GSM Delta?

I helped Pete Johnson pick up a couple of cars today, so this morning at South Yorkshire Triumphs there were a few more rare cars. GSM Delta. Not a name known to many I would guess, (I had to google it when Pete told us about them earlier in the week) but today 2 travelled 400 yards from a residential garage to Pete's workshop.

So what are they? A fibreglass vehicle produced in South Africa and West Malling Kent, in the late 50s early 60s. With a tubular ladder chassis and Ford pre crossflow engines, they were around 500kg with a bhp/tonne ratio of well over 100.

This example would appear to have always been a roadcar, certainly very different and not unattractive, I like it anyway.



Shades of 50s corvette in the dashboard design

Stylish door card for a very limited production run.

Ford engine looks fairly normal, transverse leaf front suspension is more unusual and look how far behind the axle line the engine is mounted.

The second car has racing history which is gradually being researhed, it certainly raced at Goodwood back in the day. It does need some work now though.

When we picked up the race version there was a hardtop that wouldn't fit in the Vectra estate, so I carried it back. It rests on the roadcar to see how it looks.

In the picture above you can just see the front wheel of Pete's mk1 pi estate and in the workshop is the shell of the 'barn find' laurel green mk1 pi we had on the Register stand at Stoneleigh last year, lots of new panels and bare metalling has got it to this stage. As I said lots of rare cars at Rawcliffe at the moment.

Last but not least a Stag, not that rare but just being fitted up after a paint job, this one has never been welded, has all it's original panels and exhibits all the spot welds on the lips of the arches that it left the assembly line with. An RV8 with Weber 500 and manifold and Monarch headers make this a powerful and very smooth driver. It also has USA high back mk1 seats.