36 replies to this topic

[f1steveuk]

Please help my ailing brain!

I am currently researching road cars, built by race car constructors (see the Oxborrow road car thread etc).

Now not strictly a "road car", I have a vague recollection of seeing a magazine/tv article on a chap who had converted what I think was a Lotus F3, to road use. For some reason I recall a bespectacled, bearded chap driving said device over a bridge in London. The car appeared to be "proper" Lotus colours, had tyre hugging cycle wings and small lamps fitted. I do hope someone else recalls this!!!!??

[Andrew Kitson]

Nick Brittain probably, but it was an FF Lotus 51 in 1967.

[bill patterson]

had tyre hugging cycle wings

I remember the FF Lotus 51 as having the longer "Lotus 7" wings and also that the guy in the advert was not Nick Brittain but I think he did a "road test" on the car

[M bennett]

Most probably the LOTUS 51R based on the Lotus 51, a Formula Ford single seat car. It was done for the 1968 Racing Car Show. The car was often pictured with Graham Arnold behind the wheel, he was Lotus' sales manager/director at the time. The factory car had a flower power paint scheme and with a price of GBP 1085 one was supposedly sold to an American customer. It was photographed in a number of locations in the UK including central London.

[Stephen W]

A bloke in the North West converted a Van Diemen F2000 into a road car whilst another unlikely(?) conversion was a Sports 2000 Lola (again in the North West).

[RTH]

....Now if someone made a road car version of a Porsche 917 a Chevron B16 Ford F3L a Lola T600 (in Interscope colours ) the last of the recent Bentley Le Mans cars then that really would be something desirable.

[f1steveuk]

There was a 917 road car! Just one, which went to somewhere very hot! I recall it was silver, and looked a bit cramped inside! Then there was Vern's 962 road car, wonder how many made it on to the road!?

[alansart]

Originally posted by RTH
....Now if someone made a road car version of a Porsche 917 a Chevron B16 Ford F3L a Lola T600 (in Interscope colours ) the last of the recent Bentley Le Mans cars then that really would be something desirable.

A great idea but try getting em over my local speed humps

[Peter Morley]

Originally posted by f1steveuk
There was a 917 road car! Just one, which went to somewhere very hot! I recall it was silver, and looked a bit cramped inside! Then there was Vern's 962 road car, wonder how many made it on to the road!?

Porsche built a silver 917 (917-030) for Count Rossi who was sponsoring them at the time via his Martini company, it was registered in Alabama (reg 61-27737) since they couldn't register it in Germany. He used it in Italy, but it later moved to America and changed colour.

There was also a white one (917-021 an ex-AAW Finland Spyder) built by Joachim Großmann who managed to register it in Germany (with the number CW-K 917) after suitable modification.
Apparently this has now been turned into a race car (recently owned by Bobby Rahal).
Just to add to the confusion there are two 917-021s...

Apparently they (Modena Cars in the UK) made 5 out of an intended 50 Schuppan 962 CR road cars - the 5th one being converted into the 962 LM Le-Mans race car (so it was a racing version of a road car based on a racing car...).

[f1steveuk]

Originally posted by Peter Morley


Porsche built a silver 917 (917-030) for Count Rossi who was sponsoring them at the time via his Martini company, it was registered in Alabama (reg 61-27737) since they couldn't register it in Germany. He used it in Italy, but it later moved to America and changed colour.

There was also a white one (917-021 an ex-AAW Finland Spyder) built by Joachim Großmann who managed to register it in Germany (with the number CW-K 917) after suitable modification.
Apparently this has now been turned into a race car (recently owned by Bobby Rahal).
Just to add to the confusion there are two 917-021s...

Apparently they (Modena Cars in the UK) made 5 out of an intended 50 Schuppan 962 CR road cars - the 5th one being converted into the 962 LM Le-Mans race car (so it was a racing version of a road car based on a racing car...).

That's what I should have said! Thanks

[JB Miltonian]

I have the article "The First, Last, and Only Hyde Park GP" from Car, June 1968, by Nick Brittan, which is a "tongue-in-cheek" report of driving this Lotus in London. I remember buying the magazine for a family trip when I was 15 years old, it was my first "foreign" magazine, cover price 60 cents.

There are four small color pictures of the car, which is registered NVF 1F.

[metalshapes]

Street Machine, July '80.

3 page article about a Lotus 51.
0wned by Roger Williams, Painted to promote a 24 Hr Race.

Twin Cam Power, Plate# DTL799T.

Edit.

In one of the pics a guy with a beard & glasses is driving it.

The article was written by George Hinton, maybe it was him...

[TFBundy]

Originally posted by RTH
....Now if someone made a road car version of a ....... Chevron B16 ...... then that really would be something desirable.

Sometime back in the early '90s Roger Andreason advertised just that! He told me he'd built the rolling chassis for a Japanese customer who'd gone bust on him. I was really, really tempted for half that afternoon until I thought -

Originally posted by alansart


A great idea but try getting em over my local speed humps

[metalshapes]

Also, there was a Tripple C article about a Street Legal Mallock U2 Clubmans Racer.
( about a Mk14 if I remember right, with rear wing, sidepods, etc )

Michael Fritz's Mk10 U2 was street driven in Germany.

