Monthly Archives: April 2012

Pick Up With Pedigree – Reef Engineering Cub

Leave a Reply

Some times I just cannot believe some of the stories behind some of the cars I feature, today’s nifty li’l Cub designed by Yorkshireman extraordinaire John Crosthwaite, is a case in point.

Reef Engineering Cub, Rare Breeds, Haynes IMM

John’s CV included working at Lotus to refine and develop the Lotus XI and 14 Elite models, then spending some time in the States and designing the stock block Thompson Buick Indy 500 challenger Harvey Aluminium Special with which Dan Gurney made his Indy 500 debut.

Reef Engineering Cub, Rare Breeds, Haynes IMM

Following spells at BRM and developing the chassis for the Intermeccanica Italia sports cars John found himself at Reliant where his design legacy included the chassis for the Reliant Scimitar GTE and Reliant Kitten economy car.

Reef Engineering Cub, Rare Breeds, Haynes IMM

Like the Reliant Fox pick up I looked at back in November the Reef Cub is built around a Reliant Kitten chassis.

Reef Engineering Cub, Rare Breeds, Haynes IMM

John’s interest in watersports, including diving, water skiing and wind surfing led him to manufacture the Cub for holiday resorts in the Seychelles and West Indies, though the Cub, with bodywork design accredited to Peter Bailey, appears never to have gone into production.

Reef Engineering Cub, Rare Breeds, Haynes IMM

The car featured is thought to be one, the only one registered in the UK, of four prototypes all of which are / were allegedly different. This car was owned by John Crosthwaite’s daughter for ten years.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Pick Up Pedigree’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Share

Here Comes The Sun (Slight Reprise) – Datsun 120A F-II

Leave a Reply

It is hard to believe that it is 30 years since Datsun’s parent company Nissan started to phase out the use of the Datsun brand name from global markets at an estimated cost in the USA alone of some US$500.

Nissan 120A - FII

So it was a surprise to learn that Nissan are to reactivate the brand for base models that will capture markets in India, Russia and Indonesia from 2014 in an effort to win an 8% global market share.

Nissan 120A - FII

The Datsun name is a derivative of the Datson model that was marketed in 1931 by the DAT Jidosha & Co.,Ltd, a name born in 1925 out of three financial backers of the Kaishinsha Motorcar Co (1918) and it earlier incarnation Kaishinsha Motor Car Works (1911) founded by Masujiro Hashimoto called Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Meitaro Takeuchi .

Nissan 120A - FII

At the time the company sold two models the larger DAT and smaller Datson, son translates as son in Japanese. Because son also means ‘disadvantage’ in Japanese the name was later changed to Datsun in 1932. Following a couple of mergers Datsun was taken over in by Nihon, Sangyo Co., Ltd 1934 who changed the corporate name of the manufacturer but continued to use the Datsun brand name particularly in export markets.

Nissan 120A - FII

The second generation 120A F-II was known in Japan as the Cherry and marketed through ‘Nissan Cherry Shop’ Dealerships.

Nissan 120A - FII

120A F-II refers to the A12 4 cylinder motor with a capacity of 1,171 cc 71 cui, a smaller version 100A was also produced, production of the 100A continued in New Zealand until 1980.

Nissan 120A - FII

While the styling of the 120A F-II was a tad wayward by contemporary European standards the reliability of the 100A & 120A meant that by the time they hit the scrap yards they usually had much higher mileages than the better looking European models of the time. The 100A and 120A F-II models were in production from 1974 to 1977.

Share