15 replies to this topic

[kieftlda5]

Fellow enthousiasts,

I am looking for any and all information about the Kieft LDA5.

It is a lovely little twoseater that saw the light of day in 1953, a couple of 500cc norton engines bolted together under the hood.

It entered and drove (however brief) in Le Mans '55. I believe with Don Parker and Berwyn Baxter at the wheel, it drove at Montlhéry and some smaller hillclimbs.

After overheating at Le Mans and suffering from a small accident, it received a new alu body from panelcraft and a new engine (mgb)

If anyone could elaborate, I would be ever so grateful.

[275 GTB-4]

Fellow enthousiasts,

I am looking for any and all information about the Kieft LDA5.

It is a lovely little twoseater that saw the light of day in 1953, a couple of 500cc norton engines bolted together under the hood.

It entered and drove (however brief) in Le Mans '55. I believe with Don Parker and Berwyn Baxter at the wheel, it drove at Montlhéry and some smaller hillclimbs.

After overheating at Le Mans and suffering from a small accident, it received a new alu body from panelcraft and a new engine (mgb)

If anyone could elaborate, I would be ever so grateful.

Have you tried googling Kieft LDA5?

[Tim Murray]

There's some useful info on LDA5 in this earlier Kieft thread, including a post from the person who owned the car in 2007. Sadly, very few of the photos are still visible:

http://forums.autosp...s-trouis-kieft/

[jeffbee]

Fellow enthousiasts,

I am looking for any and all information about the Kieft LDA5.

It is a lovely little twoseater that saw the light of day in 1953, a couple of 500cc norton engines bolted together under the hood.

It entered and drove (however brief) in Le Mans '55. I believe with Don Parker and Berwyn Baxter at the wheel, it drove at Montlhéry and some smaller hillclimbs.

After overheating at Le Mans and suffering from a small accident, it received a new alu body from panelcraft and a new engine (mgb)

If anyone could elaborate, I would be ever so grateful.

Is this any help:  http://www.marreyt-c...tail.cfm?ID=598  ?

[kieftlda5]

Is this any help:  http://www.marreyt-c...tail.cfm?ID=598  ?

Incidentally, this is where my query began. This is where i bought it. Thank you anyway.

[Peter Morley]

Have you contacted Duncan Rabagliati (through the Formula junior website) he will have researched the car very thoroughly.

 

The Turner 500cc F3 engine project was for sale a few years ago (advertised in the Formula Junior newsletter), I've no idea if that would have been related to the sportscar engine.

[rbm]

I chased up the Turner Patterns and Engine stuff  a few years ago (more than 6 years ago) hoping the the original detachable rim wheel patterns might still exist.

Off the top of my head the stuff had gone to Ivan Dutton who had sold them on to a chap in Ireland.

Ivan kindly provided me the address but from what I remember he didn't reply to the couple of letters I sent.

[kieftlda5]

@peter: I am in contact with mr Rabagliati, he is looking through his notes. I just want to be thourough and leave no stone unturned. I don't believe the f3 model is in close relation to the lda5' as it is a two seater barchetta...

@rbm: would you happen to know the anything about the original Coventry climax engine? I'd love to track it down and reunite it with it's father. I have two sets of rims in possession but if i'm ever in need of new ones: thanks for the tip!

[Trevail]

Car number 4 in the E.C.M.C Snetterton 100 (17^th June 1956) was B. Baxter in a 1500cc Kieft entered by the Kieft Sports Car Co. Presumably this is your car.

 

Leigh Trevail

[Eric Dunsdon]

Fellow enthousiasts,

I am looking for any and all information about the Kieft LDA5.

It is a lovely little twoseater that saw the light of day in 1953, a couple of 500cc norton engines bolted together under the hood.

It entered and drove (however brief) in Le Mans '55. I believe with Don Parker and Berwyn Baxter at the wheel, it drove at Montlhéry and some smaller hillclimb

Is this the car that I saw Don Parker drive at the 1954 British Grand Prix meeting?. He finshed third in class behind a Porsche and an  OSCA.

