I was looking for a better picture of a GP Centron (I'm sure I've got one somewhere) but found this instead. It was taken at the Kit Car Show at Stoneleigh in c.1984 when I was a student at Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic (now Coventry University). I have the vaguest of feelings that a Centron turned up at the same show but if I took a photo of it I can't lay my hands on it.
Written on the back of the print (in crayon) is VW Special - a state of the art statement of the obvious - and that's all I know about.
But what sort of VW Special?. Someone's gone to a lot of trouble over this, which I'm sure is a one off. Okay it's ugly, but it's practical. Those are Beetle side windows and that's a Beetle windscreen. The front headlamps could be off a Mk1 Escort as they look suspiciously like those on my Siva Llama.
I wonder about those doors. How are they hinged? Why is the handle down so low? Could it be that they are gull wing doors?
If anyone anywhere knows anything about this car, please let me know through this blog or my Anarchadia site.
I was looking for a better picture of a GP Centron (I'm sure I've got one somewhere) but found this instead. It was taken at the Kit Car Show at Stoneleigh in c.1984 when I was a student at Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic (now Coventry University). I have the vaguest of feelings that a Centron turned up at the same show but if I took a photo of it I can't lay my hands on it.
Written on the back of the print (in crayon) is VW Special - a state of the art statement of the obvious - and that's all I know about.
But what sort of VW Special?. Someone's gone to a lot of trouble over this, which I'm sure is a one off. Okay it's ugly, but it's practical. Those are Beetle side windows and that's a Beetle windscreen. The front headlamps could be off a Mk1 Escort as they look suspiciously like those on my Siva Llama.
I wonder about those doors. How are they hinged? Why is the handle down so low? Could it be that they are gull wing doors?
If anyone anywhere knows anything about this car, please let me know through this blog or my Anarchadia site.
Hi Bob,
ReplyDeleteJust thought I’d drop you a quick note about the Vintage Thing No.54.
I actually owned this car many years ago. I had written an article about the car for a magazine, but I cannot remember the name of the magazine. It folded after a few years, if I can dig out the copy I have I’ll run you off a photocopy.
As you assumed in your blog, the car was indeed based on a full length VW Beetle chassis. The car had a standard 1200cc engine. The doors had originally been designed as gull-wing doors, these were converted to a more traditional format, but the old handle recesses had been left in situ. I bought the car in this state, I owned it for about a year, being my sole means of transport, (young and foolish). Living in Leicester, I did go, and still do go, to all the Kit Car shows in the Midlands. I remember taking this car to a couple of shows, but was laughed out of them with this particular vehicle, still good fun though.
The car was in fact a ‘One-off’.
I would be interested to know if the car is still in existence, at the time I owned it,I did not have the funds to restore her and with heavy heart had to sell the poor girl on. I believe it was bought by someone in the Coventry/Birmingham area.
Regards, Bob Bateman
bob338@talktalk.net
Brilliant! Thanks Bob - this is why I like the internet so much, someone out there often knows something about the most obscure things.
ReplyDeleteDid your one-off have a name? And who built it?
If you have a photocopy I'd be delighted to see it and with your permission would like to do a follow up to this blog entry.
More info might yet run this car to ground. If anyone knows of its whereabouts, do let either Bob or me know.
Hi Bob,
ReplyDeleteA little more info on the car.
I purchased the car through the Autotrader (this was in the days before ebay), I bought the car from Lincolnshire and was told by the chap I bought it from, that the car had been designed and built by hand by a man in Boston (Lincolnshire). He had built a mock-up and then took moulds from the former, he then produced the panels from the moulds. He said the moulds may still be around, but this was in 1984, still, you never know.
The interior was unfinished, a lot of square tubing on view. There was even a heating system, this consisted of household plumbing pipe work that ran from the rear mounted Beetle engine heat exchangers to the front footwells. When the car was left standing in the rain, the pipes tended to fill up with water, then when the engine was started, the water would spray out onto your feet.
I have a few photographs of the car, but as I’ve only just moved, I am unable to locate them at the moment. I lived then in Enderby, Leicestershire, so some of your readers may well have seen it around the Leicestershire area.
The car did not have a name as far as I knew. In fact the article I wrote for the magazine was entitled ‘The Car with No Name’
If anyone knows anything else about this unusual car, or even the whereabouts of it now, I’d appreciate your dropping me a line.
Funnily enough, I came across this web site looking for any more info on the Mk1 Centron, I’ve had an advert running on the internet for some years trying to acquire a Centron, it was amazing to see my old Beetle special on the screen.
I’m now living in Long Eaton in Nottinghamshire, a friend of a friend in the area used to own a red Mk2 Centron, I believe he used to race it before he sold it on. I arrived on the scene just a few weeks to late to buy it.
Regards, Bob
Bob338@talktalk.net
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301226874629
ReplyDeleteThere's one on eBay
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301226874629