Another mystery car
Discussion
jules_s said:
Did the computer guys evidence ever get posted here in full?
I stumbled across it on a random forum the other day and (right or wrong) it did look quite compelling
Was that the evidence he was to 'announce to the world' about it without doubt, unequivocally, based on a Sunbeam Alpine? If so, has he actually given his warts n' all 'evidence' that to his mind, is irrefutable?I stumbled across it on a random forum the other day and (right or wrong) it did look quite compelling
It's not been posted on this thread o my knowledge. Have you a link to it? Or did he not post it as to be honest, no-one is interested?
uk66fastback said:
Was that the evidence he was to 'announce to the world' about it without doubt, unequivocally, based on a Sunbeam Alpine? If so, has he actually given his warts n' all 'evidence' that to his mind, is irrefutable?
It's not been posted on this thread o my knowledge. Have you a link to it? Or did he not post it as to be honest, no-one is interested?
Yeah it was the Alpine theory - I'll see if I can dig through my history (I was deep deep down the mystery car rabbit hole though)It's not been posted on this thread o my knowledge. Have you a link to it? Or did he not post it as to be honest, no-one is interested?
jules_s said:
uk66fastback said:
Was that the evidence he was to 'announce to the world' about it without doubt, unequivocally, based on a Sunbeam Alpine? If so, has he actually given his warts n' all 'evidence' that to his mind, is irrefutable?
It's not been posted on this thread o my knowledge. Have you a link to it? Or did he not post it as to be honest, no-one is interested?
Yeah it was the Alpine theory - I'll see if I can dig through my history (I was deep deep down the mystery car rabbit hole though)It's not been posted on this thread o my knowledge. Have you a link to it? Or did he not post it as to be honest, no-one is interested?
https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/guess-the-car.742...
Are the wheelarches on the rendered car a different shape to the original photo?
I'll not screen grab the image just in case somebody objects.
Link
https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/guess-the-car.742...
I'll not screen grab the image just in case somebody objects.
Link
https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/guess-the-car.742...
threespires said:
Are the wheelarches on the rendered car a different shape to the original photo?
I'll not screen grab the image just in case somebody objects.
Link
https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/guess-the-car.742...
Not quite, but given the possibilities given the scaling/modeling I'd personally let that issue goI'll not screen grab the image just in case somebody objects.
Link
https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/guess-the-car.742...
TBH I think he got the door idea closer Borrani - but that's just my opinion
jules_s said:
Not quite, but given the possibilities given the scaling/modeling I'd personally let that issue go
TBH I think he got the door idea closer Borrani - but that's just my opinion
If it's a gull-wing door, I think the leading edge is more likely to be in line with the rear of the windscreen, as in Borrani's render I believe.TBH I think he got the door idea closer Borrani - but that's just my opinion
CanAm said:
jules_s said:
Not quite, but given the possibilities given the scaling/modeling I'd personally let that issue go
TBH I think he got the door idea closer Borrani - but that's just my opinion
If it's a gull-wing door, I think the leading edge is more likely to be in line with the rear of the windscreen, as in Borrani's render I believe.TBH I think he got the door idea closer Borrani - but that's just my opinion
I always saw the shut line in view as the leading edge of a door not the rear of a clam though = and a gullwing door seems too complex with a panoramic windscreen added to Borranis doors look too small/high
Just my opinion though
Rower said:
The same picture has just popped up on Facebook thread and is described as Oxford street 1962 and the car is a Sunbeam TS 4 or Tornado. That is a prototype and did not go into production . I googled the car and it’s correct !
Next .....
As we said back in March....Next .....
Doofus said:
CanAm said:
The name was stolen from the Leyland Tiger TS4 single-decker bus. Those fake renderings will now be spreading around the internet as gospel. 
And nobody will notice that they didn't ubse computer modelling when that car was built, or that two renderings and one line drawing are the only other pictures of it that exist.Rower said:
The same picture has just popped up on Facebook thread and is described as Oxford street 1962 and the car is a Sunbeam TS 4 or Tornado. That is a prototype and did not go into production . I googled the car and it’s correct !
Next .....
There seems to be some understandable confusion here.Next .....
A coachbuilder called Harrington made fastback bodies for the Sunbeam Alpine back in the 1960s.
They had also built a number of Harrington bodies on the Leyland Tiger TS4 bus chassis.
Two years after ther mystery car photo was taken, Sunbeam launched the Tiger, a structurally reinforced Alpine with a big US-sourced V8.
The 'TS4 Project' on Facebook appears to be a plan to re-style a modern car (Mazda MX5 is mentioned) with classic-inspired outer panels.
They have re-posted some CAD images (from this thread) that were based on the mystery car.
