Homebuilt Ford 10 & Austin 7 Specials

Background to Terrapin and other home-built sportscars

Roy Campbell dropped me a note in December 2005 having found my page on Ford 10hp based sportscars, with some info on the specials that he built in the 1950s and 1960s, using both Austin 7 and Ford 10 sidevalve parts....here is his story.....

"Nice website!

I made several specials myself from the mid-fifties to early -sixties, starting with Austin Seven chassis through to 'design and build'.

The first serious one was A7 based but with a Ford 8 engine and A7 four speed gearbox. Ford 10 twin SU engine fitted later with the A7 gearbox fitted with a close ratio conversion raising 3rd gear from 1.66:1 to around 1.3 and similar improvements in the lower ratios. This had a Falcon Stilletto bodyshell.

Front suspension was IFS with the leaf spring at first, but later fitted coils. Also hydraulic brakes.

Sold it to a rich London lad to finance the next one with my own twin tube chassis design - narrow parallel at the front to take the engine and the front suspension bits then outswept to the full width at the cockpit to the rear. Body was fibreglass, name forgotten, but began with a T, most likely Tornado or Talisman. I also discovered girls at about this time - this took its toll on building motor cars! The extended build times resulting from this were cut short by my call-up papers, so I sold the part finished car and went off to Malaya. Still kept my Austin Seven 2-seater tourer, though, for everyday transport. In Malaya I ran a 10-year old Austin Sixteen which cost me less to buy than a bog standard Austin Seven would in the UK. Rip-off Britain at work again.

Came home at the end of 1960. Wow, Britain wasn't ripping us motorists off any more - bought a two year old A35 for £220 and you coudn't give Austin Sevens away!

Found my 17 year old baby brother tearing down an Austin Seven 'to build a sports car'. I was a managment trainee at Tube Investment by then, so bought 100 ft of 1.25 inch square section tubing at scrap prices and designed and built a simplified version of the Lotus 6 - much better than a Seven Special. That was fitted with a Ford Eight and then a Ford Ten (again with A7 close ratio gearbox) before, in its ultimate form, a race tuned 1.3 litre supercharged BMC A-Series. This gave 129bhp at the rear wheels and weighed in at under 7cwt. Forty five years ago nothing could touch it on the road. Not even the Chief Constable of Worcestershire's tuned Jaguar 3.8 who only managed to collar him at a set of traffic lights. Little bro' hadn't even seen him! He learned from this only to use full performance on the track after that episode.

He went the way of all flesh - met a girl, needed deposit on house - sold the Terrapin to a member of the Mamod model steam engine family to put down the deposit on a house. Thus are the mighty fallen.

The Terrapin seems to have disappeared from mortal ken - now that even he has retired, he has been unable to trace it - no record at Swansea and Mamod has changed hands. However it was too solidly built to have rotted away or disintegrated, so somewhere, out there, it is waiting to be rediscovered ...... perhaps one day! Attached is a mid-'60's photograph, probably taken at Curborough.

Regards

Roy Campbell."

Does anyone know where Terrapin is now?? please get in touch via the Contact page and I'll pass the details on to Roy, thanks!

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