Richard Mallock's Mk6R ( for Road ), was Street Legal.

And my Mk6 was too, when I still lived in Europe.

[Macca]

http://www.xanthos.c...side-medium.jpg

Now where's my chequebook............


Paul M

[fausto]

one (or even two) of the DeCadenet LeMans Specials was (were) road-registered...

[kurtiejjj]

Originally posted by Macca
http://www.xanthos.c...side-medium.jpg

Now where's my chequebook............


Paul M

I've seen this car before, there was one chap on pistonheads who had a road legal Lotus formula car. There are even some video clips of him driving it through some woods on pistonheads.tv

[Mistron]

Originally posted by metalshapes
Also, there was a Tripple C article about a Street Legal Mallock U2 Clubmans Racer.
( about a Mk14 if I remember right, with rear wing, sidepods, etc )

Michael Fritz's Mk10 U2 was street driven in Germany.

Richard Mallock's Mk6R ( for Road ), was Street Legal.

And my Mk6 was too, when I still lived in Europe.

My Coldwell Mink was road registered, with the number carried over from the original owners previous early Mallock U2

was the 'flower power' Lotus 51 not used to assess the viability of Hyde park as a GP circuit? I hadn't got the impression that this was a spoof idea? the test was made in the early hours of a Sunday morning was it not?

Perhaps I read a different article

[bradbury west]

An ardent Len Terry enthusiast had a mk 2 Terrier restored to period spec. and kitted out in road trim,- lights, handbrake and horn, - prior to driving it back home to his French/Swiss border home
Roger Lund

[HiRich]

There was of course the Cooper-Triumph (T4), based on the 1949 Cooper MkII Formula III chassis and now owned by John Potts (and of course the later Cooper-MGs & Cooper-Vauxhalls).
And Cyril Kieft converted one of the 1950 C50 chassis into a wonderful little roadcar that looked like the later CK52 (although how a passenger was supposed to sit next to the driver I'll never know)

[f1steveuk]

Originally posted by metalshapes
In one of the pics a guy with a beard & glasses is driving it.

Blimey, I remembered something at least! plus now I have more cars to research, thanks chaps!

[zoff2005]

Does the Lotus 51R not appear in Casino Royale (the 1967 spoof version) being driven or about to be driven by Peter Sellers (one of the many James Bonds)? I think it belonged to Sellers.

Alan Baillie's Lotus 24 chassis P3 was a road car when he got it - not with the BRM engine however! But with a FF engine and Hewland (it had previously been the prototype Dulon FF).

Marcus

[bradbury west]

In a similar vein I believe it was Graham Capel who recognised the underpinnings of a kit car, - S Coast somewhere- as being the remians of the modified chassis of the original Lotus 8 , SAR 5, which was then returned to its prototype Lotus 8 spec. in the mid 90s. I have a photo somewhere here of it on a trailer , part restored at a VSCC or Coys meeting. IIRC there was a story about it in one of the magazines
Roger Lund.

[D-Type]

The LGS hillclimb single seater with a rear-mounted Jaguar engine built by Frank Le Gallais in Jersey had a road kit of skimpy wings and lights and he apparently drove it across England to compete at Shelsley Walsh. More a case of a racer on the road than a road car.

[Mistron]

Originally posted by bradbury west
In a similar vein I believe it was Graham Capel who recognised the underpinnings of a kit car, - S Coast somewhere- as being the remians of the modified chassis of the original Lotus 8 , SAR 5, which was then returned to its prototype Lotus 8 spec. in the mid 90s. I have a photo somewhere here of it on a trailer , part restored at a VSCC or Coys meeting. IIRC there was a story about it in one of the magazines
Roger Lund.

I think somone bought it as a prototype westfield or a dutton or some other 'sevenesque' style thing, and on further examination the chassis was identified as being at least in part an early Lotus. At least all of the outriggers / body supports had been removed, though there were no doubt other significant changes too.

Can recall it being covered in C&SC's 'discovered' section both as found and mid restoration.

What a find! and just as well someone noticed!!!!

[Charles Helps]

Originally posted by bradbury west
In a similar vein I believe it was Graham Capel who recognised the underpinnings of a kit car, - S Coast somewhere- as being the remians of the modified chassis of the original Lotus 8 , SAR 5, which was then returned to its prototype Lotus 8 spec. in the mid 90s. I have a photo somewhere here of it on a trailer , part restored at a VSCC or Coys meeting. IIRC there was a story about it in one of the magazines
Roger Lund.

Two different cars, Roger.
The prototype Lotus MkVIII registered SAR 5 has belonged to someone else for many years. You may have seen a MKVIII reconstructed from the remains of the Dutton Mantis by Graham Capel displaying the registration 624 BMG. In fact it couldn't have been that either and is more likely to be reconstructed from the remains of a little known Ford Sidevalve engined Mk VIII registered SXB500 - a few more details here: http://www.historicl...ars/Vincent.htm

Mid fifties Lotuses were generally road registered: drive to the circuit, take off the windscreen and spare wheel if fitted, put the numbers on, get scrutineered and off you go. Some drivers of the time have mentioned that Peter Gammon was a bit unusual as he trailered his MG engined MKVI, road registered UPE-9 in 1954.

