This lovely car with full Sebring GT bodywork belongs to Tim Saunders. The Saunders already had the early badged W&P Sebring GT hardtop which was used on their ex-sprint midget HPX 404H (previously owned and competed by the Cocups in the 1980s), and they had been looking for a period converted car with the correct W&P front for some time. When EOW 651D came up for sale on ebay in 2006 they decided to unite correct front and hardtop on a nice early car.
The car is a 1965 Mk II Midget, built in late summer 1965 and registered in Cumbria on 1 January 1966. There is little early documentary history. The earliest documents from the late seventies show that she had spent the last 30 years on the South East coast in one family. At some stage in her life after 1967, the bodywork conversion was done to add the W&P Sebring GT front, and an Ashley hardtop was also at some stage fitted. The modifications are believed to have been carried out in the late 60s, as she had no modern modifications at all, but plenty of period ones including period pancake air filters and an LCB manifold; skimmed head; a variable pitch “aerofan”; a period Lucas electric windscreen washer; period WIPAC aftermarket reversing lights; and a “Formula” steering wheel. Each of these items, including the W&P front and the Ashley hardtop, were advertised in Motor Sport magazine between 1967 and 1970. This may however just be a coincidence. The indicators and side lights are from a late 60's ADO16 (Austin/Morris 1100). The owner of the car throughout the 70s and 80s went to a lot of effort to preserve these period mods when carrying out an extensive restoration in the early 90s, before the car was put into storage for over 15 years.
The car has since purchase had the front and rear suspension rebuilt including lowering and anti-roll bar fitting, and a full engine rebuild with sympathetic minor internal enhancements to the 1098cc engine including a Swiftune SW5-07 cam and duplex timing chain, and an oil cooler has been fitted. And of course the Ashley hardtop has been substituted with the correct W&P Sebring GT hardtop.
The front has been overpainted to match the red shading of the tartan red bodywork, but underneath the paint and primer the fibreglass is the same flame red colour as LUE 620E, confirming it to be an original 60's W&P front. To be concours the front could do with a respray and will be fully restored in due course, but at present is in the kind of good usable condition in which the car can be used without too much concern .
There are plenty of other picures of EOW 651D throughout this site, being the Registrar's car.
below top: rear three quarters view, below middle: topless in the summer, UK and France, below bottom: being stranded in a ford shows off coupe styling
