1993 Litton Corse I - Strato's Replica

[Darkspeed]

Just before the Xmas holiday I bought myself this magazine. Not much of an article in it on the Lancia Stratos on the cover, as it's a piece about body and spray shops and paint rather than the actual cars which had previously been covered pretty comprehensively.

2018 Edit - if you arrive here and decide to have a full read of this thread - when you start to get photobucket photo links that appera broken just refresh the page via your browser - that little arrow circle thing up top and they should appear. Thanks for looking.




I bought it because the car in question is this one.



Which I discovered on this pistonheads thread - 880927 page 10

That gets the first post sorted and the story started.

[omega]

link dosnt work for me

[Darkspeed]

Or for me - I cannot get a link to work to direct to it - But trying.

And giving up as no matter what I do it links to some such nonsense - thread 880297 page 10 - links above removed until I figure why Piston heads links are messing about.

[MiataMark]

try this, link   should go straight to page 10 of the piston heads thread

[omega]

Jan 3, 2016 12:34:32 GMT MiataMark said:

try this, link   should go straight to page 10 of the piston heads thread

no sorry
dosnt work for me same as before maybe its piston heads

[alecf]

Jan 3, 2016 12:34:32 GMT MiataMark said:

try this, link   should go straight to page 10 of the piston heads thread

Nope. Takes me to a dodgey site

[MiataMark]

Jan 3, 2016 12:43:55 GMT alecf said:

Jan 3, 2016 12:34:32 GMT MiataMark said:

try this, link   should go straight to page 10 of the piston heads thread

Nope. Takes me to a dodgey site

That's weird it was a direct copy and past from the browser, I even tried it in the post preview and have tried it now and it works OK.

[guz]

ditto, bad link for me too

[Darkspeed]

Many thanks - for the link. - ETA it worked for me once and now does what it did when I posted the link ! most odd - anyway the info on the thread is there for those to find with any interest in this.

Q. Is that the actual car on the magazine cover ?
A. Yes you can see that the wing mirror matches

So how does a Lancia Strato's replica get from being a Cover Girl to a - well a - eerr - less than a cover girl and best leave it at that.

Short version of a not very long story is that I built a Fisher Fury with a mate of mine and when completed we had a conversation about what we would build next. Came down to two cars - Strato's and a D Type, I figured the Fury was 60's style and we had done that so went looking for a Strato's project and found this. Tracked the owner down and a while later he agreed to sell - price agreed - and car was mine. My mate thought I was bonkers and decided that the best option for him was to buy me out of the Fury thereby providing the funds to feed my utter madness in taking on this.... less than a cover girl.

After a bit of research the car - known as SiD - Stormtrooper in Drag - was found to be a Litton Corse i Strato's replica - The cars had a fully MSA motorsport compliant chassis and on the i version independent rear suspension, this is fully adjustable to allow for geometry changes. Early on the car attended a few shows and really was not a car you would miss.








Image above you can just make out the Stormtrooper script.


These cars were available with a choice of powerplants - 4 in-line Lancia, 6 in-vee Honda, Alfa and Ferrari and 8 in-vee Ferrari and this was one is using the 2.7L V6 from the Rover 827 / Honda Legend C27A engine.

Like many kit car manufacturers Litton cars was born of Allora which was later CAE and then Napiersport and then some. To add to the mystery this car was not 100% Litton as after placing his order and taking delivery of the chassis Litton went pop before the builder could get his hands on the body. As these were not cheap cars I can imagine that quite a lot of unhappiness was expressed. Thankfully there was/is more than one Stratos replica manufacturer and our builder managed to purchase a full body from Hawk cars. Again, as anyone who has been involved with kit cars it was not straightforward as the two makes are not 100% interchangeable and some work on the chassis was required which will become apparent a little later in this thread.

Summary

Litton Corse i Chassis - Hawk HF3000 body - wide body Group 4 round arches body -lots of work, show paint job and front page billing on a mag. Fast Forward twenty years and it's looking a little worse for wear.

[accord83]

Wow this takes me back, I remember lying in bed and hearing Hugh Carson, (who turned Litton Corsa into CAE based in Grassington) spitting and popping through Upper Wharfedale on a night time test. A fantastic sound which always made me smile as I was a Cop up there and had a rough idea of how fast he was going...........

[ndg]

Try this link:
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=30&t=880927&mid=0&i=180&nmt=Hawk%20Stratos%20prices&mid=0

[MiataMark]

Jan 3, 2016 14:34:03 GMT ndg said:

Try this link:
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=30&t=880927&mid=0&i=180&nmt=Hawk%20Stratos%20prices&mid=0

nope still bad.

[Darkspeed]

The timeline for this is quite easy to follow from the Pistonheads thread and I have now had the car coming up two years in a few months. It's been slow progress as I am also one of the RR majority that ends up with more than one project on the go at once - the inevitable result being that nothing gets completed particularly quickly.

