Forgotten Classic Revival Follies Part 3: Frazer Nash, the 3rd Time Around

You probably remember the chain-drive Frazer Nash*, a lightweight, spindly little thing built seemingly as a caricature of British Motoring between 1922 and 1939.  If you don't remember It, it cannot be because it wasn't memorable.  With an almost complete absence of anything  to enhance creature comforts, the FN seemed stripped down to performance essentials, though it lacked a couple features that might've enhanced performance too…like a gearbox or a differential. No surprise, then, that the hardy band of enthusiasts who raced and hillclimbed these cars was known as the Chain Gang.  And no surprise, either, that the make's popularity  waned as other car builders like Jaguar began to offer inducements like interior-mounted shifters and emergency brakes, windshield wipers and even heaters to attract customers, so that only one chain-drive 'Nash was built in 1939...

War in that year interrupted a program started five years earlier by the firm's owners, the Aldingtons, to import BMWs outfitted with Frazer Nash badges, but in 1948 they displayed 3 new High Speed models at the Earls Court Motor Show. These cars probably look pretty stripped-down to modern eyes, but compared to the pre-war FN they were models of refinement, with interior levers for their smooth-shifting four speed gearboxes (no more bicycle chains and sprockets) and differentials betwixt the driven rear wheels so they wouldn't skip around tight turns.  Reaffirming the late pre-war connection to BMW, Frazer Nash powered the cars with 2 liter inline sixes from Bristol Aeroplane Company. These were actually the BMW 328 design that antedated return of global war by a few years, and drawings and rights to the design were transferred to Bristol under a war reparations agreement. After a High Speed Frazer Nash finished 3rd at the 1949 Le Mans 24 Hours, the company renamed the car the Le Mans Replica.  Later successes for the cycle-fendered road racers included winning the Targa Florio in 1951, and the Sebring 12 Hours in 1952. Franco Cortese became the Sports Car Champion of Italy in a Frazer Nash by adding victories at Enna and a 2 liter class win in Sicily to his Targa Florio win, in a field populated with more powerful Ferraris and Maseratis. This Le Mans Replica below showed up at the Steamboat Springs Vintage Races in the mid-Eighties...

Production was kept low by hand-fabrication methods and resulting high prices.  Eventually, competitveness on the track suffered as the Bristol engine became obsolete; it was over 20 years old when the last Frazer Nashes were built at the Isleworth shop in 1957.  Those cars were powered by the new BMW V8s, but high prices meant only 2 sales, and Frazer Nash became the Porsche distributor for the British Isles, which turned out to be a better business proposition.  Over a dozen years after production stopped, specialist restorers Crosswaite and Gardiner built half a dozen replicas of the Le Mans Replica with Bristol engines, based upon the chassis design of a 1953 Le Mans Replica rebuilt in their shop. These "new" Frazer Nashes are called Le Mans Replica Replicas.  You cannot make this stuff up...

You can, however, make up any car you like if you buy the rights to a famous (or almost famous) old name like Frazer Nash.  And as the Branding Era collided with enthusiasm for hybrid and electric cars, that's what happened to Frazer Nash.  In 2009 Frazer-Nash Research,  by this time a hyphenated part of the mysterious Kamkorp Group, announced the Frazer-Nash Namir (Arabic meaning leopard), a hybrid powered by an 814cc Wankel rotary gasoline engine charging an electric motor at each wheel.  The battery pack was mid-mounted and extensive use of carbon fiber kept weight down.  If the unusual means of transmitting power was perhaps in the spirit of the original chain-drive Frazer Nash, the styling by Italdesign Giugiaro was like something out of Star Wars rather than the steampunk world of Jules Verne.  Italdesign ditched rear the rear window in favor of rear-vision cameras and some feral-looking stripes. The visual aggression continued at the front, where the sharp V-shaped windscreen wrapped into glazing on the obligatory supercar scissor doors.

The design progressed well beyond the zoomy but static mock-up phase that stalled many classic revival attempts, and one prototype was studied in Britain's MIRA wind tunnel, as well as demonstrated at that year's Goodwood Festival of Speed. For a car with 362 hp, performance was more than perky, with 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds and a top speed of 187 mph.

