After serving a tool making apprenticeship in a Jaguar Mk X bodyshell and ADO16 bodyshell manufacturing plant with Pressed Steel Ltd in Swindon, UK Tim Dutton-Wolley built his first MG Midget based kit cars in 1969.
By 1989 Tim had survived and won a court battle with Ford over the rights to use the Sierra model name which he had been using since 1979, 5 years before Ford wanted to use the name for it’s eponymous 1980’s family car, to become the world’s most successful kit car manufacturer in terms of numbers sold.
There were three Dutton Sierra variants, three series of Ford Escort based 2 wheel drive off road SUV’s built from 1980 to 1989, and a pickup variant and drophead variants built from 1983 to 1989 when sold his designs off and and took a six year sabbatical from the kit car making business.
I understand the GPX48H registration plate once belonged to a 1970 Mk 1 Ford Escort that was used as a donor car for a Dutton Sierra Kit.
In 2007 a Scotty G in Folkstone helped the owner complete a 9 month conversion of the Dutton Sierra kit car into a blue step side pick up as seen in this link.
More recently GPX48H has been transformed into the flat side pick up Ford Zetec powered “Scort” seen in these photographs taken at Crystal Palace a couple of years ago.
Thanks for joining me on this “Escort to Scort” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when an Edwardian aero engined Peugeot. Don’t forget to come back now !
