Westfield: A Modern Throwback -- Powerful British Sports Car Assembled In Tiny Ore. Town

CRESWELL, Ore. - Italian sports car? Japanese knockoff? Don't trifle with us.

This baby does zero-to-100 in less time than it takes to name the four royal offspring of Her Highness the Queen. It features a "boot" and "bonnet" rather than a trunk and hood.

And it's built in Creswell, just a few miles south of Eugene.

It's the Westfield, whose parts are manufactured in the English Midlands. They are being assembled for North America's automotive market in a converted chicken house just up the road from Creswell's own monument to England: the British Petroleum station at the north edge of town.

Bob Yarwood, 48, left Rolls-Royce Aircraft to devote himself to racing, restoring and building engines for vintage cars. He landed stateside in the early 1980s.

His first U.S. business venture, British Parts Direct, imported and refurbished parts for classic MGs, Triumphs, Rovers and the like, then sold them to mail-order customers. But his market "kind of self-destructed" as the pool of vintage British cars still on U.S. roadways began to dry up.

That's when he fell into his deal with Westfield founder Chris Smith, a longtime acquaintance from England's vintage-car racing circuit.

The cars hit Great Britain in 1982, available fully built or in kit form at the Westfield factory near Birmingham. The company has all but stopped making kits, but it sells unassembled cars to Yarwood as a means of cutting through a tangle of import regulations.

He has built just five so far, three while living in California during the mid-1980s and two after deciding to launch a full-scale operation in Creswell last fall.

But Yarwood has all the pieces for seven more and, with two helpers, has begun putting them together. Another six are on order.

He has made arrangements with car dealerships in Seattle and Orlando, Fla., and intends eventually to have a national network of about seven dealers.

The cost is $23,500 for Yarwood's four-cylinder model and $33,995 for his eight-cylinder version.

The Westfield is a hard-core, no-frills, two-seat sports car based loosely on the Lotus Seven design of the 1960s, a concept described in one national automotive magazine as "a bridge between two sets of wheels."

It has no stereo, radio or other such rubbish. The throaty music of a perfectly balanced engine winding through the gears is quite enough for the Westfield's target market.

Although it makes some concessions to 1990s automotive technology, such as a five-speed overdrive transmission, four-wheel disk brakes and independent rear suspension, the Westfield is largely a mechanical throwback.

"People are fed up with all these bloody computers and sensors (on modern cars)," Yarwood said, "whereas these cars are simple. You can tinker with them."

For instance, you won't find fuel injection. Remember carburetors?

The power plants in Yarwood's U.S. models are built from the remanufactured cores of 30-year-old engines. The four-cylinder model has as its heart a 1965 Ford Cortina engine block, and the eight-cylinder has a 1962 Buick block.

The engines are bored out and modified. All their accessory components are new and built for performance.

Using tried-and-true engine blocks allows Yarwood to skirt restrictive import regulations and avoid adding expensive, performance-robbing smog-control devices.

According to a gushy five-page spread in the March issue of Road & Track magazine, the four-cylinder model will go from a standstill to 60 mph in 6.1 seconds, the eight-cylinder in 5.4 seconds.

"The V-8 is just stupid," Yarwood said, meaning it in a respectful sort of way. "There should be a high-performance driving test before you buy the car. It's too fast.

"It's hard to imagine something that fast, that quick."

Sort of like Westfield sales. All 13 that are in the works or on order have been sold. And Yarwood has a long list of other potential owners.

"When that Road & Track first came out, I would just put the phone down and it would ring again," he said.

"The people who are buying these cars are really quite brave - they've never seen one, can't go sit in one," Yarwood said. "They've seen nice, glossy photos, but that's all.

"The good thing is, we know they won't be disappointed."