Two prototypes were built, and the decision to employ a top-tier design and engineering firm, along with producing a unique hybrid power system, resulted in high development costs.  Frazer-Nash Research pursued other projects involving hybrid power, and Kamkorp later attempted a revival of the Bristol make, but with suppliers and consultants to pay, and with no products on the market to bring in cash, money ran short of dreams, and British courts ordered the liquidation of Frazer-Nash Research in late 2018.  Kamkorp Group followed it into liquidation in 2020.  

*Footnote:  For a brief history of the pre-war chain-drive Frazer Nash, please see the Archives  for "Not Your Grandpa's Nash", from January 27, 2017. For more on postwar Frazer Nash cars, see "Frazer Nash Part 2: When a Replica is Not a Replica", posted February 3, 2017.  For a look at other vintage racers that showed up in Steamboat Springs, see "Lost Roadside Attraction: Vintage Racing in Steamboat Springs", posted January 31, 2019.

Photo credits:
Top:  Linda La Fond
2nd & 3rd:  the author
4th & 5th: Italdesign Giugiaro

6th & Bottom:  Wikimedia

7th:  youtube.com

Lost Roadside Attraction: 70s Car Shows on Paris Streets, and at the Parc des Expos

When a gaggle of 4th year architecture students went  to France in late summer of 1970 to attend the University of Illinois program in Versailles, we expected to be surrounded by historic architecture and urbanism on nearly any street; that was part of the point. Only a few of us were prepared for the daily car show put on by ordinary morotists going about their business. It was like "cars & coffee" about 4 decades before the idea took hold. Here my housemate Ron checks out a Talbot-Lago* 15CV from 1949-53, with engine options including a 2.7 liter inline 4 cylinder and a 2.6 liter six.  We thought it was pretty trad looking, but not really ancient, as it had been born in the same era we had...

On the way to our student lodging on Rue du Marechal Gallieni, we happened upon this Ferrari transporter one afternoon.  I noted that two of the cars were not Ferraris…Lolas, I thought, and we weren't sure about the red car, which looked a bit like the short-chassis racers Ferrari once built for hillclimbs.  

The Ferrari transporter, if not its cargo, had already suffered a bit of wear and tear from Paris traffic.  Note the wrinkled service door behind the cabin...

Here a Lamborghini Miura* parks on the Rue de Rivoli, appropriately enough behind a BMC Mini. The luggage rack, along with a few dimples and nicks, shows that the car was in regular use, if not a daily driver.  The thought of daily driving (or worse, parking) in Paris  had prompted the two other students who shared an old Fiat 1500 with me in Scandinavia to sell it at the American Express as soon as classes started...

Why, you wonder, is the Mini an appropriate parking mate for the Miura? Because   Lamborghini had originally approached BMC about making a low-cost, mid-engined GT car using the Mini engine / transaxle unit.  BMC refused, so the Lambo crew made an expensive GT with their own 4-cam V12 mounted transversely behind the cabin. One feature it shared with the Mini (at least, until the last 98 Miura SV models) was that the engine shared its oil with the transmission.  

The lady in the photo above may be considering the possible maintenance and repair expense that will result from this faiblesse de la boite de vitesse, while the guy standing at the other end of the car appears to be deep in negotiations with the dealer.  We hope they liked this color, and that they changed the oil frequently after they closed the deal.  These photos are from the Salon de l"Auto, which opened at the Parc des Expositions at the Porte de Versailles on October 1, 1970.

Our smart-shopping couple might have had lower maintenance expenses, if a bit less interior space, with this De Tomaso Mangusta*.  Like the Lambo Miura, the Mangusta first appeared in 1966 and went into production in 1967. The Ford V8 was mounted longitudinally behind the cabin, and did not share its oil with the ZF transmission.  But a less-than-rigid chassis design made for somewhat unpredictable handling.  I sampled a friend's Mangusta 2 decades later, and loved it anyway... 

Mostly I loved just looking at the thing, a sign that designer Giugiaro and coachbuilder Ghia had done their jobs.  They also produced the Maserati Ghibli* shown below, and it went into production in 1967 as well.  So even though the Miura, Mangusta and Ghibli were 3-year old designs by the time they hit this show, they looked as modern as tomorrow to us. To some eyes, they still do. Overall, the Maserati was the pick of the litter if you wanted to actually go places and take your stuff with you...  

The biggest star of that Paris show over 50 years ago was the Citroen SM, a product of the recent partnership with Maserati, and powered by a new Maserati V6 which, naturally, drove the front wheels as with all Citroens. In addition to the hydropneumatic suspension shared with the new mass market GS pictured in the background, the SM had the new Diravi speed-sensitive power steering.

It was a space ship on wheels, and especially looked the part when the hydropneumatic suspension was on its low setting, with the car nesting somewhat menacingly on the ground plane..

Also at that 1970 show, the French aerospace firm Matra showed off their Tour de France-winning MS650 road racer, powered by a 3 liter V12.  When we drove around the Le Mans track with our French student friend Bernard in his Simca, we got passed by Matras doing tire tests, and flames shot out the rear of the racers.  Bernard's humble Simca 1100 was nearly blown off the track. By this time, Simca was sponsoring the Matra team, but had nothing to do with the design of the racers, which seemed like the product of rocket science...

A few months later, Jean Rédélé released his new Alpine Renault A310* at the Geneva Show. This rear-engine design shared the Space Age, multi-headlight frontal aspect of the Citroen SM, but was more conventional in other aspects. Then again, nearly anything would seem conventional compared to a Citroen Maserati...

I caught the rainy end of the Tour de France Auto in September 1974, and an Alpine A310 was parked on the coast road after finishing...  

…along with its brother, the smaller, more aggressive rally champion A110...

A month later Citroen would release its last car designed as an independent company, the aerodynamic CX shown below at the '74 Salon.  It shared the hydropneumatic suspension and Diravi power steering with the SM, and did better during the fuel crisis because of its 4 cylinder engine.  A concave rear window eliminated the need for a wiper... 

The oil embargo and fuel cirsis would eventually spell the end of the Citroen-Maserati partnership, but not before Pietro Frua designed a sleek, front-drive GT with the Citroen hydraulics, power steering, and using the Maserati engine from the SM.  This Citroen SMS was shown at Geneva in 1972 and again in '73.  The standard SM is in the background...

The creased, angular wedge design theme of the Frua SMS appeared a bit later in a product of the short-lived CItroen-Maserati union, but this time styled by Marcello Gandini for Bertone. Unlike the SMS, the Maserati Khamsin that went into production in 1974 was a rear-drive design featuring the dry sump 4-cam V8 of the Ghibli, but retained CItroen hydraulics for the brakes and the Diravi power steering.  I photographed this one dozing at a parking meter in 1974 on the return trip from the Tour de France to the school in Versailles. Here was a shiny new design engineer's dream being casually and somewhat irreverently used as a car. Sometimes things turn out the way they're planned...

*Footnote: The following makes and models have been featured in previous photo essays:

"Talbot-Lago: Darracq by Another Name", May 22, 2020

"Lamborghini Miura: Mini-Cooper's 2nd Cousin, Twice Removed", July 11, 2017

Maserati Ghibli and De Tomaso Mangusta:  "The Italian Line:  Ghia Part 2—From Custom to Corporate", October 31, 2020

Alpine Renault:  "Forgotten Classic: Alpine Renault A310", January 9, 2021

Photo Credits:
Top thru 5th from top:  the author

6th thru 9th:  Ronald Budde
10th::  Jean Marc Felix

11th::  flickr.com

12th::  classiccarcatalogue.com

13th::  Pedro Daza

14th::  pinterest.com

15th & 16th::  the author

17th::  formtrends.com

18th:  citroenvie.com

Bottom::  the author

Forgotten Classic Revival Follies Part 2: The Spyker Saga

Our latest chapter of something that might be called "How to Go Bankrupt Building Cars" concerns the attempted revival of Holland's original car building firm, founded in 1880 to build carriages by the Spyker brothers.  The Spyker brothers were no strangers to innovation and fresh thinking; the 1903 60 hp. racer pictured above was the first four-wheel drive car and featured a mammoth inline 6 cylinder engine of 8.8 liters along with its pioneering 4-wheel brakes. During World War 1 Spyker turned out 100 airplanes and twice as many aero engines, though the Netherlands remained neutral. Right after that catastrophe ended, Spyker produced the forward-looking C1 Aerocoque roadster below, styled by Jaap Tjaarda van Sterkenburg, brother of John Tjaarda (who later designed the Lincoln Zephyr) and uncle of Tom Tjaarda*, whose design credits include the De Tomaso Pantera* and Fiat 124 Spider.

