Don - Somehow I missed your last post until I was re-reading my last one this morning... Anyway, the car looks pretty good. As for the steering, just add another lever and pushrod to the other side. That would make the car easier to drive and, more importantly, eliminate any dispute of its legalality.

A lot of schools start out with "kit cars". The most popular Electrathon car kit is the "Aerocoupe" from Blue Sky Designs in Oregon. It's not cheap ($1850 + freight for the frame, body, wheels, and canopy), but it's easy to assemble & maintain and very competitive. I guess the "engineering" part comes in when the kids are researching gear ratios, motor efficiency, and battery life. I tend to agree, though, that building a car from scratch is a much more intense learning experience. It's a lot more rewarding to the mentor and students when you hit upon a succesful design. It can also be cheaper...

I just finally totaled up all the receipts from the build above. I spent $963 on it not including the motor, controller, and batteries. It is possible to build a car for much less by scrounging parts from bicycles, go-karts, and other sources, but I used all brand new parts (except the bicycle fork) this time.

To generate interest in your area, have you considered hosting a race? If you have a place (a large parking lot or school running track is a good place) and pick a weekend when a lot of teams are available, you could invite teachers & potential sponsors from your area to come and watch. I can walk you through the process - you need flags for the starter, stopwatches and scoresheets for the scorers, a good set of bathroom scales for driver weigh-in, and about a half-dozen volunteers to help you. I can give you my list of active teams if you want to ask who might be interested in traveling up there for a race. The calendar is about to get pretty busy, so it might be better for you to wait until next Fall (Sept -Oct) when there isn't much going on...