To produce a car that is like no other is very difficult these days. However if you are very determined and stop at nothing to get the look you are after then it can be done! Kate from Barrow, who many of you might know from our forum, has done exactly that. Beginning with a Ford KA is a good start, as you don't see many modded ones. Kate describes in her own words how she turned the KA from a mundane tarmac crawler into a unique head turning show car:

    I started off wanting a kit immediately and couldn't wait; typical girl, as soon as I got the idea in my head it had to be executed without thinking of the outcome! So I bought the MS design kit. It arrived and I looked at it, and it just did nothing for me, id seen it on KAs before and it looked nothing new. So I decided I didn't want that, if I was going to do it, it had to be maximum impact, so the K9 kit was next. Ordered it and received it and like the MS-design kit, it just didn't bring a smile to my face because I'd seen it before. I had to think of something else. Something different.

The body kit was put on last August by Park Road Autobody and took just over 8 weeks because I gave them an almost impossible job. I wanted her to be unique and not easily copied and didn't just want to buy a kit that anyone could purchase, so I decided to look at kits for all cars and decide what I liked about each of them. At the time veilsides were quite rare and I liked the fact that they weren't just a straight skirt, they had a bit of art about them but I couldn't find them for a ka anywhere, not surprisingly! So I had to get the nearest thing and buy them for a fiesta (replicas!) That was my first buy and they obviously needed a lot of work to make them fit.

Then came the front, I didn't want it to look like a snow plough and be over the top, I wanted her discreet but maximum impact. So I decided to go for a universal splitter, straight line with mesh and headlamp screens.

I wanted the back of the car to be low with the exhaust through the skirt, I had trouble finding something that would do this that wasn't big and ugly, but not the other extreme and be small and tacky. I finally found a Peugeot 206 splitter, but it would need a lot of work to hang the way I wanted it to. In the end metal brackets had to be made as extensions for the skirt to hang on so I could get it as deep as I wanted. The boot has also been de badged, locked and wipered and the rear lights smoked and framed.

I loved the Krisis spoiler as soon as I saw the kit, but decided i didn't want it bonding onto the side of the car, so adjustments were made to fit it to the spoiler I had fitted when I first got the car.
 

The arch lines in a KA are ugly and they have always stood out to me as something that looks like it could just be pulled apart, so they had to go and make it into a smooth bubble, in fact the whole idea of the car was smooth. That was phase one and she came out in standard ford moondust silver, like in the pics. I thought she looked amazing and the kit was just what I wanted but there was just something missing from the picture, she didn't have that impact I was after.

So in April this year she went back in, I spent from the august of 2005 until the march of '06 thinking of what I wanted. I looked on ka websites, seeing what people had done with their cars and one thing that stood out was that they had all used the same bonnet skin and the bullet vents. And that was it, I wanted a one off bonnet, something no one had ever done before and would never be able to copy! But when I imagined it, the car still looked...naked somehow. And after talking it over, it was pointed out that it was still the standard colour she'd always been. A colour change was needed and not something expected like flip paint or metal flake, something simple but head turning. I looked through car magazines and waited for something to catch my eye, but no luck, so I went to Park Road and spent days looking through their colour charts because I knew when I saw the colour, I'd know! And I did, with the help of Kevin Bailey (from Park Road Autobody) and some fancy violet pearl airbrushing on the purple, it was perfect. Some other minor adjustments were made like colour coding the Z3 style chrome mirrors and filling in the front skirt because it had been bonded to the original and the grill was still visible and lots of other little bits.

The finished product finally rolled out the shop in May 2006. I couldn't believe it was my car! I loved her so much it was unbelievable, almost wrong! Special thanks to my Mum, Dad and Grandad for supporting me and not kicking me out of the house for creating such a mess with car parts and kits over the past couple of years!!

The remaining specs on the car:

Alpine headunit, Vibe Sub and Amp, 6x9 Alpine Type S speakers in the doors and in the stealth parcel shelf.

Peco back box.

1.3i standard engine with a Ramair induction kit.

Full interior respray in Ford Thistle with Midnight Black Metal Flake, colour coded dash, standard steering wheel resprayed silver. Sparco gear knob and pedals and Momo gaiters. OMP seats with OMP mounting frames fitted by Kate's Dad!

16" league Logic wheels with 195/45/16 Yokohama A539 tyres, on 40mm springs.

This car has had a lot of interest at shows this year, so it's likely to appear in a magazine or two over the coming months. Given the rarity of modded KAs and the unique look that this one has it's surprising it hasn't been featured yet. If any magazine editors are reading this, you know who to contact.....

Update 15/8/07: There have been some significant changes to the car since its original feature in 2006. Most strikingly the car now has lambo doors. This makes it the only KA in the country with lambo doors, and given the significant amount of engineering required to fit them it is unlikely to be joined by many more. The front lights have also changed, and the indicators have been smoked to blend them in with the rest of the car. Unfortunately Kate has now decided to sell the car, so its future is unknown. If you have a few quid spare the 'ribena berry' could be yours......