I believe that Parker shared the car with David Boshier-Jones in the  Tourist Trophy Race at Dundrod that year.

[kieftlda5]

Is this the car that I saw Don Parker drive at the 1954 British Grand Prix meeting?. He finshed third in class behind a Porsche and an  OSCA.

I believe that Parker shared the car with David Boshier-Jones in the  Tourist Trophy Race at Dundrod that year.

Dundrod is right, I believe. The British GP I'll look into. thanks!

[Rudernst]

No, this is wrong

the 1954 Silverstone and Dundrod car is: 11/54/2 registered as LDA1 first and NJW 60 later

 

R.E.

[Peter Morley]

@peter: I am in contact with mr Rabagliati, he is looking through his notes. I just want to be thourough and leave no stone unturned. I don't believe the f3 model is in close relation to the lda5' as it is a two seater barchetta...

Duncan has the most amazing records and is as it was one of his cars is most likely to have researched it extremely thoroughly.

 

At the time competitive engines were hard to find and several people experimented with such things as a single cylinder 500c F3 engine and combining 4 of them to make a 2 litre F2/sports engine.

Turner apparently fitted a twin cam cylinder head based on the F3 engine to a BMC engine.

[robjohn]

There's an interesting short history of Kieft cars by Jim Evans at http://www.historywe.../CyrilKieft.htm

A passage on Baxter's car differs in some ways from the Marreyt-Classics account.
The main difference is that Evans said the car was fitted in May 1955 with a stroked 1500cc Turner alloy-block Lea-Francis-based engine with a twin-plug head. For Le Mans the fuel injection was replaced by Solex carbs, which necessitated a large air intake on the bonnet.
I know Turner built motorcycle-based engines and Cyril Kieft (who'd begun with 500cc cars) used or at least tried one or two, but Evans's account seems plausible. Turner also built several Lea-Francis-based alloy-block engines, some with fuel injection.

Baxter did replace the Turner with a BMC engine for the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod later in 1955. Evans said it was an Austin A50 engine; elsewhere it's called an MG. Whatever the block and head came from, they'd be 1490cc BMC B series units, used in the A50, the MG TF1500 and the MGA. It wouldn't have been an MGB engine; that came later.

However, Evans does seem to have got one or two things wrong – the registration number and the timing of when the aluminium body was fitted. In photos of the car at Le Mans the body looks like that of a standard 1100cc fibreglass car, apart from the ugly air intake.
Rob B

[Peter Morley]

I've just come across the auction catalogue for Duncan's collection.

 

Lot 473 was LDA5.

The catalogue also says:

Baxter fitted a 1,500cc Turner engine.

The Turner engine was a stroked alloy block Lea-Francis unit with a twin plug head and was used at Le-Mans.

For the Tourist Trophy a BMC B-series engine (MGA style) was fitted and the BMC engine is still in the car - according to the catalogue the engine number was BP15GA357.

It also mentions the fibreglass body being replaced by an alloy Panelcraft one but doesn't say when.

 

It also says LDA5's original Turner engine was for sale at the auction.

Which takes us to lot 529:

Turner engine, no. 1504

A lot of rambling text but it basically says:

Contemporary reports of a dohc 2 litre were wrong.

These engines were based on a special batch of Lea-Francis engines with aluminium blocks, twin-plug ignition and sometimes fuel injection.

This 1500cc engine was in LDA5 at Le-Mans, Paris 24 hours & Goodwood nine hours.

 

A 2 litre version was fitted in the Turner F2 car (which is in the Haynes motor museum).

Edited by Peter Morley, 04 November 2014 - 09:58.

[Sharman]

The TF 1500 used a re-cored and re-bored XPAG engine designated XPEG taking it from 1250 cc to 1466 cc. IT WAS NOT A B type egine.