Topic: SOLVED: Djetset #169 - Tornado Fiat 600 GT (or) David Render's Fiat 600D

[Allan L]

  As I said, the 'something I read in a magazine' was a period mid-1960s advert by Tornado, marketing the Ford-powered car as the Tornado 600 GT.  The car also appeared being tested in Autoposport and The Motor magazines in 1954. 

Sorry if the pseudonymous "Djetset" has been upset.

Sometimes I forget that we are not all native English users on this site, and perhaps I don't always express myself clearly enough.
So often we find people on this site using books, magazines and internet sites as evidence regardless of whether they understand what they quote and I thought we were in that sort of mire again. My understanding was that Tornado Cars Ltd was founded by Bill Woodhouse and Anthony Bullen in about 1958 and sold on in 1963 at the end of the Talisman run. I think I remember the company as a repairing firm, but that was only because it was a landmark for the left turn taken to avoid Rickmansworth and Watford when travelling back from Heathrow.
If you tell me that it really was the same Tornado that's fine, but I doubt the car could have been tested in 1954 as
(a) Fiat didn't produce the 600 until 1955
(b) Ford introduced the 105E in 1960 and the Lotus twin-cam based on the 116E was first seen in 1962 and wasn't a production unit for several years.

[metalshapes]

Since appearently this discussion is still open, please allow me one more question.

( I'm here to learn, afterall...)

Could you tell me what this is, in the Pic you posted?

[metalshapes]

Could it be one of these?

[Otto Puzzell]

Merged

Now let's put this squabble to bed, for good.

[Djetset]

Agreed.  I just want to add though that 1954 was a typing error; I did of course mean 1964, as per my other mid-1960s comments. 

[Djetset]

Now found that article from the mid-1960s I that mentioned earlier (below), plus a photo of the 600 GT included on the rear cover of the good Tornado Cars book 'Winds of Change' by Martyn Morgan Jones, which devotes a whole section to the Tornado Fiat 600 GT.    Hopefully this now closes this case for good.

[Allan L]

Now found that article from the mid-1960s I that mentioned earlier (below), plus a photo of the 600 GT included on the rear cover of the good Tornado Cars book 'Winds of Change' by Martyn Morgan Jones, which devotes a whole section to the Tornado Fiat 600 GT.    Hopefully this now closes this case for good.

That magazine, whatever it was, seems to prove that we are both right! There was a Tornado Fiat 600 GT but it was not the same as the car we were discussing as it had a Cortina GT engine, not a twincam, and an  engine bay rather differently arranged with diagonal reinforcing bars.

[metalshapes]

That magazine, whatever it was, seems to prove that we are both right! There was a Tornado Fiat 600 GT but it was not the same as the car we were discussing as it had a Cortina GT engine, not a twincam, and an  engine bay rather differently arranged with diagonal reinforcing bars.

Not if you believe this piece of Info I found...

"Ken Smith - Sept. 2, 2009 Its good to see the car again. It's actually a Fiat 600 and made it's first public appearance at the 1964 Blackbush Drag Fest. Built by Tornado Cars it originally had the registration number BOM1 and sported an external radiator bolted to the front. A week later it turned up at Serck Radiators, Park Royal where, after a search of the shelves we sold Tornado a radiator originally made for the Dowty Turbocraft speedboat, small and neat enough to fit inside the front boot compartment, neatened things up nicely. There was a Ford powered Renault Dauphine at the same meeting cobbled together by the Lawrence tune mechanics and a Triumph Hearld bodied Jaguar XK150 that the Downton/Janspeed lads had made. I saw the TriJag some years later on Anglesea, wonder what happened to it? I've come over all nostalgic!"

Ken Smith, whoever he is, was talking about the David Render Twincam powered car.
( responding to the same pic...)

And to me, at this point, he has at least as much credibility as one Allan L...

[metalshapes]

So it looks like there were at least 3 cars.

The car on the trailer , the first pic of this Merged Thread ( FRD 62C ? )

1 BOM

Both with suicide doors, and the one with the later style doors & radiused wheelwells.

It would be cool if we could hear from Mr Render, or any of the other (ex) owners of these cars and hear what they have to say....