Tools and Garage talk

Goodwood was the place where, sometime in the 1960’s, the first meeting took place between two men who were passionate about racing cars: Ernie Unger, an admirer of the cars built by Carlo Abarth, and who some years earlier had raced with a Lotus, and Val Dare-Bryan, connected with the development and production of racing cars in the workshop of the racing driver Roy Pierpoint. Sharing the same enthusiasm, the two men decided to build a small GT car which would bring together British effectiveness and Italian beauty. Another motor sport enthusiast joined the project, Tim Powell, as did his great friend Andrew Hedges, the BMC factory racing driver.

In 1966, the UNIPOWER GT was presented at the London Racing Car Show where it was received with great enthusiasm by both the public and the motor sport press. Universal Power Drives Ltd, the company run by Tim Powell, started at last to produce the beautiful and fast Unipower GT. At the end of 1968, after 60 cars had been built, Powell lost interest in the project which he always regarded as an adventure, and sold UNIPOWER to Piers Weld-Forrester. Piers Weld-Forrester, a racing driver as well as also being an adventurer, transferred UNIPOWER GT production to the new company Unger, Weld-Forrester (U.W.F.). U.W.F. was responsible for building just the last 15 UNIPOWER cars built. In spite of having a full order book, production stopped in 1970!

In the space of 3 years a total of 75 cars were built. These had a tubular chassis, glass fibre reinforced plastic (GRP) bodywork, independent suspension, based on Formula 3 cars, and some innovative solutions for its time.

The Unipower GT power unit was made by the BMC group. Most of the cars were fitted with the 998cc Cooper engine, installed in the “wrong” place, that is, at the rear and in a central / transverse position. Some of the cars were, however, fitted with the 1275cc Cooper S engine.

Thanks to its daring design and the quality of its construction, unusual for its time, the UNIPOWER GT became the most beautiful and sophisticated car based on Mini mechanics ever built.

The UNIPOWER, 95 cm high, weighing 500 kg and designed by a car racing enthusiast, was planned right from the start as a racing car. In their catalogues, UNIPOWER advertised sale by order of competition cars, the Special light-weight competition series. This group comprised 20 cars out of a total of only 75 cars ever built.

The 20 rare Special light-weight competition cars were prepared in a different way by the UNIPOWER GT people responsible for planning and building them and by the racing driver “adventurers” in several parts of the world who ordered the UNIPOWER competition prototypes.

UNIPOWER competition cars were used in speed races, mountain and slalom events, rallies and even in the World Manufacturers’ Championship.

The following article is from TTAC and it brings up some interesting speculation.

Bloomberg reports that a lawsuit accuses Toyota of a widespread coverup of unintended acceleration in its vehicles. The suit alleges that

“Toyota technicians” confirmed that vehicles were unexpectedly accelerating and the company bought back the vehicles, had customers sign confidentiality agreements and didn’t disclose the problems to regulators… In testimony about acceleration defects before Congress, Toyota Motor Corp. didn’t disclose that the technicians had replicated instances of sudden unintended acceleration not caused by pedals or mats… The company also didn’t report the customer agreements to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration… Toyota ordered employees to remove names of executives from acceleration related e-mails and to stop using specific acceleration terms in e-mails to prevent damage to the company in litigation

Toyota’s response:

Steven Curtis, a spokesman for Toyota’s U.S. sales arm in Torrance, California, said today in an e-mail that no technicians for the company or field specialists confirmed unintended acceleration in vehicles. He said the plaintiffs’ lawyers are referring to service technicians employed by dealerships, which are independent businesses… the claims are based on anecdotes and fail to identify any specific defects in the vehicles.

Plaintiffs claim that dealer techs are “agents of the company” and that vehicle repurchases and confidentiality agreements are proof positive of a coverup. Toyota admits that it investigated and repurchased two vehicles after dealer techs found “acceleration events,” but says its factory technicians were unable to replicate any problems. If this sounds like a complicated mess of he-said-she-said, consider that this suit is just one of 300 currently pending against the world’s largest automaker. The lawyers will probably be busy with this one for decades.