This from the Old Car Classics archive (their caption).........
https://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/maidstone-district...
Leyland Tiger TS4, registration KJ 5434 and chassis number 799, was built in 1932 and served the Maidstone area until July 1940, when it and its sisters were requisitioned for the war effort, specifically the Army. Whether it survived the war, or met its end thanks to Adolf and one of his Luftwaffe pilots, isn't known.
Rower said:
The same picture has just popped up on Facebook thread and is described as Oxford street 1962 and the car is a Sunbeam TS 4 or Tornado. That is a prototype and did not go into production . I googled the car and it’s correct !
Next .....
lolNext .....
another numpty who hasn't read the thread but has all the answers.
Coming soon "are those gull wing doors?"
52classic said:
Very strange 'cut 'n' shut' Isetta and a VW Beetle. But look at the rear hubs, something else going on there!
I’d love to know where that photo came from, but it’s clearly been edited (crudely).As for “our” mystery car, my original print run copy of the book arrived the other day.
I’ve yet to fully analyse the image in the flesh, but already more detail is apparent. I’m more convinced than not that this car was real, FWIW.
skwdenyer said:
I’d love to know where that photo came from, but it’s clearly been edited (crudely).
As for “our” mystery car, my original print run copy of the book arrived the other day.
I’ve yet to fully analyse the image in the flesh, but already more detail is apparent. I’m more convinced than not that this car was real, FWIW.
Excellent. As for “our” mystery car, my original print run copy of the book arrived the other day.
I’ve yet to fully analyse the image in the flesh, but already more detail is apparent. I’m more convinced than not that this car was real, FWIW.
I have been pointed in the direction of this website by my son, so please excuse my lack of internet savvy. I don’t usually post things on the internet, but he wanted to me to see this photo as it sounded to him like a car I was trying to describe and indeed it is.
I know of this car, dating back to when it was first built and I knew the person who built it, so hopefully I can help to fill in a few gaps. Unfortunately, it was a very long time ago, so some details may be a little hazy, but I will endeavour to do my best. I haven’t read all the pages, just had a quick look through the first page and the last one, so I don’t know too much about what is known and what isn’t. I’ve just heard that it was effectively unidentified.
The car was built between 1961 and 1962. I was built very quickly I hasten to add, by a guy called Clive Bowers. He would have been 25/26 at the time and I was 19/20. He and his dad were both massively into aeroplanes and the RAF. They had both worked has aeroplane body builders, hence the ability to build this car. He was highly skilled at quite a young age as he had been in and around doing this from a child really.
The story of the car’s origin stems from their obsession with the RAF. In those days you couldn’t just buy a private registration number off the internet, so when Clive’s dad saw a virtually worthless old car for sale with the registration number RAF 33, he bought it. It was a decrepit Ford 7Y, which was subsequently parked up somewhere at the family home, which was a smallholding, hence no shortage of space and pretty much forgotten about.
Clive used to look at this vehicle with disdain and wondered why they kept it. I was a youth with a major thing about cars, but in those days I wouldn’t have known how or even if you could transfer a registration number, so I assume that it was just fixed to the car it was on back then, so Clive asked his dad if he could take the car and make something special out of it, so that was that.
The body was stripped off the chassis and scrapped. What was left of the car was subjected to a nut and bolt strip down and rebuilt, so it was like new and then Clive built the body which you can see in the photo. It was made from aluminium, it had small gullwing doors and the windscreen was the rear screen from a Nash Metropolitan. I can’t remember exactly why, but apparently there was a building at RAF Mildenhall which was full of Nash Metropolitan parts and he thought it made a good feature for the car, which he wanted to incorporate certain touches from the aerospace world.
He took me out in it on a couple of occasions, but that was only because I was a car mad youth and used to approach him about it. He wasn’t into showing it off or going to shows, rallies or anything like that. I wouldn’t say he was a reclusive type as he was quite sociable, but generally aside from that he kept himself to himself. I’m surprised that no one else appears to have recognised the car, but not surprised that only very few people might have done.
I know the engine was tuned to some degree and the suspension and brakes had been altered, but I can’t remember any details beyond that. The only other thing that stands out in memory was that there wasn’t any interior at all to speak of. The seats were home made and looked unfinished and nothing else had been trimmed out. It was very much unfinished on the inside, but on the outside it was pristine. The paint colour was Cambridge Blue, which was taken from his dad’s MKVIII Jaguar.
