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Quite a delicate shape. The cockpit is quite, er compact!
The cockpit is untrimmed on my shell, so yes it looks a little "compact".
You can see on this body how it has been trimmed and a return added to the edge.
There seems to be enough room for "The King" in these pictures
Pop chassis being delivered tomorrow Nick, complete with original plywood floor panels, lovely old seats, and 1 and a 1/4" copper exhaust pipe (I kid you not!)
A bit more info ...an American was researching the history of the Cobra that Presley drove in the film 'Speedway' from which this still was taken. The Mistral stood in for this shot:
'The body design, penned by Bill Ashton, started out as a product of Microplas, a company formed to build fiberglass bodies for Austin Sevens in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. The Mistral was Microplas’s second body design, released in 1955 and intended for the Ford Ten. At various points in time, Buckler, Fairthorpe and TVR all used the Mistral body on their chassis, as did Bob Blackburn down in Christchurch, New Zealand, who intended to go into full production with a Graeme Dennison-designed chassis, but couldn’t source enough Ford Prefect parts and so sold the body and chassis as a kit.
In 1956, Californian Bud Goodwin licensed the body from Microplas and sold it in the United States through his company Sports Car Engineering. (Geoff believes there may have been an East Coast company that licensed the body design as well.) Goodwin, who later went on to start Fiberfab, only sold the Mistral for a couple of years before selling Sports Car Engineering to a company called Du Crest Fiberglass.
Who mounted a Mistral body to an Austin-Healey chassis and raced it in the early 1960's so far remains a mystery.
The stunt double car – not the hero car – is on display at the Hollywood Casino in Tunica, Mississippi'
The above info from 'Hemmings Daily' blog.
(Beginning to appreciate that the Watford/Rickmansworth/Chalfont area was something of a mecca for fibre glass cars builders in the 50's and 60's..)
A bit more info ...an American was researching the history of the Cobra that Presley drove in the film 'Speedway' from which this still was taken. The Mistral stood in for this shot:
'The body design, penned by Bill Ashton, started out as a product of Microplas, a company formed to build fiberglass bodies for Austin Sevens in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. The Mistral was Microplas’s second body design, released in 1955 and intended for the Ford Ten. At various points in time, Buckler, Fairthorpe and TVR all used the Mistral body on their chassis, as did Bob Blackburn down in Christchurch, New Zealand, who intended to go into full production with a Graeme Dennison-designed chassis, but couldn’t source enough Ford Prefect parts and so sold the body and chassis as a kit.
In 1956, Californian Bud Goodwin licensed the body from Microplas and sold it in the United States through his company Sports Car Engineering. (Geoff believes there may have been an East Coast company that licensed the body design as well.) Goodwin, who later went on to start Fiberfab, only sold the Mistral for a couple of years before selling Sports Car Engineering to a company called Du Crest Fiberglass.
Who mounted a Mistral body to an Austin-Healey chassis and raced it in the early 1960's so far remains a mystery.
The stunt double car – not the hero car – is on display at the Hollywood Casino in Tunica, Mississippi'
The above info from 'Hemmings Daily' blog.
(Beginning to appreciate that the Watford/Rickmansworth/Chalfont area was something of a mecca for fibre glass cars builders in the 50's and 60's..)
Thank you for that potted history Nike.
Pop chassis was delivered today, so we chucked the Mistral body on to check width, not one of our best car builds!
I agree, thats a great looking thing, with real jump in and go appeal, especially with TVR underpinnings (whatever they are, must be good)!
Nice big doors......
why the whole lot again for sale at ebay? item 190788826546
Now that I have been very kindly offered the use of a set of Mistral moulds by "Electron" (see post at top of page), I don't need to create any moulds from the shell I have, so the logical thing to do is sell it.....simple
out:
