Fairthorpe Special finds a new home

Fairthorpe Sports Car Club member Chris Jones is the new owner of the Fairthorpe Special that was auctioned on February 4th, he plans to recommission the car in the spring.
There is a story about it`s past which needs further looking into to provide proof, here are some pictures of the car taken i think back in the 70`s which show it with it`s Fairthorpe body still on, the car looks to be lowered at that point. I have included the information which was attached from the chap that owned it when they were taken, he thinks he sold it to Mike Hahn but i have been in contact and Mike does not remember owning that one ( he has had several over the years.) As you can see from what he has written it had at that point an aluminium body shell except for the bonnet, it is an early Mk1 shell with the curved top doors fitted with a fibreglass Mk2 bonnet, it also has different windscreen pillars to the cast ally ones on all other cars. 

I was told a story by an ex Fairthorpe dealer back in the late 80`s that he had purchased Noreen Bennetts EM ( 898 BPP ) in the early 60`s from the AVM when she had finished with it, the car had an aluminium body (which the EM moulds were made from ) but was fitted with a Mk2 EM f/g bonnet following a clash she had with a London bus. He bought the car with no paperwork / registration, the works keeping the paperwork etc, he then bought an EM from Exchange and Mart which had been on fire, the paperwork, chassis no and reg being put onto the ally car.

There is an EM that has the registration number of Noreen`s car which is known to the club.................but it has no alloy panels on it at all. I stress this was a story he told me and there is no physical proof especially now that the Fairthorpe body has gone and the car has a different ally body on it. There is also mention of the car in a couple of 2009 club magazines which indicate that at some point it may have had a climax engine in it? 

These two pictures taken of Noreen`s car when new and 64 TPK in the 1970`s seem to show a similar paint colour (allowing for the faded colour of the second picture), also the black trim behind the seats and identical screen pillar. I have never seen a Fairthorpe screen fixing the same as this on another car, check out that area on any of the other pictures on the blog and you will see what I mean.

I will be interested to look at the car at some point in the future to see if the chassis shows signs of being one of the early main rail type which could point to it being earlier than the chassis number suggests.