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A warm welcome to totalkitcar online … With the National Kit Car Motor Show at Three Counties Showground just two weeks away, excitement is building. I know of one new launch from the Morton Motor Company with a new car designed by Robin Hall. Find out all you need to know about the show – the venue, how to get there, how much and information on camping etc – via https://nationalkitcarshow.co.uk.
I know that lots of readers used our GOODS & SUPPLIERS listing as a guide to the specialist car aftermarket, so essential did they regard it. It needed an upgrade but it took a couple of years to get it right. HAVE YOU SEEN IT YET? See the menu bar above or CLICK HERE.
GOODS & SUPPLIERS is BACK. It’s certainly less wieldy, is easier to use and well, see what you think. It’s not yet complete by any means but is a workable and useful A-Z listing that I hope you enjoy using and check back regularly because I will be adding to it daily, almost.
TKC MAG – MAY/JUNE 2026 ISSUE – AVAILABLE NOW
Here’s this issue’s menu, or at least some of it.
Welcome to the ‘Groovy Baby’ issue. Why groovy baby? Well, four of the cars starring this time are inspired by, or are replicas of, sixties classics … not big, not clever, but quite descriptive we thought.
So, what have we got to tickle your fancy this time?
INDUSTRY GREATS – ULTIMA SPORTS – The Lee Noble and Marlow family years. The full story.
MYTHRON CARS SEBRING FASTBACK – No, it’s not a replica or a continuation or a kitcar. This is what the company call ‘ a reimagining of a sixties Sebring Sprite’
TORNADO TS40 MKII TRIBUTE – A superb example of a Tornado TS40 (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bad one) which is intended as a tribute to the late Dan Gurney.
ACE HAWK! – A glorious new build Hawk inspired by the AC Ace, which is the second Hawk built by Adam Cleden nearly twenty years after the first one, which was also a stunner!
WITHOUT OUR PAST SPECIAL! – This time we focus on four beatiful sports racers from the sixties.
MCLAREN M6GT – People often understandably believe that McLaren’s first road car was Professor Gordon Murray’s F1. However, a generation before that, Briuce McLaren had the idea for the GT. We tell the car’s story and also feature the replicas, the UVA M6GTR and Montage and also the Tornado TS70.
SINGLE SEAT RACECAR CONVERTED TO ROAD USE – There have been plenty of single-seat road-legal kitcars over the years but very few racing cars have been converted for use on the road, other than the Lotus 51 ‘Flower Power’ and a Van Diemen conversion back in the eighties. The latest to tackle such a monster project is serial kitcar builder Dave Swift who found an OMS hillclimber on eBay and yep, converted it to a road car!
Hope you enjoy the issue.
TKC MAG – MAY/JUNE 2026 ISSUE – AVAILABLE NOW
2026 marks this event’s second year. Head for the Dundee Museum of Transport
IF YOU LIKE CLASSIC KIT CARS & SPECIALS you are in luck. Clicking that button will take you back in time with features on old kitcars, personalities and generally interesting companies who worked within the specialist car and sixties motorsport movements. I really hope you are enjoying them. Not all of them are kitcar-related per se but they all celebrate the underdog and often feature the wonderful world of sixties motorsport.
Classic Kit Cars & Specials has a new home at totalkitcar.com.
A lot of classic clubman motorsport features highlight underdog artisans that we hope will appeal to you dear reader, the sort of companies that we’ve often all heard of but on whom detailed information is often hard to find. Shorrock, Wade Turbochargers, Jack Knight Developments, Cannon Cars, Tom Killeen, David Ogle the list goes on and on. The sort of companies and individuals that our specialist and kitcar forebears from the sixties would have been very familiar with. You’ll find these subjects featured in CLASSIC KIT CARS & SPECIALS.
This week in CLASSIC KIT CARS & SPECIALS we look at the Laycock de Normanville epicyclic overdrive unit, a mainstay of the UK car industry from the early fifties well into the seventies.
Most totalkitcar readers will be aware of an ‘overdrive’ unit; some will know exactly how they work. However, I’m not sure how many really understand how they truly function or indeed what ‘Laycock de Normanville’ means.
I’ve heard several people when asked if the overdrive on their MGB is a ‘Laycock’ answer: “No, it’s a Normanville unit!”
Time, I think to tell a little story of the UK’s most popular Epicyclic Overdrive unit, for those who are unaware. CLICK HERE
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Our popular TRACKDAY CALENDAR is where you can find out where, when and how much by CLICKING HERE. Now updated to cover MAY, JUNE and JULY 2026.
SNIPPETS 1 …….. Great British Sports Cars kicked off their hugely popular Friday Night at the Factory’ events on Friday, May 1.
GBS co-director, Ruth Hall told me: The gates opened at 5pm and it didn’t take long for the car park to fill up. It was great to see so many Zeros together, alongside a wide variety of other sportscars, all coming together to enjoy a relaxed evening with fellow enthusiasts.
“We were treated to freshly baked pizza from Sherwood Fired Pizza, along with drinks served throughout the evening, creating a great atmosphere for everyone to unwind, chat and enjoy the cars on display. Events like this are all about bringing the community together and it was brilliant to see such a strong turnout.
“We’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who joined us – we hope you enjoyed the evening as much as we did.”
I’m going to have to attend a GBS ‘Friday Night at the Factory’ event. They’ll happenong once a month until August. It follows the format of their also very popular GBS Cars & Coffee events.
The next one takes place on Friday, June 19. If you don’t know where the venue is, just stick NG22 9ZD into your satnav. Visit www.greatbritishsportscars.co.uk or call 01623 860 990.
SNIPPETS 2 ……. The British Motor Museum is one of 24 museums that have received a share of £4 million through the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund 2025-27. The Fund brings together £2 million in match funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and independent, grant making charity, the Wolfson Foundation.
