I'll add my bit to this thread, though my car is already well documented on the Turner website.
I competed in hillclimbs and sprints in Northern Ireland in this car from 1989 to 1993/4 ?? The car was an English based car, and when I bought it, it had been doing speed events for several years. The previous owner was Arthur Nash from the SW of England and I believe he bought it from Dr John Coles in the Midlands and the previous owner to that was a Peter Groome. Due to the unusual surname ( Groom with an e) I tried finding him through the good old telephone directory ( remember the internet didn't exist in 1990 !!) but was unsuccessful but had some entertaining conversations on the way !! Well how would you reract when an Irishman rings up and asks for Peter who used to own a Turner ?
Anyhow back to the car, it was a BMC powered chassis, with c/r A Series 'box and back axle, which had coil over shocks. Arther had rolled it at Silverstone, I think and it had damaged the front of the shell. A cast was taken of the front of Bob Dyson's hillclimb car ( the mould actually had the castings of the "Fablon" sponsorship stickers cast into it !! )and a lift off front was created. Unfortunately the car had lost its chassis nr, which was a pity as it had the Riley 1.5 drums on the rear and a couple of other features that indicated that it might have been a "competition" model from its creation. The then Turner registrar gave me an unused chassis nr for the car so that I could get it road registered and it was given the 1960 Belfast reg of 9330 XI. I had great fun with the car and developed over the 4 years of ownership, eventually putting in a Ford 'box to cope with a 145 hp A Series engine. I also was one of the first people to use the MG Midget Frontline front suspension conversion, which replaced the lever arm shock with an A arm and a Koni damper. The car still holds class records at most of the Ulster hills, it was just a great combination of handling and power.
I traded the car in with Deryk Young for his Vision V87H chassis and he almost immediately sold the car to a chap in Belgium who had it until quite recently, I saw it for sale in 2010, with racing at Spa now added to it's history
Here it is on a wet day on the Spelga Pass hillclimb, circa 1992
Regards
Michael Beattie
Edited by hillsprint, 10 March 2012 - 21:42.