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The story behind...

30 | September 2014 Issue 92 CKC

If at first you don’t succeed, quit: there’slittle point in prolonging theinevitable. Bernard Cox, the man whoinstigated the GTM, heeded these

words and swiftly vacated the scene. It wasleft to others to capitalise on the GrandTouring Mini’s huge potential. And few kitcars ever deserved a shot at the big timemore than this shapely, mid-engined

machine. It’s just that successwas a long time in coming.

Cox, a garage proprietorfrom Cheshire, raced cars atnational level during the1950s and had longharboured a desire toproduce a sports carbearing his surname. Bythe mid ’60s, his businessempire had grown to thepoint that he had themeans to realise hisambition. He then ropedin former track rival JackHosker to transform hisvague notion of somethingequivalent to a scaled-down Ferrari 250LMinto a three-dimensional reality. Hosker,who managed one of Cox’s garages in HazelGrove, Manchester, was left to his owndevices and in 1966 he single-handedlycreated a prototype. There was, however,one slight problem-ette: Hosker wasn’t acar designer... or an engineer.

Nonetheless, the prototype GTM wasnothing if not ambitious. It comprised asheet steel semi-monocoque chassiscomplete with a deep box-section backbone.Running gear was robbed from the Mini,including the A-series ‘four’ which wasmounted amidships, the subframes, thesteering and the braking set-up. Theprototype’s aluminium body was completedin late 1966 from which a mould was made:production cars would feature glassfibre’shells. It was then displayed at the January1967 Racing Car Show where it garnered apositive reaction from the press and publicalike. With a launch price of £330, it was amite pricey, but Cox wasn’t aiming at thecheap and cheerful end of the market. Hewanted the GTM to have an aspirationalimage despite it being sold in kit form. Assuch, bodyshells were bolted and bonded tothe chassis and were delivered with thedoors pre-hung. The subframes were also

Below: Original Cox GTM

prototype fabricated in

aluminium. Note twin

wipers. Panel fit and

productionisation needed

work, but the car proved

popular.

Success was a long time coming for the Mini-based GTM, and involved several

faultering starts. Richard Heseltine recounts the story.

www.completekitcar. co. uk

GTM

Early Cox advert usingpics of the prototype.

Cooling in the back inthis Heerey chassis.

The story behind...

GTM

CKC September 2014 Issue 92 | 31

fitted, as was the specially-made laminatedwindscreen. Deposits soon began piling upso Cox engaged subcontractors tomanufacture the chassis/bodies in an effortto meet demand.

And it’s at this juncture that Cox’sscheme began to unravel. Hosker was amaster of improvisation and hadn’tnecessarily given much thought to DIY carbuilders: the prototype was very much a‘special’ with all the issues that entails. Itwasn’t even symmetrical. Worse still, there

were no proper chassis jigs, this being verymuch of the chalk-outlines-on-the-floorschool of engineering. Distortion wascommonplace thanks in part to the spreadof heat during gas welding. The glassfibrebodyshells similarly suffered fromshrinkage which made the process ofmating the bodies to the tubs all butimpossible in some instances. Not onlythat, the slightest flex of the bodyshell wasenough to crack the bespoke windscreen.The initial batch had been made fractionallyoversized…

While early adopters were learning the

enormity of their tasks, Cars & CarConversions heaped praise on the 1293ccCooper S-engined demonstrator. Itrecorded a highly impressive 0-60mph timeof 6.4sec and theorised a top speed of

Above: Heerey at Outlon

Park in ’68.

Below: Hot Car magazine

testing an early Heerey car

in 1970. Below left:With no pictures of the

new GTM 1-3, Heerey

tried another tack!

Right: When it was

released the new GTM

1-3 was much improved

from earlier cars.

BUILD • DRIVE • ENJOY

Howard Heerey driving the originalprototype at Silverstone in 1967.

GTM’s competed with varyingsuccess for many years.

Early car in a Modsports race in the late ’70s

The story • ehind???

