W&P were involved in at least sixteen projects designed by Frank Costin and after working very closely together during the early days of Lotus, and on various Le Mans projects for Lister, the relationship with Frank continued throughout his career.

The AutoV was a project that Frank became involved in in 1962 when Brian Hopton and Keith Aitchison left TVR, and decided to launch a new project, with funding from the Burton tailoring empire. The car was to be super-light, super-economical, and very innovative with all the emerging Costin trademarks of a wooden chassis, fibreglass body and highly aerodynamic shape.

It was powered by a 1 litre DKW 2 stroke engine mounted in the rear and many suspension and brake components cast in magnesium. Frank described the prototype as "driving like a Formula 3 car: it had performance, handling, the lot". However with 450 blueprints for separate lightweight components, it was expensive to build at low volumes and never made it into production.

The story of this car is covered in detail in Chapter 12 of Dennis Ortenburger's book "Flying on Four Wheels: Frank Costin and his Car Designs" (pub Patrick Stevens, 1986). The car is currently owned by Costin expert Friend Wood, who has gone on to build his own wooden car inspired by Frank's designs.

According to Friend, who has further knowledge of the history of the car, the alloy moulds for the body were made by Williams & Pritchard in 1962. This is entirely consistent with the history of their relationship with Frank. These moulds survive to this day.

We hope to have some more information about the car from Friend in due course.