A couple of weeks ago I was privileged to meet MG Special Builder and Frogeye restorer Colin Cooper. Today I am looking at his third, and final, Kayne Special III.
Colin originally conceived the Kayne Special III as a towing car for his Kayne Special II as seen above at Oulton Park in 1983 and his Killeen K1 which I’ll be looking at next Tuesday.
Photo Copyright Frank Hall 1984.
However since he was taking part in events which allowed a driver multiple entries he decided to see what the Kayne Special III could do. Colin is seen above at Baitings Dam in 1984.
Kayne Special III was designed from scratch to Colin’s own design between 1981 and 1983.The green radiator cowl seen on the Kayne Special III above at Castle Combe like the more substantial safety cage was fitted after Colin sold the car.
Colin cut all of the square section tube chassis members with a hacksaw, no short cuts were taken with angle grinders, tacked all the members together and then had the chassis frame mig welded by a friend.
The 3.5 litre / 215 cui V8 motor came from a Rover SD1 complete with an automatic transmission which was attached to a rear axle sourced from an MG B. Note the steering column needs two universal joints to avoid fouling on the right hand bank of cylinders, this feature resulted in the Kayne Special III being unsuitable for anybody to drive with shoes size 7 1/2 or larger.
Running on 14″ MG B wire wheels at the front and 15″ MG C rear wheels at the rear and with a 0-100 mph capability in the region of 15 secs Colin could tease motorcyclists with his beautifully finished Kayne Special III.
With the automatic transmission Colin could drive the car to within 1 second of the times he achieved with the Kayne Special II. By 1984 Colin had fitted a manual transmission.
Colin sold the Kayne Special III when he retired from competition in 1985 for £2,700. The present owners and drivers of the car are John and Jonathon Biggs.
My thanks to Colin Cooper for sharing his memories and providing his photographs and to Chris Winstanley for allowing me to use Frank Halls photograph.
Thanks for joining me on this ‘Towing and Competing’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !
