Drag racing in the UK back in the 60's produced some interesting machinery and the car below was based on a Reliant Scimitar GTE with an unblown 427 powerplant - it was called Whistler. The Reliant Scimitar was manufactured by a company better known for a range of ghastly underpowered 3-wheelers and it was a real surprise when the Scimitar was released. Glass fibre body powered by a straight 6 Ford engine - looked great and performed well too. There's still a cult following in NZ with a Scimitar owner's club of around 150 cars. Amazing for a country with only 4M population.
http://geoffjames.blogspot.com/2012/01/social-history-in-photos.html
Mark Stratton was friendly with one of the marketing people at the Reliant Motor Company and managed to persuade him to donate a fibreglass body from the new version of the Reliant Scimitar known as the GTE (the 'E' stood for estate). Dennis Priddle is driving the car here which has been fitted with a deflector to reduce the amount of air entering the carbs
Nothing like this had been built before and with John's help and encouragement the car became the state of the art in the sport. With great celebration the team named it 'Whistler' and the Reliant GTE made its first runs at Santa Pod in the spring of 1969.
Dennis Priddle was recruited to drive the car and in his hands it was unbeatable when running 10.4 second runs at 140mph. Consequently the Stratton stable won the Super Eliminator Trophy at Santa Pod for the third year in a row.
http://www.theaccelerationarchive.co.uk/john/woolfe_01.html
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