The problem with the idea of reviving the Spyker brand in an appeal to automotive nostalgia is that Spyker stopped making cars in 1926 after experiencing a couple of bankruptcies, including one in 1922, the year the 30/40 Torpedo shown below was built.  In its quarter century of building upper-crust cars, the company only managed to turn out around two thousand of them, and only about 20 examples remain...

Not necessarily a solid foundation on which to mount a heritage-based pitch for reviving a car brand.  Also, by 1999 when the Spyker Silvestris below was first shown, Spyker's cars had been gone from the scene for 73 years, so that few people were around who remembered the originals. And those few who did remember were not necessarily in the market for a  mid-engined, alloy-bodied coupe with limited headroom and not much in the way of design magnetism... 

One Spyker tradition the Silvestris honored was using an engine from a German car builder.  In the case of the 30/40 from 1922, Spyker had abandoned its own engines for inline sixes sourced from Maybach, and when buyers balked at the car's steep price, Spyker took fewer engines than required by contract, and Maybach went into the car business, competing with Spyker. For the new C8 which appeared in 2000, the 21st century Spyker engineers chose an Audi V8, which later showed up in twin-turbocharged form.

   The body design of the C8 unfortunately adopted the severely tapered, conical-section snout of the SIlvestris, with its odd, singly-curved surface between the headlights.  Moving from the front to the flanks, it appears the designers decided to distract from the lack of a strong formal theme by applying brignt metal accents around the mirrors and vents.  Later on, the headlights were reshaped, but only to emphasize the snout effect, and a chromed air intake showed up on the roof of coupe models.

Spyker complied with  the unwritten rule that says supercars need scissor doors and kept the odd, arched tail of the Silvestris prototype, but added more bright metal back there too. The interior displayed even more bright metal along with an engine-turned alloy dash, and the net effect was that here at last was a supercar for people who were nostalgic not for 1920s Amsterdam, but for 1960s Detroit...

At the 2007 Geneva show, Spyker showed the C12 Zagato and announced production plans for a limited series of two dozen to be powered by the VW / Audi / Bentley W12.  The car, designed by Zagato's design chief Norihiko Harada, recalled his design for the Lamborghini Raptor*, and displayed more coherence of form and fewer decorative gimmicks than other Spyker offerings, at least in this front 3/4 view...

From the rear it was another story. A transparent version of the classic double bubble Zagato roof collided with a central fin, air intakes cluttered the deck, and the tail was slathered with all the bright metal that had been avoided on the rest of the car.  Overall, the design lacked the clarity of Harada's design for Zagato's Diatto Otto Vu* which made its debut at the same show. And Spyker's financial woes meant that only one Zagato C12 was built. 

Around 3 years later, Spyker was GM's choice to take ownership of their Saab division, and this bewildering decision to entrust a mass-production operation to a company which had only built a couple hundred cars led to the bankruptcy of Swedish Auto, the Spyker affiliate which took on Saab's debt, in 2011 and eventually bankrutpcy for Spyker, in 2014.  After 7 more years in the overcrowded supercar arena, Spyker Cars again filed for bankruptcy in January 2021.  

*Footnote + Errata:  Our first version of this post credited Tom Tjaarda with the De Tomaso Mangusta design...sorry Giorgetto Giurgiaro; we knew all along it was you. Tom Tjaarda's car designs, including the De Tomaso Pantera, are surveyed in "Architect-Designed Cars Part 4: Tom Tjaarda—Life Before and After the Pantera", our post for April 30, 2020.  The Lamborghini Raptor is a subject of "Nineties Concept Cars Part 5", posted January 25, 2019, and the Diatto Otto Vu from the same designer and coachbuilder is a subject of "The Etceterini Files Part 19", posted here on March 11, 2019.

Photo Credits:
Top:  Wikimedia

2nd:  Spyker Cars

3rd:  ritzsite.nl

4th thru 7th:  Wikimedia
8th & Bottom:  ritzsite.nl