[Mistron]

Originally posted by zoff2005
Does the Lotus 51R not appear in Casino Royale (the 1967 spoof version) being driven or about to be driven by Peter Sellers (one of the many James Bonds)? I think it belonged to Sellers.

Marcus

Were the Peter Sellers Racing cars not F3, rather than FF? Most likely it would have been one of those cars.

Didn't he have to use it in the film to chase a baddie as he told the taxi to 'follow that car', at which point the taxi did, and roared off, leaving him behind!

[Lee Nicolle]

K&A Engineering were building a road car version of the Veskanda. When I last saw it, 99-2000?, it was nearing completion. In this day and age it was a major undertaking. So many things taken for granted had to be changed. They had to make special brake hoses, swaged fittings, on braided hose. Suspension bushings, uprights etc, to pass design rules. Engine was a then current efi V8 Holden which was standard for registration.
I have never seen the car since but presume that it was registered, it would have been a very mean road car.
When the original Kanda was built there was always intended to be a road version so it makes the car that John Bowe raced and still holds outright records at some circuits very special. It did have proper headlights, turn signals, heater etc. The basic car was always designed with ADRs in mind, though that was ofcourse 20 years ago.
Bernie van Elsen did get his racing Bolwell registered also, it was used in a Grand Prix rally and some other events I believe. I bet that is the only full monocoque road going sports car in existence.

On a different note I once read an article in I think Open Wheel about a road registered Sprintcar!!!!
From memory a very short Auto trans, headlights and that was about it. Only in America!

[JtP1]

Originally posted by M bennett
Most probably the LOTUS 51R based on the Lotus 51, a Formula Ford single seat car. It was done for the 1968 Racing Car Show. The car was often pictured with Graham Arnold behind the wheel, he was Lotus' sales manager/director at the time. The factory car had a flower power paint scheme and with a price of GBP 1085 one was supposedly sold to an American customer. It was photographed in a number of locations in the UK including central London.

The original Lotus 51 road legal car ended up in a Lotus dealer in Glasgow. It was eventually purchased in 1970 for hillclimbing and ended up some years later fitted with a twin cam. It had cycle wings, an electric fan, lights and a horn. It carried the horn for all of its first users ownership. The car was white when purchased with iirc a red stripe and that I believe was the original colours.
The original promotional announcement was in Autosport in around 1968

The first competitive user of the Lotus does occasionally post on this board, so I will ask him to post the full history of the car.

The Peter Sellars/ James Bond Casino Royale Lotus was definately green in the film and predated Formula Ford by some 2 years.

[Stephen W]

Originally posted by bradbury west
An ardent Len Terry enthusiast had a mk 2 Terrier restored to period spec. and kitted out in road trim,- lights, handbrake and horn, - prior to driving it back home to his French/Swiss border home
Roger Lund

I think this car now resides in Scotland with Scott Goodfellow who mainly hillclimbs it. He was at the Bo'ness Revival meeting back in August.

[ErleMin]

The only Formula Vee Veemax in the UK was once converted for road use by a teacher in the West Country, used to get him down to the coast to restore his boat. He got fed up getting soaked when driving alongside lorries on the motorway in the wet so his next project was to be converting a Sports 2000 (maybe same as previously mentioned in this thread? - dunno).

[f1steveuk]

Going a little OT (and it's a thread I started!).

Returning to Richard's remark, and road going 917s, this appears to have a road registration?

[Geoff E]

Originally posted by f1steveuk
this appears to have a road registration?

So does this. I noticed direction indicators but it has no headlights apparently.

[f1steveuk]

Originally posted by Geoff E


So does this. I noticed direction indicators but it has no headlights apparently.

It's a long time since I used the "Use and Construction Regs" for road cars, but I recall that you don't have to have headlights, but if you do, they have to meet the reg's, if you don't, you can't drive on the road after lighting up time (obviously!)

[Mistron]

Can't recall the details of the construction and use regs, but I thought you hadn't been able to get a 'daylight only' MOT for a few years now, though obviously some Bugatti owners (amongst others) still seem to manage.

I should imaging the ridiculously strict new computerised regime makes it even less likely.

If you have a classic friendly mot man, keep in with them, they seem to be a dying breed (or a breed that is being killed off, more like) perhaps some will say "well it had lights when it came in for the test!"

[f1steveuk]

Yes, there are sone "creative" testers about, as witnessed around the time of the London to Brighton run!

[bradbury west]

Like you guys, I am not too well versed in MoT regs, but it may tie in with pre '65? cutoff, as with seatbelt requirements. Some older cars have only 1 rear light etc, and there must be provison for old style headl;ights where they were 2 spot/fog lights, one of which went out when dipped. There is a stipulation about headlight heights, -poss 23" centres?- as I know my old roundtube G4 would not have been legal if built new to that spec nowadays, or late 80s when restored, but was OK because it was pre 65 regs or some such. I think we have been along this route previously.
Roger Lund