£147,700 has been allocated to the British Motor Museum, which will be used to develop and deliver Grasping the Image: digital accessibility to heritage images – a project that will enhance accessibility to heritage photographs held in the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust (BMIHT) Archive. The project will run from Spring 2026 to early 2027.
The project will provide unprecedented access for visually impaired visitors and wider audiences to a historically significant collection of 20th century photographic negatives. Conservation-led, public-facing and co-created, this digital accessibility project will produce digital twins of a currently inaccessible collection using advanced digital imaging and create innovative tactile/audio models.
This project, led by the BMIHT Archive, will bring together partners including the Centre for Print Research, University of the West of England, digital heritage company Mnemoscene and community organisations including the charity MyVision Oxfordshire and local schools which specialise in providing support for children with special educational needs.
Cat Stuart-Yapp, Head of Fundraising at the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust, said: “We’re delighted that we have been successful in our application to receive this funding. Using advanced digital capture solutions, the project will use our extensive collection of photographic negatives to generate 3D images, which can in turn be used to create tactile models with sensors to generate audio. This means that more people will be able to encounter, experience and enjoy our collections, in more ways.”
The project will help the museum provide practical solutions to audience exclusion from ocular-centric collections and enable more multisensory access to the BMIHT’s heritage collections for audiences who do not use sight as their primary mode of engagement and learning. The project will also enable the creation of a specially created display space onsite at the British Motor Museum, and allow the museum to reach out to schools, community groups and organisations through bespoke travelling interactive displays.
This funding also covers the procurement of new digitisation equipment and staff training, to enhance the Trust’s digital capacity and improve the discoverability and accessibility of the archival collections.
The Wolfson Foundation is an independent grant-making charity with a focus on research and education. Its aim is to contribute to civil society by supporting high-quality projects in science, health, heritage, humanities and the arts. Since it was established in 1955, the Wolfson Foundation has awarded some £1 billion (£2 billion in real terms) to more than 14,000 projects throughout the UK, all on the basis of expert review.
To find out more information about the Museum, please visit the website at https://www.britishmotormuseum.co.uk/
SNIPPETS BONUS … Here’s an item for our North American readers.
The Evel Knievel Experience: An Interactive Museum of America’s Original Daredevil announces tickets are on sale now for its June 27 opening date in Downtown Las Vegas’ Arts District.
This new attraction will delight longtime fans and curious visitors from around the world with unmatched insights into the life, legacy and cultural impact of one of the most iconic performers in American history. Designed as a modern, interactive museum, the destination will invite guests to step into the world of Evel Knievel through high-adrenaline experiences, rare artifacts from his life and immersive exhibits capturing the ambition, spectacle and risk behind his legendary career.
Originally launched as the Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka, Kansas, in 2017, the Las Vegas experience expands upon the award-winning, internationally recognised collection. Now permanently located in Las Vegas, the Evel Knievel Experience reimagines the interactive museum for a global audience and brings it to one of the world’s most dynamic entertainment destinations.
Artifact highlights will include Knievel’s red, white and blue jumpsuits, which sparked the original collection; his actual motorcycles that launched him into the air; the Snake River Canyon Skycycle X-2, engineered for one of the most ambitious jumps in history; and the Caesars Palace jump helmet, known for saving his life when he crashed and fell into a coma for 29 days. Guests will also be able to walk through the fully restored ‘Big Red’ Mack truck and trailer, meticulously brought back to life by a team of more than 90 craftsmen, offering a firsthand look at the scale of his legendary touring presence. The collection extends even further, featuring signature canes, jewelery helmets, wardrobe pieces, motorcycles, cars and countless additional artifacts.
Before taking its place inside its new home, ‘Big Red’ will hit the road once again as the centrepiece of Big Red’s Run, a cross-country caravan bringing Knievel’s legacy to life in motion. Rolling from Kansas City, Missouri, to Las Vegas, the journey will draw motorcyclists, fans and roadside crowds into a moving tribute, building anticipation mile by mile.
The run will culminate with a high-impact arrival down the Las Vegas Strip on Saturday, May 23, as ‘Big Red’ makes its final entrance into the Arts District, setting the stage ahead of The Evel Knievel Experience’s momentous opening.
“Evel Knievel’s story doesn’t belong to just one generation – it still resonates in a powerful way today,” said Mike Patterson, co-founder and CEO, The Evel Knievel Experience. “We designed this attraction as a place where people can feel that for themselves, whether they grew up watching him or are discovering his story for the first time.”
Kelly Knievel, eldest son of Evel Knievel and resident of Las Vegas added: “We’re thrilled to be able to share what made Evel Knievel so special and such a significant contributor to American culture. The Evel Knievel Experience is another great attraction for visitors to our city.”
The Evel Knievel Experience will also feature a dedicated retail space offering a curated selection of gifts, apparel and memorabilia inspired by Knievel’s legendary career. Guests can browse exclusive merchandise on-site, including licensed products, rare collectibles, toys and archival items. For those looking to take a piece of the experience home after their visit, or shop from afar, an online store will also be available at www.ekexperience.com.
The experience is located at 1001 S. First Street in the Las Vegas Arts District. Discounted general admission is available for youth ages 6 – 12, groups of eight or more, locals and military members. Children 5 and under will be admitted free. The attraction will be open daily beginning at 10am, with last entry at 8pm. Parking will be available on-site for $4 per hour. Most visits are expected to last approximately 60 to 90 minutes. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.ekexperience.com.
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So, that’s about it from me for this week, so I’ll bid you a great seven days, with plenty of enjoyable driving and I look forward to welcoming you once again next week on Friday, May 22, 2026
Best regards
Steve