Clan Cars & Delivery Services

["Tim Hancock" <timhancock@domain.elided>]

In reply to Joe Elliot

Clan Crusader came first, designed by ex Lotus guy called Paul Hassauer. It is
REAR engined as on the Hillman Imp unit the gearbox is in front of the engine.
The engine was not transverse so it truly hung out behind the rear axle line.
A strike at Chrysler caused the engine supply to dry up. I always loved the
Crusader and it made an excellent rally car as well as having cheeky looks. A
friend built one from an uncoloured fibreglass monocoque, and it was weird
looking at a car that was almost see-through in places!! These bodyshells were
available after Clan Cars had folded. The rest you had to sort out
yourself......

Clan Clover was a derivative of Crusader and used the Alfa 33 engine and box
at the back. I never saw one in the flesh and Keith Walker knows much more
than me

There was a third less well known derivative whose name I have forgotten, but
it used the basic body shell design of the Crusader but with a Mini engine and
transmission at the FRONT, obviously with FWD (and I do not mean Midas either
who made another range of brilliant kit cars before a factory fire put them
out of business. The boss of Midas, Harold Dermott eventually went to Mclaren
and worked on the F1 project).

Now to Mike Sweigert.... My first  holiday job after getting my driving
licence at age 17 was to polish brand new Renaults before delivery at
Crossways Motor Co, Renault distributor for the North of England, serve on the
petrol pumps, and to drive customers home when they brought their cars for
service, and take the car back afterwards in the late afternoon. Our radius
was about 15 miles max. This was in 1971 so there is nothing new under the sun
really. Mercedes dealers will collect your car from your house, and so will
Daewoo, but I'm not sure about others in the UK. Some do and some don't but
you sure pay for it in the service costs of a Merc as my father will testify.

Alfa are trying hard with service attitudes and are certainly sacking dealers
here rightly or wrongly,but there was yet another letter in the Saturday
Telegraph from someone seeking a test drive, and allegedly being told by the
salesman that as he could sell all the 156s and 147s he was getting, a test
drive was out of the question....Ouch!

Tim Hancock   164TS Lusso   Boston UK
(With thoughts for all our friends in The USA this awful week)

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