Whenever you and your spouse have agreed you want a brand new automobile large enough for the household and the pet canine and one week later you current her with a 54-year-old, two-seat British sports activities automobile, you’re both very courageous or very silly and doubtless each.
“As instructed by my spouse, I had been on the lookout for our subsequent household automobile after I was despatched a hyperlink to a Marcos GT 3-Litre marketed on Fb,” explains Mark Edwards.
“I informed her I used to be going to take a look at it merely out of curiosity, as a result of I’d not seen one earlier than, and the subsequent factor I’d put down a deposit on it and the next week went to the West Nation from our residence in London to select it up. After I arrived again in it, my spouse exclaimed: ‘It ’s solely received two seats!’ I needed to go and get a household automobile after that – an Audi Q5.”
‘GT’ was the title Marcos gave all of its automobiles previous to the Mantis of 1970. It was launched in 1964 with a picket chassis, a glassfibre physique and an engine from the Volvo P1800. Extra highly effective variations adopted, culminating within the 3-Litre of 1968.
By then, the picket chassis had been changed by one made from metal, however in any other case the mannequin remained a front-engined, rear-drive, two-seat coupé so low that the driving place approaches the horizontal.
With its giant headlights, thrusting bonnet and traditional profile, it’s simple to grasp why Mark’s household automobile purchasing journey went awry.
“I simply fell in love with it,” he says, virtually apologetically.
His GT was inbuilt 1969 and despatched to South Africa to drum up enterprise – which, sadly, it didn’t do. So again it got here, being registered in 1970. Solely 196 GT 3-Litres have been constructed, 130 of them for the UK.
When Mark purchased his automobile in 2019, its odometer was exhibiting 69,000 miles. Driving it away from its former residence, he determined it wanted main surgical procedure.
He says: “First, I handed the automobile over to a specialist to have the engine bored out to three.1 litres and given a stage-four makeover. That value £9000, however now it makes 180bhp and a great deal of torque. Subsequent, I had the four-speed Ford Sort 5 gearbox (the one which served in additional highly effective Ford Capris) and the fourth-gear selector fork rebuilt. That and having {the electrical} system refurbished got here to £5000. So sure, I’ve spent £14,000 on a automobile that value me £12,000 to purchase.”
