
I was thinking off hand that maybe if I used an engine from a vintage machine I would be exempt from the NCT, does anyone know if this is true?

Hopefully someone can help, thanks in advance.

auto electrical

a good start would be to base it on something like an old beetle make sure its old enough to be covered by classic insurance plenty of these buggies have been made in this country and are a great way th while away a few hours in the garage and a bit of crack to bring through town on a saturday afternoon

elbono

Thanks auto I bought plans though for the kart off the internet and plan on following them closely enough. It wouldn't be big enough to use a beetle shell but maybe the engine.

Do you know how hard it is to get a from scratch built kart road legal?

auto electrical

i dont mean use the body just the floor pan which i completly seperate on a beetle just remove the body and on the last one i was involved in building we shortened the floor pan to suit a buggy body one of the lads had bit of a pain shortening handbrake cables and stuff but mighty crack

auto electrical

getting it legal shouldn be a huge task obviously it would have to have all the relevent lights in the correct places and have a proper way of restraining however many passengers are going to be in the vechicle
half the reason for suggesting a beetle is because they are so old so when you come to put it on the road the regulations will apply as though the buggy is the beetle it was based on and so stuff like pretensioners and airbags dont apply because the origional car would not have them

elbono

Ah yeah that makes sense, thanks for the tip, I'll look into it. I might just ring an NCT centre to see what restrictions they have, that might be of use.

Thanks

2 Espressi

Once it complies to the Road Traffic Act you should be OK:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1963/en/si/0190.html

It's not the most entertaining to read, but it does cover all the legal requirements of a vehicle.

Regarding insurance/tax, check out the Irish Kit Car Club to see what they do:

http://www.ikcc.ie/newsite/index.asp

woop

would I be right in saying youd need an engineer to sign off on it

Rory123

All vehicles for the road need to have a proper chassis number, to get a log book. Without it you cannot register it for road use (get a number plate). This wouldn't be a problem with a beetle based beach buggy but would for a scratch-built buggy.
OP contact the Department of transport in Shannon for more info.
It is possible to buy off road buggys and quads that can be registered for road use now, but they are quite expensive, same with quads.
There is a general attitude in with this authorities (Dept of trans, An Garda Siochana and insurance companies) in this country that keeps vehicles that are in any way a bit of craic off public roads, so I would say you may be wasting your time.
Even if you do get it road legal (which you won't without chassis number), you will spend your life pulled over on the side of the road by the feds as you will stick out like a sore thumb!

Best of luck with the build though!

auto electrical

its true you would stick out like a sore thumb but thats what cars like this are about and great fun to watch the cops face when you produce everything to show its legal just make sure you have everything before you get smart with a cop LOL its not impossible and dose not have to be expensive if you can do the worrk yourself and you will have the fun and knowledge that you built it yourself plenty of weekends and evenings of craic chat and tea being drunk in the garage with your mates
GO FOR IT j.(Auto Electrical Concepts)

babi-hrse

ive actually been pondering this question as ive driven a buggy and have never had such a great time drivin!
this fella is in the US and im pretty sure he is a certified person to build these things! from what i can gather he used to put emergency vehicles together by hand from scratch! would that be sufficent to sign it off?
it is possible to ship vehicles to ireland as i know a friend who shipped a toyota supra twin turbo over.
would it get taxed?
how would i go about insuring?
link to the buggy!
http://www.legionofspartans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2158&pid=76609&st=460&#entry76609

i havn't decided to buy one just wondering how it would pan out if i was... and who knows!

Graham_B18C

Please don't bump zombie threads, feel free to start a new one
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