Thoughts on affordable sports cars
The HinduThe other day, an acquaintance called, seeking information about bodyshop workers who could effect a sunroof modification in his regular city car. Though San Storm managed to only barely scratch the ‘affordable sports car’ market in India, the interest it generated showed that such machines provided a happy alternative for those who did not have the energy, time, or inclination to have a regular car modified to behave somewhat like a sports machine. In his book, The Complete Encyclopedia of Sports Cars: Classic Era, Rob De La Rive Box unearths a few small, obscure automobile companies that had sought to tap into the sports cars market. Rob De La Rive Box gives two salient features of small players like Mandarini that made racing-sports cars in the Italy of the 1940s and 1950s. “They used converted and tuned 500 or 1,000 Fiat engines and their names ended in ‘.ini’.” Another interesting example provided by Rob comes from Germany: How Hans Glas cashed in on a demand for inexpensive automobiles, including affordable sports cars, in the Germany of the 1960s.
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