32 | September 2014 Issue 92 CKC www.completekitcar. co. uk

115mph which was heady stuff for 1967. Itended its report by saying: ‘… this littlebomb makes a pretty desirable road car’.Nonetheless, Cox was already disillusionedwith the project, the romanticism ofmaking cars and the reality of what’sinvolved proving somewhat incompatible.He shut up shop in late ’68 and turned hisattention to boats. Kit production hadbarely reached 50 units, and it’s highlylikely that many of these cars remained

unfinished.The GTM

story would likelyhave ended thereand then but fortwenty-somethingracing driverHoward Heerey.The Clubmanschampion andFormula Threeregular was familiarwith the product,largely due to thefamily’s Ford agency– Midland Garage –being located just 100 yards away fromCox’s establishment in Hazel Grove. Heereyhad raced a lightweight GTM with somesuccess in 1968 and reasoned that therewas still plenty of mileage in the concept.

So much so, he acquired the project rightsalong with a few unsold kits and set aboutrefining the product.

Heerey was nothing if not thorough.Manufacture was brought in-house: newchassis jigs were made while the mouldswere either modified or replaced.Development tweaks were extensive butsubtle, with particular emphasis being

Below: New owers Paddy

Fitch, Peter Beck and

Dougal Cowper outside

their new facility in

Nottingham. Left: Neither

car here represented what

GTM would actually offer,

these being an earlier

body/chassis kit and

modified Heerey car.

Above and right: Heerey

was nothing if not

ambitious. These two

sketches both trial new

styling. Sketch on right

designed to use standard

GTM doors, chassis and

screen. Image above is of a

wider design intended for

three abreast seating.

Right: Cars and Car

Conversions magazine

famously built and

campaigned a GTM in 1969.

GTM 1-3 rear end was set to change...

...New owners introduced a bumper, along witha raft of other updates.

GTM

CKC September 2014 Issue 92 | 33BUILD • DRIVE • ENJOY

placed on making the car easier to producein series – as opposed to what had, in effect,been a series of one-offs during Cox’stenure. Fortunately, interest in the GTMremained constant and productionrecommenced in 1970. The ‘Cox’ part of thenomenclature had by now been dropped,and the GTM received an additionalpromotional boost after Cars & CarConversions built a Group 6-spec racingversion which was campaigned by RichardHudson-Evans in the UK and also in thatyear’s Nü rburgring 500km race.

By the summer of that year, Heereybegan offering the GTM in two kitpackages: Kit A cost £350 and comprisedthe basic body/chassis. Kit B, at £450, ranto a painted ’shell and fully trimmed (allthings being relative) interior. By early1971, he had managed to shift around 97kits and followed through by introducingthe GTM 1-3 (Model 1, Variation 3). Thenew strain was marginally wider and lowerthan before, the most obvious physicalchanges being a new grille, blended-in Minifront bumper and Triumph Dolomite taillights. Ducts beneath the car helpeddissipate engine bay heat, while a NACA

duct sunk into thebonnet funnelled coolair into the cockpit, ifonly in theory.Particular effort hadalso been invested indialling out bumpsteerand other handlingmaladies that hadblighted the previousiteration. What’s more,with the likes of theUnipower GT nowconsigned to history, ithad no obvious rival. As the

brochure trumpeted: ‘[The 1-3 is] mid-

Above and top right:GTM Engineering soon

moved to new premises in

Sutton Bonington. Beck and

Fitch now in sole control.

Above right: Production

of the GTM Coupé now in

full swing. Left: Coupé

compared to Fiat X1/9 in

1986 issue of Component

Car magazine.

engined like a Lamborghini, good-lookinglike a Ferrari, beautifully engineered fromthe best materials, roomy, fast, economicand, in fact, a proper GT car’. This wasperhaps a mite fanciful but before longHeerey was employing a 15-strong staff andproducing as many as eight kits per month.A further 81 GTM 1-3 kits left the factory.

Even so, he had bigger fish to fry. Theyoung motor mogul envisaged a move awayfrom the kit car industry and intomanufacturing turnkey production cars. Asister firm, Howard Heerey EngineeringLtd, was established in 1971 with a view tocreating new models that would be sold asfully Type Approved products via a dealernetwork. Former Standard-Triumph MDAlex Dick came on-board as a director, andHeerey even went so far as to tap stylinggreat Giorgetto Giugiaro to shape this bravenew world. That said, it remainsunrecorded if ‘Il Maestro’ ever produced so

Below: Optional new front

bumper treatment on the

Coupé never proved popular.