Having had its 15 minutes of fame



The inevitable decline set in with loss of looks and stature




Cosmetic surgery was clearly attempted to give a more up to date look - Firstly with some work around the eye's and more fashionable ( for the time) footwear
The result, as always, is with debate.

Such was that call of the surgeons knife that the habit really took hold and what clearly started as a attempt to keeping up with the fashions of the day turned into something more - drastic and ultimately life threatening.

[Darkspeed]

As the car was never built as the majority are, rally replica's depicting one of the successful rally team liveries of the period - be it the Alitia or the Pirelli, Chequered flag, Chardonnay, Olio Fiat etc. etc. the owner decided to take the car in a more distopian direction and vision for the car with - Linda Lusardi to Marilyn Manson.

Before we proceed another, a few shots of what once was.





]

[Darkspeed]

There are few sounds that really stir the blood of a true petrol head like that of a V6 with little silencing at full chat - A Matra V12 gives it a good run for its money though.

Jan 3, 2016 14:20:10 GMT accord83 said:

Wow this takes me back, I remember lying in bed and hearing Hugh Carson, (who turned Litton Corsa into CAE based in Grassington) spitting and popping through Upper Wharfedale on a night time test. A fantastic sound which always made me smile as I was a Cop up there and had a rough idea of how fast he was going...........

[DWDarkWheels]

Fantastic looking thing, the Stratos. The kit versions appealed to be greatly, but out of my usual kitcar budget.

I had that Which Kit? issue and the others following the build. This was the one Ian Stent (then editor) bought and completed?

[Darkspeed]

If I recall correctly Ian Stent built a Transformer Strato's HF2000 - either way it's not this one as its a two owner car - the Builder one Mr. Castle, and me. I had the mag as well at the time and I also have in the back of my mind that the paint job was the prize in a competition in the same magazine but I may be incorrect.

Jan 3, 2016 17:25:48 GMT DWDarkWheels said:

Fantastic looking thing, the Stratos. The kit versions appealed to be greatly, but out of my usual kitcar budget.

I had that Which Kit? issue and the others following the build. This was the one Ian Stent (then editor) bought and completed?

[Darkspeed]

So what was the vision for the next stage of Strato's development from 70's icon to Millenium superstar.








Whether it's your thing or not, I personally think that it's a pretty good bit of artwork and a creditable design which would have been fun to create. The reality is that life gets in the way of your aspirations on far to many occasions and the dream of creating the vehicle above was never to be. The car was never developed further than some creative carving of the Hawk body work and some trial fabrications before spending years being used, as many are, as a storage box for accumulating family detritus.

History lesson done - we may drop in and out of this as we progress - we can drop back to the story after finding the car on the above impossible to link to Pistonheads thread. After showing the P'heads picture to my mate which he quickly viewed the car as thus.



Which is another Litton Corse having succumbed to a very bad fever.

I on the other hand being in possession of the worlds rosiest spectacles saw



They were very rosey glasses as I did not want a red one.

[Darkspeed]

On the day of collection and digging the car out of the garage we got the final chapter of the story on how the reconstructive surgery was started but was actually never really started.

My mate James who I built the Fury with is standing in the background of this picture and it took about a year before his thoughts and expression changed from the " WTF are you thinking"



Oh and that's the good side - And that should satisfy the doubters that it's the same car as the magazine article.

The other side



And the side my mate was pondering.




So there she is now in my ownership - time to put a plan together.


Plan A - Repair the centre tub and buy some new panels. Second hand panels and parts do come up from time to time but all of the various types are subtly different and it would add to the work. Then again if I were afraid of a bit of work I would not have been strapping SiD onto my trailer. Hawk panels that would fit are very expensive and I would have to make a compromise in the vision for the car as the centre tub is a group 4 round arch and not a group 4 square arch as the red car above.

Plan B - Replace the whole lot - very very expensive.

Not being made of money I started down the route of trying to find panels whilst stripping the car down to see what foundation I had to build from.

[Darkspeed]

As I don't have any updates to marvel at in the Mystery Machine epic and pistonpopper is making me wait for the final 12th car in a year story I may as well continue at the keyboard for another hour or so.

The car stood about for quite a bit while I did work on other projects but during this period of mild inactivity I was continuing to try and source parts and get a final plan of action together.

Many thoughts circulated about changing from the Honda engine to Alfa or Jaguar, the odd mention of "I know the whereabouts of an NSX lump" but it all come down to cost and I figured that a change of powerplant can happen at another time. Engines and the like can be had pretty cheaply but it's exhausts, managements and the like which drive up the bills.

First job when I did get started was the simple tasks of cleaning and stripping the car of all the unnecessary external and internal parts.

The inside was as chaotic as the outside






A couple of before and different version pictures of the interior from various archives





And one for the dog in a car thread ! and yet another version of the dash by the looks of it



Changing the dash must have been an annual event for the car as it was only on the road for about 4 years - pretty sure I have seen thread on here somewhere with the same Alpine unit - Sweetpea - not with the car when I got it - I just had the holes to take home with me.