Rare classics ready (From Penarth Times)

Rare classics ready

9:44am Friday 14th November 2008

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A lovingly restored Panther 6, one of only two produced; the only Unipower GT on the road in Europe. Prefer two wheels? How about the Texas Cee-Gar or Little Miss Dynamite, the ace Café racer? Just a few of the extremely rare cars and motorcycles that will be on display at the Classic Motor Show, which starts Friday 14th and runs until Sunday 16th November at Birmingham’s NEC.

Only two gloriously unenvironmental Panther 6 six-wheeler cars were made between 1977-78, with 8.2-litre 600 bhp, twin-turbo Cadillac engines emptying their twin 30-gallon tanks at the rate of 4-5 mpg – enough to rate the model as the first road-going car to exceed 200 mph, although this was never substantiated.

Classic bikes and cars ready to excite at classic motor show this weekend

Costing nearly £40,000 each at 70s prices, one was sold to the Saudi Arabian royal family, while the other went to Canada. Following indifferent treatment in the USA and rat-infested storage in Greece, this is the car now undergoing the finishing touches of a restoration in time for the Classic Motor Show.

The Unipower GT has also been restored to factory specification, right on the NEC’s doorstep. One of the most thoroughly engineered and best built specialist sports cars of the 60s, just 75 Unipower GT’s were produced with most now residing in America and the Far East.

The car was based on BMC Mini mechanical components with the transverse engine and gearbox unit mounted in a mid-engine configuration. Combining light weight, a low centre of gravity and low aerodynamic drag from a body that measured just 40.5 inches high, the Unipower offered excellent performance and road holding and handling characteristics.

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