As for Clive, I lost touch with him around 1964 and only got back in touch with him in 1993 when having other dealings with a member of his family, which lasted until 1999. I hadn’t seen or heard any of them since then. I remember talking about the car in around 1995 and was told that it was still around and was kept in one of the outbuildings at a property their family owned somewhere just outside Bournemouth. All that was said was that it had been off the road since 1977, he had only ever done a couple of thousand miles in it, but he had swapped out the engine for a more powerful Ford engine he had built. Can’t remember what he said spec-wise, but that it was still in virtually pristine condition at that point, but had still never built any kind of interior for it.
I believe Clive passed away around 5 or 6 years ago now, but not entirely sure. He had no children, so not sure what would have happened to the car if it was still around. He had a couple of sisters who all had children, but didn’t know anything else about them really.
Hopefully that is something to go on anyway. Not sure if you will trace Clive as I believe that it wasn’t actually his real name, think it was a nickname something to do with Clive of India, but only what I was told and that was the name that everyone knew him as, even his parents called it him and his surname was definitely Bowers.
A bigger help may be the registration number of the car, which was definitely RAF 33 and would have shown up as a Ford.
I know of this car, dating back to when it was first built and I knew the person who built it, so hopefully I can help to fill in a few gaps. Unfortunately, it was a very long time ago, so some details may be a little hazy, but I will endeavour to do my best. I haven’t read all the pages, just had a quick look through the first page and the last one, so I don’t know too much about what is known and what isn’t. I’ve just heard that it was effectively unidentified.
The car was built between 1961 and 1962. I was built very quickly I hasten to add, by a guy called Clive Bowers. He would have been 25/26 at the time and I was 19/20. He and his dad were both massively into aeroplanes and the RAF. They had both worked has aeroplane body builders, hence the ability to build this car. He was highly skilled at quite a young age as he had been in and around doing this from a child really.
The story of the car’s origin stems from their obsession with the RAF. In those days you couldn’t just buy a private registration number off the internet, so when Clive’s dad saw a virtually worthless old car for sale with the registration number RAF 33, he bought it. It was a decrepit Ford 7Y, which was subsequently parked up somewhere at the family home, which was a smallholding, hence no shortage of space and pretty much forgotten about.
Clive used to look at this vehicle with disdain and wondered why they kept it. I was a youth with a major thing about cars, but in those days I wouldn’t have known how or even if you could transfer a registration number, so I assume that it was just fixed to the car it was on back then, so Clive asked his dad if he could take the car and make something special out of it, so that was that.
The body was stripped off the chassis and scrapped. What was left of the car was subjected to a nut and bolt strip down and rebuilt, so it was like new and then Clive built the body which you can see in the photo. It was made from aluminium, it had small gullwing doors and the windscreen was the rear screen from a Nash Metropolitan. I can’t remember exactly why, but apparently there was a building at RAF Mildenhall which was full of Nash Metropolitan parts and he thought it made a good feature for the car, which he wanted to incorporate certain touches from the aerospace world.
He took me out in it on a couple of occasions, but that was only because I was a car mad youth and used to approach him about it. He wasn’t into showing it off or going to shows, rallies or anything like that. I wouldn’t say he was a reclusive type as he was quite sociable, but generally aside from that he kept himself to himself. I’m surprised that no one else appears to have recognised the car, but not surprised that only very few people might have done.
I know the engine was tuned to some degree and the suspension and brakes had been altered, but I can’t remember any details beyond that. The only other thing that stands out in memory was that there wasn’t any interior at all to speak of. The seats were home made and looked unfinished and nothing else had been trimmed out. It was very much unfinished on the inside, but on the outside it was pristine. The paint colour was Cambridge Blue, which was taken from his dad’s MKVIII Jaguar.
As for Clive, I lost touch with him around 1964 and only got back in touch with him in 1993 when having other dealings with a member of his family, which lasted until 1999. I hadn’t seen or heard any of them since then. I remember talking about the car in around 1995 and was told that it was still around and was kept in one of the outbuildings at a property their family owned somewhere just outside Bournemouth. All that was said was that it had been off the road since 1977, he had only ever done a couple of thousand miles in it, but he had swapped out the engine for a more powerful Ford engine he had built. Can’t remember what he said spec-wise, but that it was still in virtually pristine condition at that point, but had still never built any kind of interior for it.
I believe Clive passed away around 5 or 6 years ago now, but not entirely sure. He had no children, so not sure what would have happened to the car if it was still around. He had a couple of sisters who all had children, but didn’t know anything else about them really.
Hopefully that is something to go on anyway. Not sure if you will trace Clive as I believe that it wasn’t actually his real name, think it was a nickname something to do with Clive of India, but only what I was told and that was the name that everyone knew him as, even his parents called it him and his surname was definitely Bowers.
A bigger help may be the registration number of the car, which was definitely RAF 33 and would have shown up as a Ford.
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