The "Stratton" Car (#119)
Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2013 6:10 pm
As you know, Strattons did some work for Ford including the "special" coloured cars (see the email below) but they also did an upgraded interior version which this image shows. This car is unusual with the black gear knobs, black carpet, black leather Recaros and black leather door inlays.
Bob Howe made this point about Strattons help in an email to me ..
"Hi Justin, Initially all cars were painted white because most of the initial orders were for rally use. Then, when the FISA ban was imposed in May 86 we did some re-thinking because virtually all the rally orders were cancelled leaving us with a different sales programme to run.. So we did an exercise with Strattons of Wilmslow who painted 2 black, 2 red and 2 mid-blue. Subsequently a number of purchasers also painted cars in different colours. I knew of at least 1 more red, 2 yellow (one belonging to Graham Hathaway). A race car in the US was painted in a scheme similar to the Boreham rally cars but with the broad blue stripe and the narrow blue stripes replaced by 3 shades of brown. Cheers, Bob H "
The sticker on the dashboard, when scanned at 1200DPI readS..
RS200
VEHICLE NUMBER 119 FROM
A LIMITED EDITION OF 200
PREPARED FOR STUART TURNER BY
STRATTON
I had seen 119 advertised for sale in London and had been up to look at it and it had signs of a rebuild but was indeed a RS200.
I had a couple of emails from people helping me with the story which has a happy ending with a new (fast) life in New Zealand.
"In respect of 119, I think this was John Cooper's stolen car. It was a Stratton car, high spec interior.
When the car was stolen, a while later a whole load of RS200 parts were advertised in Motoring News. I was moonlighting at Graham Hathaway's at the time and someone from there went over to somewhere near Heathrow, where the parts were. As we had looked after the car for John, there were always little items that could identify parts, such as spanner marks, paint marks and so on. We thought the parts were John's car. Also in the building were a large amount of Sierra Cosworth parts. The police were notified and I think there were arrests and prison sentences. I think there were parts of about 22 cars used in the prosecution.
The car was incomplete and this would account for the parts bin look to it when you examined it. I think Hathaway may have even supplied parts for it's rebuild.
Hope this is interesting to you, I worked on all of Hathaway's race cars for a number of years, including the yellow car, which Graham and I put together and in Boreham itself. Please feel free to give me a call if you think I can give you any more information on the cars"
AND
"Hello Justin, Just to give you an update on RS200 chassis 119. You are correct in that it was stolen recovered in the late 80's. The remains (basically the bare tub was all that was left) sat in the workshop of Graham Hathaway for several years ( I know as I worked for him in 1992) and it was eventually put back together in the late 90's using many of the spares that Graham had amassed over the years, including a 450 hp engine built by Geoff Page (or psycho to those of you who know him!) Anyway, fast forward to present day, it was sitting in a dealers in London, and yes, some areas of car need attention, mainly detailing and attention to the interior trim, but mechanically it appears perfect. It has now been purchased by a friend of mine "PJ" on 3rd May 2005, and we loaded it into a container on the 4th of May, bound for its new home in New Zealand. It will be updated with better brakes, a rally spec. dog box, Pectel ECU, modern shocks (dampers to you Brits!) and used in selected tarmac rallies, there seems to be no major obstacle in running these Gp. B cars over here. Hope this helps, keep up the great work on the site.regards"
As I said, great ending and new life for a car that had a troubled start to life !
Incidentally, the night it was stolen I was on duty in Southend working a night shift when it was circulated over the radio. I thought "that can't be right" and went into the nick to check they had the model of car right and they had which was sad. Needless to say I spend all night looking for it - now I know it had gone to Heathrow rather than Southend seafront so I don't feel so bad in not finding it !
Bob Howe made this point about Strattons help in an email to me ..
"Hi Justin, Initially all cars were painted white because most of the initial orders were for rally use. Then, when the FISA ban was imposed in May 86 we did some re-thinking because virtually all the rally orders were cancelled leaving us with a different sales programme to run.. So we did an exercise with Strattons of Wilmslow who painted 2 black, 2 red and 2 mid-blue. Subsequently a number of purchasers also painted cars in different colours. I knew of at least 1 more red, 2 yellow (one belonging to Graham Hathaway). A race car in the US was painted in a scheme similar to the Boreham rally cars but with the broad blue stripe and the narrow blue stripes replaced by 3 shades of brown. Cheers, Bob H "
RS200
VEHICLE NUMBER 119 FROM
A LIMITED EDITION OF 200
PREPARED FOR STUART TURNER BY
STRATTON
I had a couple of emails from people helping me with the story which has a happy ending with a new (fast) life in New Zealand.
"In respect of 119, I think this was John Cooper's stolen car. It was a Stratton car, high spec interior.
When the car was stolen, a while later a whole load of RS200 parts were advertised in Motoring News. I was moonlighting at Graham Hathaway's at the time and someone from there went over to somewhere near Heathrow, where the parts were. As we had looked after the car for John, there were always little items that could identify parts, such as spanner marks, paint marks and so on. We thought the parts were John's car. Also in the building were a large amount of Sierra Cosworth parts. The police were notified and I think there were arrests and prison sentences. I think there were parts of about 22 cars used in the prosecution.
The car was incomplete and this would account for the parts bin look to it when you examined it. I think Hathaway may have even supplied parts for it's rebuild.
Hope this is interesting to you, I worked on all of Hathaway's race cars for a number of years, including the yellow car, which Graham and I put together and in Boreham itself. Please feel free to give me a call if you think I can give you any more information on the cars"
AND
"Hello Justin, Just to give you an update on RS200 chassis 119. You are correct in that it was stolen recovered in the late 80's. The remains (basically the bare tub was all that was left) sat in the workshop of Graham Hathaway for several years ( I know as I worked for him in 1992) and it was eventually put back together in the late 90's using many of the spares that Graham had amassed over the years, including a 450 hp engine built by Geoff Page (or psycho to those of you who know him!) Anyway, fast forward to present day, it was sitting in a dealers in London, and yes, some areas of car need attention, mainly detailing and attention to the interior trim, but mechanically it appears perfect. It has now been purchased by a friend of mine "PJ" on 3rd May 2005, and we loaded it into a container on the 4th of May, bound for its new home in New Zealand. It will be updated with better brakes, a rally spec. dog box, Pectel ECU, modern shocks (dampers to you Brits!) and used in selected tarmac rallies, there seems to be no major obstacle in running these Gp. B cars over here. Hope this helps, keep up the great work on the site.regards"
As I said, great ending and new life for a car that had a troubled start to life !
Incidentally, the night it was stolen I was on duty in Southend working a night shift when it was circulated over the radio. I thought "that can't be right" and went into the nick to check they had the model of car right and they had which was sad. Needless to say I spend all night looking for it - now I know it had gone to Heathrow rather than Southend seafront so I don't feel so bad in not finding it !