Today’s self build special is a Fibrefab Bonito which I believe was designed to be built around a Volkswagen Beetle floor pan suspension and brakes with the motor mounted behind the rear axle.

Fibrefab was a self build manufacturer founded by Warren “Bud” Goodwin in 1964 manufacturing a range of parts including body panels moving onto building kits for owners to assemble into complete cars.

The Bonito, Avenger GT and Valkyrie are three of the many models from Fibrefab that to a greater or less extent resembled the Ford GT prototype racing cars.

This particular Bonito, first registered as a Special in 1986, was found in a back garden where it had stood for 12 years. It has been built up into what is believed to be the only competition Bonito, in the UK, for use on stage rallies by Gary Candy.

Unusually for a Bonito, the rear mounted 50 hp aircooled VW Beetle motor had been discarded in favour of a watercooled Volkswagen Golf / Corrado motor that is equally unusually mounted ahead of the rear axle.

In 1983 Warren “Bud” Goodwin sold Fiberfab to Classic Motor Carriages a company that had to close after a legal action in 1994 involving “several hundred” customers.

It would appear that a body was obtained by a company called ACM in the UK which was subsequently re engineered by Seraph Ltd to fit on a ladder frame with the motor in the front, this vehicle is known either as the ACM Excalibur, not to be confused with the Excalibur Roadster built in Milwaukee, or Seraph 3000.

My thanks to Bloggsworth, jcbc3, Elansprint72, Ray Bell, Michael Ferner and johnthebridge, at The Nostalgia Forum for their help in trying to identify the motor.

Thanks for joining me on this “Nice Competition” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at another special Bentley. Don’t forget to come back now !