The cottage motor car industry in Great Britain interests me, because they tend to fall between a shadetree mechanic who is tinkering with a new idea and a full-fledged manufacturer cranking out cars en masse. Little one-off models that might number a dozen or so before, eventually, finances got to be an issue or a lack of supplies caused everything to come to a halt were just fine, and to be quite fair about it, fit the feeling I got when I visited that section of the world a few years ago.
Piper Cars existed from 1967 until sometime in the mid-1970s and might have cranked out about a hundred cars in that time frame over a spread of four models: the GT, GTT, GTR, and P2. The entire company was a handful of people doing the best they could with what they had: Triumph Herald front suspensions, Ford rear suspensions, engines and transmissions, and body shapes that give off a kind of Lotus vibe.
Why did Piper fold up? A combination of little cash to work with and the untimely death of company owner Brian Sherwood in 1969 were factors. Two of the workers stepped up to attempt to carry the company, and one of them, Bill Atkinson, is the feature in this Petrolicious film. Atkinson was Piper’s quality control man, and the P2 was an enhancement on prior Piper designs. He genuinely wanted to bring the little sports cars up in the world, but no working capital meant that the company was soon done, and the workers had moved on to other things. But Piper Cars will always be a part of Atkinson, and his story, shown by Petrolicious in their trademark style, will explain how all of these years later he still has a 1972 Piper in his garage.
Surely someone could use the original plans to create an modern P2 using composite body parts, full IRS and an Ecotech motor. Nostalgia is big business in the UK at the moment with a guy called David Brown offering up-dated Minis that cost up to £100.000! This would truly put the Piper name on the map and cars would sell even priced at above £50,000. So all it needs is some enlightened financial backers (who have each been given a ride in this beauty) to cough up the cash and we would all be happy here at BangShift!
CHMG…if you invest your hard earned “pub £”…make certain they include opening windows. A roof hatch just doesn’t make it.
Totally agree with you there – a re-designed shell with proper opening windows would in fact be a step up. It’s not my pounds that would go into this but its more of an attempt to hopefully interest somebody with serious money into taking up this idea.