Where it started
1997
And so the Indy was born, our Ford Sierra based roadster. Honest value for money made the Indy incredibly popular and demand quickly surpassed the amount of work founder Martin Keenan wanted to do. In 2004 he sold the company to Phil and his business partner Barry Lunn. They'd already worked with MK for several years and hit the ground running with the newly named MK Sportscars. The business moved over to Danny Keenan in 2014 as a employee of the business for a number of years. On the 26th November, the MK Indy Project was sold to Kitcardirect who are based in Essex and they thought to look into establishing the product back to its former glory. Kit Car Direct had been serving MK Sportscars with parts and services for many years prior to the purchase, so it was a very smooth transition.
2012
Kit Car Direct was born out of shear frustration of not being able to buy the correct parts and accessories for my own personal project(building an MK Indy). Having an IT background, it was relatively simple to create a website, source and manufacture products which would benefit the communitiy of kit car owners - after all, if I needed it and couldn't find it, then I was damn sure there was someone else out there in the same situation.
Being run from the garage at home where parcels were picked, packed and dispatched, Kit Car Direct rapidly became all consuming and needed another pair of hands to help source more products, pack parcels and generally move the business to the next level.
2016
Kit Car Direct moves into a new workshop as it's now out grown the garage at home and immediately aquires MK Sportscars and with it the rights to manufacture and distribute the MK Indy. Having previously manufactured products for MK Sportscars, the opportunity to now manufacture the vehicle is just brilliant. Having been an active part in helping the previous owners of MK with their race cars and reliability, the synergy of business means that migrating all the MK products into a product catalogue was a very simple process.
2017
The new Mazda based MK Indy chassis is CAD designed to allow donor components from the MX-5 to fit onto the already brilliant MK Indy chassis. The chassis is completely redesigned to take the running gear from the MX-5 / Miata and this car became popular very quickly. Later in this year, the 250bhp Turbo conversion is completed - since this is well trodden path in the Mazda / Miata world, it made sense to develop this car to have more than the magic 200 bhp number we all try to aim for.
2019
Kit Car Direct moves into a new workshop as it's now out grown the first workshop. We can begin to grow again, allowing us to recruit more staff and take on more bespoke builds.
2020
Covid hits the UK and the handbrake is pulled up on world manufacturing; Not here at KCD and MK Sportscars, oh no! We expand by purchasing AB Performance and Striker Cars adding more great products to our line up. You can now buy all the parts and accessories from these two vendors directly from your smart phone.
More products are added to the Kit Car Direct line up, and the Mazda MX-5 engine gets an even bigger turbo and some engine modifications so that the engine now pushes 375bhp. The Honda K20 engine is adapted to fit into the Miata / MX-5 based chassis so you have yet another power plant to choose from.
2022
MK Sportscars moved into much bigger premises to house the team. We are still growing like crazy and expanding our reach across the world. New dealers abroad have already been established and this market place is going to grow like mad. We have also secured the procurement of brand new zero mile Hayabusa engines from Suzuki so that our race series have a power plant. A new chassis is released; the Indy Cup race car powered by the ever reliable Suzuki GSX-1300R Hayabusa engine. A partnership with the 750 motor club is established - Let's Go Racing!!
2024
Going into 2024, MK Sportscars adopts a new branding package. Giving MK a new identity, now standing for Modern Klassic Sportscars. With a change of logo and branching into the new age, advancing more toward social media and targeting a wider range of buyers!