The Exmo fits into the evolution of RHE sevenesque sportscars as shown HERE.
Possibly the cheapest kit that Robin Hood Engineering (RHE) ever sold, at 1000 pounds plus tax for a mild steel version, with 80% of buyers spending an extra 350 pounds to upgrade to stainless steel.The Exmo was sold as a kit on 3 occasions during 1996, each time about 140 people collected kits from the factory in Nottingham, thats a rough total of 420 kits somewhere in the world. The final batch of kits was available for collection on the 21st of December 1996. Most kits were right hand drive, however there are left hand drive versions around, it is assumed that these were factory supplied, however there is no mention of a LHD option on the order form.
At the time the kit was supplied, an Exmo could be assembled and pass a Ministry Of Transport (MOT) road worthiness test before it would be allowed on the open roads in the UK. From July 1st 1998 a new test, the Single Vehicle Approval (SVA) test pass was required. A thick ring binder manual for SVA was available as early as 1996, alas too late for the Exmo kit to take account of many of the new requirements. Thus some purchasers had as little as 19 months to complete a kit that required a large amount of assembly time. Luckily RHE was not the only manufacturer whose customers faced the same challenge, which lead to a plea for help to The Ministry Of Transport. A compromise was reached which meant that there would be easements to the full SVA requirements for any kit purchased in 1996 or before and submitted for test before a date in 1999. Subsequently a new section was added to the ring binder that detailed all the parts that would not apply to the pre 1997 kits. Even so, it is likely that many kits will have been hastily built initially in order to meet the deadline.
This kit required a builder with a willingness devote much time, effort, and ingenuity. This was definitly NOT three long weekends of assembling fully finished parts à la Caterham. Two VHS tapes of poor quality video showed the designer / company owner / Richard Stewart and an employee (unknown) performing most, but not all of the tasks. It is tempting here to make a list of all the challenges, however it would take too many pages. Highlights would include de-burring the razor sharp hardened steel edges left by the plasma cutter, bending the flat windscreen support brackets to match the scuttle curve, building the windscreen without breaking the glass, and modifying a Sierra windscreen wiper to fit on brackets of your own invention, and trying to force the GRP rear wings made for the narrower series 2 on to the wider Exmo rear end. One other thing to mention would be the lack of pre-drilled holes, so for example we can say with certainty that the position of the windscreen of all Exmos will be different.