Litton Corse

[Normb666]

Well Andy, can I congratulate you on doing the biz with your car. (That's me being serious for once, by the way.) You're right in that your hypothetical £35K would be better being put toward an LB or Hawk, but if you've not got £50K+ and you really want a Stratos, your options are very limited... The advantage to Ste's car is that it's actually running and driving, so it's not simply a pile of bits. Personally I'd not bother with the Busso motor and tweak the twink it's already got, but that's a decision for the buyer (or Ste if he ends up keeping it).
Advantage of your car is it's already registered, but against that it's still a rebuild in progress.

But are Strat reps really "vastly inflated" or are you referring to old classics in general? If you want a turnkey Hawk or LB with a Busso V6 you'll be looking at over £80K. As a kit, I dunno, about £40K or more for the full skipload of parts, but then you have to build it, paint it, trim it, source a donor, blah blah blah. Face it, a good kit ain't cheap, and if yours was £23K back in the day, that too was a good chunk of loot. My Integrale was £25K new back in 1992...the Allora I did cost me £12 or 13K by the time it was finished in '89. As a running, registered car you could ask £35K for it now if it was still in decent nick. And Littons, CAEs and Napiersports will be about the same, IF they're in good condition and properly finished and presented.

So - ARE you selling yours too, or just toying with the idea from your jail cell after using an A40 starting handle to beat the cr*p out of the thickos who can't string a sentence together?

[john]

The Litton Corse S ( like Steves) can make a nice car with diligent effort, and some expense of course.
I know the ballpark figure thst this car sold for some years ago. And I know very well what it cost to do and how long it took.
There's a profit to be made in Steve's car even at £20k.

[ProtoTipo]

The Litton Corse S ( like Steves) can make a nice car with diligent effort, and some expense of course.
I know the ballpark figure thst this car sold for some years ago. And I know very well what it cost to do and how long it took.
There's a profit to be made in Steve's car even at £20k.

I agree with what John is saying above, (but he knows better than me).

'Just in case anyone missed John's point. The Alitalia car in his photo is identical to the Stratos kit that is/was for sale at the start of this thread (Litton Corse S, - 'S' for strut rear suspension).
On a Corse 'S' It's easier to fit the deep dish coffin spoke wheels (in this case LB coffin spokes) on the rear.
One example of how an obsolete kit can still benefit from existing kit parts. A 'development', if you like?

[john]

Thanks Chris.
Yes, exactly, there were a few nice parts from Craig on the car.
Grp 4 arches, wheels, roof spoiler, grp 4 dash, gear linkage etc. but it was the same as the Litton offered above when bought.

[Darkspeed]

.....So - ARE you selling yours too, or just toying with the idea from your jail cell after using an A40 starting handle to beat the cr*p out of the thickos who can't string a sentence together?

Not sure the car is the Biz - but it is my path.

Am I selling mine? - No not trying to - "Everything I have is up for sale at the right price" which is an honest comment as I do not have any particular emotional attachment to vehicles. That is not to say that would let them go easily/cheaply it's a case of how desperate someone would be to own it.

My view on the recent Hawk and Litton project cars for sale differs wildly from the bidders as I just see something that I would need to rip to bits, throw away 50% and then start from ground up. I can only assume they see IVA in a couple of weekends a £2K respray the next and cruising in a Stradale for the summer.

I should just get on with building it and not worry about what other people are paying for unfinished kits. So you will have to excuse me, I am off into the garage to work on my Gemini......


Hi John,

Was it a 4 pot cradle rear in the Corse S you built or does the V6 drop in there / no difference in the rear cradle as it sounds like I am wrongly assuming that the rear cradle needs loads of work to get a Busso in there.

[Longtimefan]

So tell us what cars you may have for sale, so that we can have a think?

[john]

Andrew,
The 12 valve Busso will go in the four pot cradle with minor mods. I remember that Dave Watson managed to drop a 24v in, but had to alter the rear frame of the cradle rearward slightly.
For the 12v it was engine mounts ( obviously), and re-position bracing in the rear frame to accommodate the rear bank headers.
Someone had ( badly) repositioned the diagonal tube which comes up from the side pontoon to the top strut mount, but I got it back more or less where it should have been during a general tidy up of chassis.
Sorry, long winded reply as usual.
The answer is yes, more or less!

"I" chassis is of course very different and was specific to the engine being installed. Your Honda engine chassis being better than the Alfa variety in my opinion.
Steve Ellis adapted his Honda engined chassis to accept the MG/Rover V6, but an Alfa would have been unviable.

[Darkspeed]

So tell us what cars you may have for sale, so that we can have a think?

If asking me - That's all perfectly clear above.

[Stratie.fr]

The Litton Corse S ( like Steves) can make a nice car with diligent effort, and some expense of course.
I know the ballpark figure thst this car sold for some years ago. And I know very well what it cost to do and how long it took.
There's a profit to be made in Steve's car even at £20k.

For sure with diligent effort some expenses and skills you can make a nice car with an old Corse S (below the original car few years ago before your works)

Thank you John for posting this nice photo in Perigord during one of our great and memorable adventures!!

[FiveHundred]

For sure with diligent effort some expenses and skills you can make a nice car with an old Corse S (below the original car few years ago before your works)

Thank you John for posting this nice photo in Perigord during one of our great and memorable adventures!!

Now that you've posted this latest photo, Frederic, it broke a memory, since I remember test-driving this very car sometime during the late '90s, down in South Staffordshire. It was a mixed experience overall, or (as they used to say in England) "Like the curate's egg, good in parts".

I do remember it as being nicely-built (by the standards of the time) which makes sense since the owner/builder was a professional model-maker and so equipped with the kinds of skills still relevant for this type of project. (Although those white, twin-boom door mirrors were a real aberration...).

It drove OK, and the agile turn-in was great (short wheelbase, of course) but unfortunately the 2.0 Lampredi twin-cam fitted didn't exactly deliver on the big cheque signed by that jaw-dropping 'Alitalia' bodywork. If I can unearth the 1990s advert for it, Frederic, I'll happily send a copy over, but yours & John's years of hard work on it since have certainly wrought some terrific improvements to the original car as I viewed it.