A bit more info ...an American was researching the history of the Cobra that Presley drove in the film 'Speedway' from which this still was taken. The Mistral stood in for this shot:
'The body design, penned by Bill Ashton, started out as a product of Microplas, a company formed to build fiberglass bodies for Austin Sevens in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. The Mistral was Microplas’s second body design, released in 1955 and intended for the Ford Ten. At various points in time, Buckler, Fairthorpe and TVR all used the Mistral body on their chassis, as did Bob Blackburn down in Christchurch, New Zealand, who intended to go into full production with a Graeme Dennison-designed chassis, but couldn’t source enough Ford Prefect parts and so sold the body and chassis as a kit.
In 1956, Californian Bud Goodwin licensed the body from Microplas and sold it in the United States through his company Sports Car Engineering. (Geoff believes there may have been an East Coast company that licensed the body design as well.) Goodwin, who later went on to start Fiberfab, only sold the Mistral for a couple of years before selling Sports Car Engineering to a company called Du Crest Fiberglass.
Who mounted a Mistral body to an Austin-Healey chassis and raced it in the early 1960's so far remains a mystery.
The stunt double car – not the hero car – is on display at the Hollywood Casino in Tunica, Mississippi'
The above info from 'Hemmings Daily' blog.
(Beginning to appreciate that the Watford/Rickmansworth/Chalfont area was something of a mecca for fibre glass cars builders in the 50's and 60's..)
|