Williams & Pritchard Register

In 1962, Chris Lawrence of LawrenceTune and John Sprinzel came together to produce a curvaceous GT racer known as the SLR (standing for Sprinzel LawrenceTune Racing). John and Chris were already fans of W&P, with Sprinzel's Sebring Sprite bodies, and Lawrence's Deep Sanderson 105 and 301 bodies coming out of W&P's works.

John Sprinzel recalls in his book "Spritely Years" the story from his perspective:

"On my stand at the 1963 Racing Car Show was the prototype of an alloy bodied coupe from the Sprinzel-LawrenceTune Racing Team. I had known Chris Lawrence for some time as a race driver and deep-thinking engineer - the speed of his Morgan Plus 4, registered TOK 258 ... had caused a tremendous resurgence of interest in racing Morgans. He'd built his LawrenceTune business into one of the most successful tuners of the Triumph TR engine around, and had been asked by the Morgan family to help develop the Plus 4 Super Sports model, in which he and Richard Shepherd-Baron won their class and finished a remarkeable 14th overall at Le Mans in 1962.

Chris had been very busy in preceeding years with a Formula Junior single-seater and a Mini-based mid engined GT (both called Deep Sanderson after a jazzman), and the development of these cars had been a protracted process. The current idea that Chris and I had was much more simple: a lightweight, aerodynamic body to bolt staight on to a Morgan or a Triumph chassis.

Naturally I'd asked Charlie Williams and Len Pritchard to build the bodies for us, and equally naturally the bodies ended up looking very pretty as well as reasonably aerodynamic. We built four in all, one on an ex-Sid Hurrel Triumph TR4 chassis for Neil Dangerfield, and three on Morgan chassis. Of course, by this time, any competition car with a heavy, production-based separate chassis was going to be at a disadvantage, but Chris Lawrence made some good showings with his car (also registered TOK 258), including an outing to Spa when he managed to split the works Porsche 904GTSs, finishing with only two in front of him and four behind.

Sadly Chris had a bad road accident on the way back from Spa that put him out of action for a while, but Neil Dangerfield and I both raced Neil's Triumph car, and Gordon Spice attracted considerable attention in his Morgan SLR - he would go on to be one of Britain's most successful saloon car drivers."

(text © John Sprinzel 1994, 2008 and reproduced with his kind permission)

Chris Lawrence in his SLR at Silverstone, 1963

Chris Lawrence comments:

"LawrenceTune cars built with alloy bodywork by Charlie Williams of W&P include ... all four of the so called SLRs. One Triumph and three Morgans. All now back in England. The system was that that we made the egg box and then Charlie would weave his magic as he built the bodies. Hence for instance, all four SLRs are slightly differrent. In my book, "Morgan Maverick" ... you will find quite a lot of comment on Charlie and some of the photos I will send you. I think I have one of Charlie and me discussing the [Deep Sanderson] 301 in his workshop - a super guy, I was very fond of him, the ultimate Artisan."

Chris Lawrence's car, believed to be at Goodwood in '66

The development of the SLR's is covered in some detail in chapter ten of Chris' book, "Morgan Maverick", in which he says: "We made the plywood egg-box [buck] that dictated the shape at Acton ... but then it went to Williams & Pritchard, where Charlie Williams cast his eagle eye over it and made some significant improvements resulting in what is generally thought nowadays to be a rather nice shape." A flyer for the SLR published in an appendix to Morgan Maverick credits Williams & Pritchard as co-designers of the bodywork. However, Chris has clearly stated that design input was limited to those credited in his book.

Triumph TR4 SLR (formerly Neil Dangerfield's) overtakes a Peel bodied Sprite at Goodwood, 2006

Neil Dangerfield comments:

"Chris Lawrence looked after my Triumph TR4, which I raced around the British circuits in '62 & '63. This became the donor car for the first SLR body from W&P and was exhibited at the Racing Car Show ... My SLR was exhibited at the 1964 (not' 63 as John says) Racing Car Show. I was racing it as a TR4 up until the end of '63 and it was also my road car! I have a picture of the SLR taken on Ealing common before it went to the show and as far as I know this was the first picture taken in public ... the next SLR, and the first Morgan, was built for Gordon Spice who shunted it at Goodwood on its first outing. Pip Arnold had the third body and the fourth, and I think last, was Chris's own car. Chris looked after all these cars. I have records of all events in which I drove the SLR from 1964 to 1967, when I moved to Jersey and sold the car ... I don't recall John ever racing my SLR and I have a pretty good memory for such things. But it was 45 years ago. Chris once drove it at Silverstone in June '66 when I drove his car."

SLR 4 - Pip Arnold car

historic race shot of SLR 4, at the Nordschliefe in 1964 (not Spa)

Adrian Van der Kroft is the current owner of SLR 4, originally built for Pip Arnold, and he comments as follows:

"I am already for a couple of years the (proud) owner of one of the SLR Morgans of which the original bodies were made by Williams & Pritchard. Although my car had some body repairs in period by Maurice Gomm, it still has ... its original body ... I enclose a few shots. One , very nice, of two SLR's (!) in the cork screw at Laguna Seca as well as a historic shot of my car at, we think, Spa 1964".

In actual fact the image was taken at the Nordschliefe in 1964, rather than Spa, as pointed out by Kurt Suelflohn, who located this image from a period German motorsport magazine:

This sequence shows Chris Lawrence's little excursion off track in Pip's car, as wittily described in detail on page 121 of his book "Morgan Maverick".

Adrian Van der Kroft in SLR 4 at Laguna Seca

find out more about Chris Lawrence and his engineering exploits at his website: