The Monica was a grand touring car commissioned by French tycoon Jean Tastevin in the late 60s, who wished to create a luxury continental cruiser. He appointed Chris Lawrence of LawrenceTune and Deep Sanderson fame to design and build the car, which was intended to have the Martin V8 engine.

Chris had alternative versions for the design, and commissioned his old friend Charlie Williams at W&P to build the body for the second prototype, shown above, and on the left below. The W&P body was never put into production, with a lower sitting, pop-up headlight version being chosen after several years of development. Sadly the Monica failed to be successful due to the fuel crisis hitting in 1973, just as it was finally lauched.

In his book, "Morgan Maverick" (pub.Douglas Loverage Publications 2008) at p152, Chris says:

"Charlie Williams has been hard at work on No.2, and something rather unfortunate had happened while we were away ... Tastevin had telephoned Charlie to say they wanted him to make some changes. He was to raise the roofline by 5 centimetres and to change the bonnet line to be more like an NSU Ro80 and less like a Ford Capri ... Those changes were disastrous and Charlie was almost in tears as he explained the story to me ... I thought it was a shame, as the original lines we had drawn up for Charlie could well have become the basis for the final shape ... however, the car was beautifully built and very light, a credit to Charlie and his craft."

The original design drawings from the Pritchard family archive are shown below.

In an interview with Martin Buckley about his Martin V8 engine and the Monica project in Classic and Sportscar Magazine January 2009, Ted Martin said: "The car was projected to be 1900 cwt - number two prototype was near that and a bloody good car - but it got too heavy for my engine and the project went off the rails".

The W&P "number two" prototype Monica survives in a private collection, shown below with prototype three.