Dutton Cars

Dutton Cars in Worthing (West Sussex ) was a British manufacturer of kit cars. The company existed from 1970 to 1989 and was at times the world's largest kit car manufacturers.

The company was founded by Tim Dutton Wooley and started in a small workshop, where a number of cars was based on the prototype P1, none of which resembled another. The ratios stabilized in October 1971, when the first production model B -Type appeared. It had more or less a standard design, which was based on components of the Triumph Herald. The company also moved into a larger factory in Tangmere (West Sussex ).

From the B- Type was the Phaeton later. Later versions of the Phaeton was built on a Ford Escort components and manufactured until 1989.

1979 Dutton announced the Sierra to a station wagon, which looked like an SUV. In 1982, the Ford Motor Company, a new model named Sierra out and claimed the full naming rights itself, the dispute went to court and successfully fought Dutton is the permission to call their kit cars more so because the judge ruled that kit cars and fully assembled cars are two different things. Ford had to bear the costs and Dutton won through the process enormously in popularity. The Sierra said to have been the best-selling kit-car of all time. In the same year the company moved back to Worthing in a turn, larger factory building, while another plant for the production of fiberglass bodies in Lancing (West Sussex ) was opened.

1984, the company had 70 employees and produced over 1,000 vehicles. In 1989, the company was closed and sold the plans. A new model called Maroc, a heavily modified Ford Fiesta with an open body, was developed and built by hackers Engineering in Littlehampton (West Sussex ). Initially, the car was offered fully assembled, but the sales prices were too high, and it was sold in 1993 as a kit-car. The plans were sold to Novus in Bolney ( Sussex ) and there are still modified versions of this car (as of 2006).

Following the closure of his kit -car business, Tim Dutton Wooley worked as a consultant, but returned in 1995 back into the automobile business. He brought out the models Amphibian and Commando, amphibious vehicles, which were based on the Ford Fiesta and the Suzuki Samurai. One of them even crossed the English Channel.

Dutton Kit Cars nowadays are hard to come by. Most Dutton were already assembled and are now available only as a second- hand vehicles, mostly in restaurierungsbedürftigem state. If a Dutton is sold as a kit, a donor car is needed. Of the motor, the transmission, and many other major components are used. Ford vehicles are generally good as a donor car. Many buyers slaughter donor cars out that are no longer roadworthy, and use the parts to build a new kit cars.

In August 2008, Tim Dutton Wooley was convicted of sale of amphibious vehicles that were not suitable for the carriage of paying passengers, the British Trade Discriptions Act (1968 ) disagreed.

Models

Technical data ( selection)

295567
de