26 replies to this topic

[green-blood]

hey, I need to ID this, its doing my head in, its been posted for a week on my mini website as part of a "guess the car" game.... there are no prizes so dotn worry, but my reputation is taking a terrible bashing... its not a Sunbeam Tiger, or a Healy Lemams prototype, although I've been told it was built to race... the horse on the grill has sent many down the Mustang/Shelby route.... HELP

[Gregor Marshall]

Headlights look MGB like but then I'm sure they were used on a lot of cars.
Because of the wipers I'd say it's a LHD car if that helps!!

[Darren Galpin]

It is left hand drive - you can see the steering wheel through the windscreen.

[green-blood]

its supposedly British too...

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Darren Galpin
It is left hand drive - you can see the steering wheel through the windscreen.

Unless that's the seat-back

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by green-blood
hey, I need to ID this, its doing my head in, its been posted for a week on my mini website as part of a "guess the car" game.... there are no prizes so don't worry, but my reputation is taking a terrible bashing... its not a Sunbeam Tiger, or a Healey LeMans prototype, although I've been told it was built to race... the horse on the grill has sent many down the Mustang/Shelby route.... HELP

I can't see the pic...

[David McKinney]

I would have thought it's a '69 Mustang Mach 1 - with non-standard bonnet (or hood, depending where you are)

[Gregor Marshall]

The side/indicator lights look MGBish too. What about an MGB that someone has put a Mustang V8 in??

[Ray Bell]

And now I get the picture, but only in the review as I go to reply!

Weird one, this... that looks a lot like a Mustang badge, but the car's nothing like a Mustang or an MGB. Could it be a TVR?

[275 GTB-4]

Originally posted by green-blood
hey, I need to ID this, its doing my head in, its been posted for a week on my mini website as part of a "guess the car" game.... there are no prizes so dotn worry, but my reputation is taking a terrible bashing... its not a Sunbeam Tiger, or a Healy Lemams prototype, although I've been told it was built to race... the horse on the grill has sent many down the Mustang/Shelby route.... HELP

"Your" Mini site??? Tell me more Why does that remind me of a Daimler SP250 for some reason

[green-blood]

www.miniresource.com

it's an Irish based mini website, although we have a lot of english lads on there, its not mine per se, I've been around it for 5/6 years now. (1966 mk1 850, on hydro is my car - although it needs a head gasket this winter)

I'm one of the local cracky old guys (at 31) where as here I'm the ill informed sponge young fella (31)

anyway, its not a Mustang and I thought MGB too but I cannot find any thing similar either

[ian senior]

I can't remember its name , but there was a car (probably a one-off) made by Grantura Plastics in the late 60s that had a Ford V8 engine and looked like a longer version of the then current TVR body shape, with a few overtones of the later TVR M series. I recall a bonnet line like the one in the picture, plus a similar large air intake. If only I could remember the name of the damned thing.....

Having said that, it does remind me of the MGB GT, or even the MGB-bodied Carpanini GT, but that had a Daimler V8 engine.

[Gregor Marshall]

Now you have said that I'd say it's a Mini based something, same headlight as an MGB, windscreen looks like a Mini and the wings look like a Mini, just the bonnet/hood that looks wrong.

P.S. I though mini website was a small web-site you ran

[f1steveuk]

As long as it's not a photoshop build!!!

[green-blood]

no the guy who posted this is legit... and he's loving the fact that I cant get it... I had them going for ages with a F-Nash, they all thought it was an alvis for some odd reason.... this is my payback!!

dont think its a grantura/tvr

[bradbury west]

Original picture could be a Ginetta G10, 289ci Ford engine, built in v small numbers for US market mid sixties, although there was a Belgian built/special bodied coupe version of the MGB built, cannot locate the article, perhaps not kept. G11 was more or less the more MGB based UK equivalent of the G10
Roger Lund.

[275 GTB-4]

Shhhhhh....its a Unipower GT

[green-blood]

you da man....

someday I'll make it to that superb mini event on Mount Panorama

[Gav Astill]

Originally posted by ian senior
I can't remember its name , but there was a car (probably a one-off) made by Grantura Plastics in the late 60s that had a Ford V8 engine and looked like a longer version of the then current TVR body shape, with a few overtones of the later TVR M series. I recall a bonnet line like the one in the picture, plus a similar large air intake. If only I could remember the name of the damned thing.....

Do you mean the Grantura Gem prototype by any chance, built in '68, but with a 3 litre Ford V6?

Its in Mike Lawrence's excellent A-Z of Sports Cars 1945-70, which you can preview the relevant page at .....

http://books.google....btpdYnLdl4K4x8M

[David Beard]

Unipower as discussed on this thread..

http://forums.autosp...hlight=unipower

[Bloggsworth]

Originally posted by 275 GTB-4


"Your" Mini site??? Tell me more Why does that remind me of a Daimler SP250 for some reason

That's exactly what I thought when I first saw it - An SP250 with a ford engine? Things more sacrilegious than that have been perpetrated!

[green-blood]

thanks lads, my position as site nerd has been reinstated

[ian senior]

Originally posted by Gav Astill

Do you mean the Grantura Gem prototype by any chance, built in '68, but with a 3 litre Ford V6?

Its in Mike Lawrence's excellent A-Z of Sports Cars 1945-70, which you can preview the relevant page at .....

http://books.google....btpdYnLdl4K4x8M

That's exactly what I meant, except later I remembered it wasn't much like the car we are discussing here. And of course I got the engine wrong too. Oh well....

[TonyCotton]

Originally posted by ian senior
or even the MGB-bodied Carpanini GT, but that had a Daimler V8 engine.

Can somebody (Ian?) enlighten me as to what a Carpanini GT was, please?

[ian senior]

Originally posted by TonyCotton


Can somebody (Ian?) enlighten me as to what a Carpanini GT was, please?

It featured in an article in Motor in 1968 or '69. It was a very well made home built special for David (?) Carpanini who wanted a 4-seater sporting car when nothing from a factory gave him exactly what he wanted. It used the Daimler 2.5 litre V8 engine. I can't remember the details of the chassis or suspension, but expediency meant that he used some modified body panels from the MGB GT, so if you can imagine a long wheelbase MGB GT with a taller roof, you get the picture.

[Allan Lupton]

Originally posted by ian senior


It featured in an article in Motor in 1968 or '69. It was a very well made home built special for David (?) Carpanini who wanted a 4-seater sporting car when nothing from a factory gave him exactly what he wanted. It used the Daimler 2.5 litre V8 engine. I can't remember the details of the chassis or suspension, but expediency meant that he used some modified body panels from the MGB GT, so if you can imagine a long wheelbase MGB GT with a taller roof, you get the picture.

Jim Carpanini I think. Met him a year or so ago as he lives close by, and as a result I searched for the photo of his car that I know I took in the 1970s. Didn't find it, or I'd post it.

As I recall he widened an SP250 but I can't say if that was the chassis or just the front suspension and rear axle. As the rear seat passengers grew, the axle bottomed on the underside of the seat, so he re-engineered it with Rover de Dion axle components.

[275 GTB-4]

Originally posted by green-blood
you da man....

someday I'll make it to that superb mini event on Mount Panorama

Green-blood...you may mean the one-off event last year to celebrate the 1966 victory where nine Minis were first across the line. The organisers gave the Minis one lap (after paying for the privelege).

Otherwise you can see Minis race at Bathurst this Easter or maybe in the support races in October