The Swallow Doretti was a convertible sports car made by the Standard Triumph company in the 1950s. Peter Kirwan-Taylor, one of the crowd who surrounded the group of engineers and enthusiasts around the newly formed Lotus company, was a successful City accountant who fancied himself as a car designer, and who had the money to make his designs happen. He also designed his own very pretty spider body for his Lotus 6 (also built by W&P - page coming soon). Peter went on to be involved closely in the design of the Lotus Elite (the prototype of which W&P built) and with Lotus as a company. Wanting an exclusive sports car that could cope with the worst of the British weather, when the Swallow coachworks ceased production he bought an end of run car cheaply, and penned this tear-drop shaped rear for it. He commisioned W&P to build it for him from four crayonned sketches, which were sold at auction at Stoneleigh (UK) by H&H in February 2005.

In an interview in 1982 Peter said "I took the back off and turned it into a coupé. By removing the rear half of RLL 280's body-shell and replacing it with an aluminium fast-back coupé styled body I had created a sort of prototype for my thinking of what a closed two-seater ought to look like." The original black exterior and green interior were replaced with dark blue paintwork and light blue interior after these delivery photos were taken. Peter then sold the car in the 1957 to the designer Terrance Conran's partner.

The car was abandoned over the 60s and fell into a very poor state, but was extensively documented in several magazine articles over the 1980s. The car eventually came into the possession of Ken Sankey and Richard Larter, Doretti experts, and is currently in two halves, awaiting a full restoration.