A long nose mystery motor

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Oh, if only we could remember where we got this picture from! Unfortunately, we can’t, and even if we could, we haven't got a clue what the car is. British, surely? The background is suggestive of Blighty, we’d say. Is it an early 1950s special or perhaps a cottage-industry production model? A Kieft road car was our first thought, but it’s not in the Kieft book that we’ve got and doesn’t seem to match any of the models we can see on the worldwide web either. Speaking of which, the registration SKL 1 is unknown to the DVLA and the rest of the internet also, or so it seems, which doesn't help.

And so we can only guess. It does look a bit like the Rochdale Mk. VI in our brochure. Could it be one, perhaps in a modified form? Or how about a special-bodied Healey? The long nose does suggest that there’s more than just an 1172cc Ford engine under that bonnet. 

The thing which comes closest with a Google Image search is the Glasspar G2, made in sunny California in the early 1950s. But not only is that different in its detail, it doesn’t seem very likely that a Glasspar would have found its way to the UK back then, does it? Who knows more?

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture from the archive, source unknown)

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