The converters

Keith Adams tells the story of the Tickford Capri, and how it made it from drawing board to production… Back in 1981, former Gold Leaf Team Lotus and Yardley Team […]

Keith Adams tells the story of the Tickford-updated Triumph Stag from 1982. Would you have bought one? Tickford was asked in 1982 to upgrade a Black 1975 Triumph Stag for […]

Frazer established itself as a new car company in 1981, offering this fabulous-looking Tickford Metro, which was first shown at that year’s London Motorfair. The Tickford name was owned by […]

Keith Adams tells the story of the Ford RS200’s path to production, and Tickford’s role in the process.   The RS200 was a pure two-seater, mid-engined, four-wheel-drive car designed for Group […]

The Rover 75 was stretched rather successfully by MacNeillie & Sons following on from the 800-based Regency. This led to the converter bagging the contract to build factory Vanden Plas […]

Crayford Engineering sought to produce an interesting variation on the TR7 theme, and ended up hatching out this little beauty. Now restored and owned by Chris Turner, the Chairman of […]

Two years before Crayford Engineering commenced selling convertible versions of the BMC 1100/1300, Jensen created this prototype ragtop.  The idea was to convince BMC to sub-contract the firm to build […]

It would appear that BMC could have defined the Volkswagen Golf class a decade or so before the Germans got around to it. Meet the BMC 1100-based Creech Mystique… This […]

The BMC 1100/1300 was a brilliant car out of the box, but that didn’t stop Crayford Engineering improving it, by offering a split-tailgate conversion that anticipated the hatchback-bodied Morris Nomad. […]

The BMC 1100/1300 was the only BMC/BL model to be offered as both an estate and convertible by Crayford Engineering (although these models were not marketed concurrently), but it’s the […]

You’d be hard-pressed to tell that the stunning Rapport Forté was based on the Jaguar XJ… Designed as a folding-hardtop cabriolet, years before they were fashionable, the project failed before […]

Borrowing its name from the Citroën CX, the Rover Prestige was Wood & Pickett’s luxury version of the SD1… It came in many variants, and could be built exactly to […]

Unbelievably, the Metro Cooper was not offered as a ‘factory-backed’ conversion, even though it came with a blue-chip pedigree. However, there was a good reason why John Cooper Garages ended […]

Ladbroke Avon put together an interesting upmarket version of the Acclaim. It was initially only made available through the Henlys franchise, before being offered to a wider audience after the […]

The Towns Hustler: not so much a car, more a way of life… There’s so much more to this amazing kit car than its extraordinary looks – Keith Adams tells […]

The Railton marque, first seen in Britain in the 1930s, was revived in 1989 with a pair of Towns-designed tourers based on the XJ-S convertible. However, it failed on the […]

It seems that few – if any – of these Crayford convertibles actually reached customers before the company decided to concentrate on its Fiesta conversions. And it had a Dr […]

While several companies were quick to start tuning the Metro, Rapport was the first offer a soft-top version. Rapport took a novel approach to maintaining structural rigidity, by leaving half […]

This subtly stretched 800 Sterling revived a name which was abandoned by the Rover Group in 2005. The styling looked rather similar to a factory-developed version of the 800, too… […]

Another name from the Mini’s heyday returned to the mainstream in 1980, turning its attention to the Austin Metro. They were extraordinary vehicles, the Wood & Pickett Laser Metro and […]

And here is the car that the Princess should always have been: Crayford produced its own hatchback versions of the 18-22 Series/Princess, but at a time when the five-door saloon […]