History
Martin and Robin had just attended the first ever kit car show in the UK. It was being run by the Marcos Owners Club at Donnington who offered an open invitation to all glass fibre bodied cars. Robin went along with his older brother Martin who at the time was inexplicably an owner of a Fairethorpe Atom/Electron 'thingy'. Hundreds of cars of all denominations turned up and several specialist magazines were spawned as a result. The popularity of this show surprised the brothers, the organisers as well as the public and highlighted the demand for unusual, fun sports cars.
This was in the early eighties and Martin and Robin began thinking out loud. The Triumph Spitfire/MG Midget/MGB Roadster had all been out of production for quite a while so there were no open topped British sports cars available brand new. Except, of course for the Aston Martin V8 Volante which was a little bit out of the reach of your average man in the street. The only other affordable sports car that came to their minds was the Fiat X1/9, which was really a targa at the end of the day. It was to be a few years to come before VW/Peugeot/Ford began lopping the roofs off luke-warm family hatchbacks.
So, after a few pints and the vision of a packed Kit Car show thronging with a sports car hungry public with bulging wallets the boys came to the decision. Both of them were at loose ends, Robin having been made redundant and Martin just having sold his motorcycle courier company. Apparently a girlfriend's father owned Stonor Farm near Henley on Thames with several empty barns. It all seemed ordained to happen, as if by a higher force.
The only barn with an electricity supply was rented, cleaned out and turned into a rudimentary industrial unit with painted walls, power points and strip lighting. It also had a very good canteen in the form of the Stonor Arms public house a half mile away.
As with all great ideas of our time it happened in a pub....
With Robin's experience of Triumph Herald/Spitfire/GT6's it was decided to use the Spit/GT6 as a basis for their car. With the Triumph being a separate chassis design they could utilise all of Triumph's hard work and design a glass fibre body replacement (that didn't rust as soon as you looked at it). The brothers had previous experience of the material as in their youth as they had built several GRP canoes. It was almost impossible, if not uneconomic at the time to obtain and fit original steel body panels - so the decision was final. From the outset they decided that all of the Triumph fittings and fixtures should be used to save on cost, ease of parts availability and development expenses. The first car was bought - a rusty old Spitfire that cost them all of £80. The wheels it rolled on were super-slots which were recycled and appear in some of the early publicity shots. The car was immediately set upon, with all of the exterior panel work removed. They kept the important parts intact such as A-pillars, door slam panels. cockpit surround, bulkheads and inner arches. After this they built a plywood egg-box construction to form the general outline of the exterior bodywork and (using instructions from aging library books) filled the gaps with Plaster of Paris. After shaving off material and adding it here and there by hand they finally had sculpted the shape they wanted. Unfortunately the aging books were well out of date and as the plaster dried out it shrunk and sagged causing ripples in the mould buck between the plywood ribs. After a lot more hard work they finally had the buck in a condition they were happy with. They also discovered surf board foam (too late) which is what was used on subsequent moulds such as the boot lid and other components and is a lot more easier to work with than wood and plaster. The shape of the Vincent Hurricane had been born, with all of the necessary moulds taken from this plaster buck. The moulds for the interior was taken straight from the Triumph's original steelwork. This left the brothers with over two tonnes of plaster-caked Spitfire to get rid of so out came the sledge hammers and pick-axes...
The first prototype Hurricane ...
The first Hurricane - 'Old No.1' - to be built by the brothers was for their mother, who had a Spitfire infected with tin worm, and differs in detail from later shells that were built. The interior, taken straight from the Triumph was a little too complicated and difficult to recreate in GRP so it was simplified. It also had the boot lid fitted at a later date, there was no hole for one when it came out of the mould! Although the first Hurricane, commission No. 82H1001 was ordered in July 1982, followed by 82H1002 in August and 82H1003 in October, due to the fact that the body moulds were still incomplete at this time, the first body was not delivered until December 1982. The first completed Hurricane (82H1003) was assembled by the third Vincent brother, Jerry who helped iron out some first time bugs in the design. It was MOT'd and taxed in January 1983, this car is registered MFC 837G. Unfortunately it suffered fire damage later on in its life and was rebuilt again by Jerry for his brother-in-law. It's last known incarnation happened when it was sold on and the tuned 1300 engine was swapped for a six cylinder engine.
The Vincent brothers also created a replica of the Riley MPH which was sold onto Dwornik Engineering, there are a few examples around. More info is available from : www.dwornikengineering.co.uk.
The buck takes form in the barn at Stonor....
