Press release from Tim Dutton marks the beginning of the end of an incredible legacy building kitcars which began in the late sixties.

Tim changed the way that kitcars were sold and marketed. Numerous whole-page adverts in trade magazines every month got the message across. I wonder, how many more he would have sold in an internet age.

Until Tim came along kitcars were often quite high priced and quite often everything bar the body and chassis were considered extras. Tim changed that and very much adhered to the ‘pile ’em high; sell ’em cheap’ mantra with full kits often priced around the £1000 mark.

He had several factories iN Worthing, West Sussex that were all working flat out to get orders out of the door with model names like Sierra, Melos, Phaeton and Rico proving very popular. He’d sold around 8500 kits by the time he wound Dutton Cars down.

The qualified toolmaker didn’t disappear, however. Instead, he reappeared with an amphibious kit down mainly because as a keen sailor he couldn’t get his boat trailer close enough to the beach to make launching convenient. He blamed the councils for that! So, Tim created his own amphib. That was over 30-years ago and he’s still making them with two models currently available – Surf and Reef.

Tim has already told me that he wants to be kept informed of industry developments and that I’m to buy him lunch in his favourite quayside eaterie at Littlehampton Marina every couple of months. More from www.timdutton.com