Despite being almost entirely developed in a small Essex workshop, MK Sportscars’ Indy RR Hayabusa – yeah, the high-revving open wheeler that’s top o’the homepage right now – stands strong as one of the most thrilling cars money can buy from any price segment. You might say it’s hard evidence that British firms in the business of making bonkers enthusiast vehicles for niche segments remain as great as ever. Certainly, MK’s case is strong; not only is the firm surviving the global pandemic, it’s innovating and growing.
Of course, there are plenty other small volume, longstanding British firms out there. Take for example, the little-known Ronart Cars, the Peterborough-founded firm that once upon a time set out to take on TVR and rank among the UK’s top enthusiast firms. It was founded in the early eighties by Rona and Arthur Wolstenholme, titled using the first three letters of their forenames (genius!) and at first focussed its attention on creating the brilliantly mad V12-engined W152. This was an open-roof two-seater inspired by F1 cars of the fifties, with six pipes flowing out from each side of its engine bay. Quite the entrance for a new brand.
It wasn’t all show and noise, either, because the W152’s chassis was designed by Spyder Engineering, the British firm famous for making replacement Lotus chassis. Like many of those, the W152 was based on a backbone chassis, with a narrow centre and wide front and rear extensions. But unlike Lotus’s machines, the Ronart machine was big, sitting on a 2.76-metre wheelbase that was shared with the Jaguar XJ, with which the W152 shared its mechanicals. Its tracks were 76mm wider thanks largely to the use of knock-on wheels. So it had presence in both scale and style.
To improve handling, Ronart moved the Jaguar V12 back to a front-mid position, while the driver was placed where the rear seats of the XJ would usually be, giving the spaceframe car a 48/52 front-rear weight distribution. Later versions were offered with a choice of 4.2 straight-six, or 5.2 and 6.0 V12s, and received a new, in-house made chassis, but the philosophy remained largely unchanged. The W152 remains to this day a vintage-themed sports car promising drama and performance. It’s sold well, and has a close-knit drivers’ club, but back in the nineties Ronart had ambitions of taking the business further and expanding from that niche group of enthusiasts.
To appease a wider audience, Ronart set about producing a car to take on TVR. The Lightning V8 was to be based around a familiar theme, including a spaceframe chassis and off-the-shelf mechanicals, this time from the Ford Mustang. But it built on that with a carbonfibre bodyshell and cabin luxuries such as heated and cooled Recaro leather seats, a satnav and reversing camera, as well as electric windows and mirrors, and an electric windscreen demister. That would have been a decent kit list in 2015. In 1999, when the car was revealed at the London motor show sporting a Marcos-like nose and buttresses at the rear, it was considered to be properly tech-laden.
That being said, the V8 engine was satisfyingly traditional, having been sourced from the brutal Mustang SVT Cobra. It was loud and powerful with 320hp as standard or 500hp from a supercharged version, and came matched to a chassis said to mix grand touring character with sports car abilities. Mind you, not many people ever got to find out, because while 24 orders were said to have been placed at the car’s unveiling, no more than seven are said to have been produced (some say only six were made). The Lightning V8’s run was short lived, although it did form the basis for the Lightning GT, an electric grand tourer that was developed by the Lightning Car Company and revealed at the 2008 British International motor show. It fell out of the limelight after that, but the 495hp two-seater is now said to be closing in on production thanks to a new technical partnership.
Until then, however, those wanting a piece of this unique British story will need to climb aboard either a W152 or Lightning V8. Conveniently, one of the six/seven V8s is on sale on PH, and it has a very respectable 43,000 miles on the clock. Given how tiny the run was, all cars are unquestionably special, but maybe there’s something in the fact that this is build number five, so it's from 2003, the V8’s final year of production. Perhaps that’s also helped to justify the £90,000 asking price, an amount that we suspect many would feel safer spending on a new 992 Carrera S. But for the evidently still large group of people after something interesting from the world of small-scale British production, Ronart’s short-lived grand tourer looks to have plenty to offer.
RONART LIGHTNING V8 | SPECIFICATION
Engine: 4,600cc, V8
Transmission: 5-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 320@6,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 317@4,750rpm
MPG: Next please
CO2: As above
Recorded mileage: 43,000
Year registered: 2003
Price new: N/A
Yours for: £90,000
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