The story • ehind???

34 | September 2014 Issue 92 CKC www.completekitcar. co. uk

much as a preliminary sketch.Unfortunately, the road ahead was

littered with potholes. The family Forddealership was hit with a compulsorypurchase order thanks to a nearby road-building development. As such, the need tofind new premises became somewhatpressing and this served to distract Heerey.Plans to manufacture GTMs from a20,000sq ft former mill in Manchester wentup in smoke, as did his bid to make the leapto the mainstream with a raft of newmodels. A scheme to manufacture the 1-3in Finland via a licensing agreement was

Top: Trade and Industry

Minister, Kenneth Clarke,

presents GTM Engineering

with an Outstanding

Innovation to Industry

award in 1987 following

the launch of the all new

Rossa (above). Above:Rossa revealed for the very

first time.

Below: Mk2 version of

Rossa eventually led to

K-series based K3 in 1995.

also nixed. Once the primary Forddealership was relocated, Heereyabandoned his dreams and 1-3 productionrights passed to Helgass-Fiber of Hartlepoolin June 1972 but it failed to make a singlecar over the next four years. Nor, for thatmatter, did GTM’s subsequent keeper, KMBAutosports, which owned the rights from1976 to 1980.

The latter concern did, at the very least,go so far as to offer spares. One of itscustomers was Peter Beck, who hadacquired a Heerey-era GTM only to have anoff-road excursion during its maidenouting. On contacting KMB in need ofparts, he learned that the production rightsmight be up for sale should the right buyermaterialise. An intrigued Beck, who wasthen working for an electronics firm inNottingham, decided to abandon secureemployment for the vagaries of kit carmanufacture and managed to persuadefriend and colleague Paddy Fitch intojoining him. The duo acquired the rights

and re-launched the GTM marque in 1980(a third partner, Dougal Cowper was brieflyinvolved), and operated out of a tiny 1000sqft facility in the centre of Nottingham.

By the end of the year, they hadmanaged to shift 16 kits. And, havingmanaged to keep their heads above waterduring the first 12 months, they set aboutcreating new moulds and revising thestyling. The redubbed GTM Coupé arrivedin 1981, the big change being the switchfrom 10in to 12in and ultimately 13inwheels (with corresponding wheelarchextensions), a new rear bumper, improveddoor hinges and the adoption of Marinalocks and catches. Side glazing was nowmanufactured in glass rather thanPerspex, while a larger, front-mountedAllegro radiator finally cured the car’soverheating problems.

Scroll forward to midway through 1982and the partners relocated to much largerpremises in Sutton Bonnington,Leicestershire, where production soon ran to50 kits per year. The move heralded a new

Paddy Fitch with new Rossa and Coupé behind.

GTM

CKC September 2014 Issue 92 | 35BUILD • DRIVE • ENJOY

era for the GTM marque which finallystretched to new standalone models such asthe Metro-based Rossa in 1986 which in turnled to the K-series-engined K3 and in timethe highly accomplished Libra, all of whichflowed from the pen of prolific stylistRichard Oakes. The Coupé gradually fadedaway after plans to offer turn-key form viaBelgian enthusiast Benny Massy came tonaught. By the early ’90s, the model had

taken a backseat as GTM Engineeringacquired rival kit car brands NG and Midas.In 1995, rights to the Coupé passed to PeterLeslie whose Primo Designs continued tooffer the model for several years, althoughwhether it actually sold any kits is anothermatter entirely. Around 800 cars were madein all their many flavours: not a bad tally fora car which cheated death time and timeagain. CKC

All new GTM Libra, and its Spyder stablemate, were the last trueGTMs and yet another co-development with designer Richard Oakes.

Early Cox and Heerey cars are now very rare. Later GTMCoupé s getting harder to find, but all are sought after.

Peter and Paddy with the new Libra, of which they were rightly proud.