I'm someone who you would call a tomcat fanatic, I've consistently owned and worked on these cars since 2009 starting off with a Platinum Silver 216SE for a number of years, then eventually replacing this with what I would call the cream of the crop. A 220 Turbo Coupe that I took on as a project car and required a fairly extensive rebuild in order to see the road again. Back in 2020 I finally got the car finished to a very high standard making it one of the best out there.
As well as tinkering with these cars, I've always been interested in the history of the 220 from the land speed records set at Millbrook Test Track to the Rover Sport Dunlop championship series that took place in the early 90's. For the Dunlop Series, Rover produced around 35 Coupes which were all specifically built for racing therefore not your normal road going equivalent.
Here is a video on YouTube for anyone interested in seeing more race action from the time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWulXBqUIK8
In fact these cars were never given a VIN number/registration plate and so now these cars are pretty much all in personal ownership with various individuals out doing track days and club based championships, all in various states and condition, but every now and again these Ex-dunlop cars appear on the internet for sale and this is why you are reading this new thread
In November 2020, I was offered the opportunity to buy one of these ex-Dunlop racers from someone within the 'Coupe community' and it was something I couldn't turn down. The only problem today is that these cars are getting very old and with many miles of racing on them, they tend to be in very sketchy condition with a sketchy past and this one is no exception!
Before I show you some recent pictures of the race car in question, here is what it looked like in its heyday:
Originally a Dave Loudoun 1994/1995 Race winning car:
The car was then re-shelled for a new season, all mechanical parts refreshed and transferred onto a new shell and Steve Warburton was the driver in 1996 with the following livery:
The car then went through various colour changes throughout various championships over the next 5-6 years and later ended up looking like this:
On the same day this picture was taken, the car was involved in a crash, sustaining heavy damage to the rear ended forcing the car to retire
The car was repaired by a well known Richard Buckley in the tomcat racer scene in the mid 2000’s with a fresh paint job looking good to race again!
However, I’m not sure the car had much time (post surgery) on track as I don’t have much details around this time.
Around this era, the internet forums became a thing and this car reappeared looking slightly abandoned on a driveway in a rural wooded area for sale and was known as “The racer in the woods” looking neglected, and possibly for a good reason…
Although the car was repaired and rebuilt to a good standard it became known to the wider community this car had a cut and shut chassis. Basically front half was Roversport and the rear half was just a normal road car specification. I do have pictures somewhere showing this
The car changed hands again and again without any sighting on track, before popping up on Ebay now looking like this
I'm not sure if the person who purchased the car on Ebay knew its history, but made the decision to completely re-shell the car and start again, so they went out and brought a 218vvc rolling shell:
The 218vvc they purchased only happened to later be confirmed as a members old car - rjessett. Here is a picture of him in the car during its glory days!
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So with all of the above digested, it's now time to show you what Frankenstein looks like. This is basically now a road car fitted with Ex-dunlop 220 Coupe running gear.
Now the car is in my possession and Ive had a good look around it, I can honestly say that the re-shelled car is no better than the old cut and shut shell that was scrapped
The chassis is not race prep'd like the Roversport cars and its been bodged together in various areas which you might be able to see in the pictures above.
I'll be stripping the car right back to a bare shell and starting again with the aim of having the car look more like its original form.
been to see a few 216 GTi cup cars but like you said there wrecked and not many on original Shells so I'm just doing my own for the MG Cup
