Last week we featured a car that has been hidden in the shadow cast by its more glamorous sibling, and this week, our Prime Find is a car with a similar tale to tell.
When the Reliant Scimitar comes up for discussion, it’s usually the shooting-brake GTE that people talk about, and indeed we have two very enthusiastic owners of the GTE on the ViaRETRO team. Besides those two obviously famous gentlemen, the best-known owner of the GTE was Princess Anne, who is believed to have run as many as nine over the years, and still has a Middlebridge version.
However, the car on which the GTE was based comes up less often and has a less prominent profile even among fans of the Tamworth marque – at least, that’s how it seems to me. This weekend’s Prime Find is one of that lesser-spotted species, the Scimitar GT, and this one looks like a particularly fine example.
Introduced in 1964 as the successor to the Reliant Sabre, the Scimitar’s styling was based on a Daimler SP250 prototype designed by Ogle, the 1962 Ogle SX250. When Daimler decided not to use that design, Reliant acquired the rights to it. It was adapted to fit the Sabre’s chassis and also inherited that model’s engine, a Ford 2.5-litre straight-six, with power boosted to 120bhp, enough to propel the car to a top speed just under 190km/h, or almost 120mph.
A couple of years later, after a little under 300 of these straight-six versions – known as the SE4 – had been built, the Scimitar got its first serious upgrade in the form of the Ford Essex 3-litre V6.
Reliant GT’s competing at Shelsley Walsh Hill Climb
This necessitated quite a few additional modifications and at the same time the interior was also improved, resulting in a car that the Autocar magazine praised for its “high performance…effortless cruising…light, accurate steering” as well as excellent brakes and handling. Top speed was now 121mph/205km/h and the sprint from 0-60mph was accomplished in exactly ten seconds; not bad at all.
Known as the SE4A, almost 600 of these were built, as well as 118 examples with a 2.5-litre version of the V6, and the GT continued in production until 1970, even though it’s replacement, the GTE, was already on sale from 1968.
Alternatives to the Scimitar GT back in the day would have included such fine machines as the Volvo P1800, Alfa Romeo Sprint GTV and of course the Ford Capri 3000GT, which shared the same power unit. While the Scimitar might have lacked the brand glamour of rivals such as these, none of them had – nor has today – the same level of exclusivity.
Some alternatives to the Scimitar GT
Another point in favour of the Scimitar is that it’s fibreglass body won’t rust – though it can craze, so close inspection is necessary before buying – and use of the Ford engine as well as other manufacturer parts means spares support is pretty good.
Incidentally, alongside the Jensen Interceptor, isn’t Scimitar another of the coolest names in British motoring history?
Now we come to our Prime Find, a 1968 SE4A which goes under the hammer at H and H’s June 22nd auction at the Imperial War Museum in Duckworth. This was the actual Reliant press car back then, featuring in lots of the company’s marketing material. Since it’s time as the company press car, its ownership history is traceable back to 1975, before finding its way into current ownership in 2014 in a bit of a sorry state, with work on the car starting in 2019 as a full body-off project. This has not been limited to the bodywork – now finished in a very fetching shade of Iris Blue – and a re-trimmed interior; several mechanical improvements were also made, including but not limited to the addition of power steering, a limited slip differential and disc brakes on all four wheels. It’s also worth pointing out that this is a substantially more powerful Scimitar than usual – a rolling road report is included in the paperwork, showing power output of very nearly 210bhp!
The colour suits the car fabulously well – I don’t know if it’s an original Reliant shade but it complements the car’s purposeful lines beautifully – the styling as a whole works well, the four headlights endowing the car with some extra visual muscle and perceived performance. I particularly like the clean, distinctive yet very simple tail-light arrangement, and prefer it to the more conventional set-up on the GTE, and the Minilites look just right, too.
Based on the photos on the auctioneers’ website, this GT Coupé appears to be in almost perfect condition – after all, the restoration is only a couple of years old – and with an estimate range of just £13,000 to £15,000 looks to be a bit of a bargain to my eyes, a reflection perhaps of the relative unfashionability of the GT compared to the GTE or indeed the P1800 or the Capri – either of those in this condition would be £10-15,000 more.
The car comes with a substantial history file, including invoices for the restoration work, period adverts for the Scimitar GT and a workshop manual. The full lot entry, complete with many additional photographs, can be seen here, and as always, if this immaculately presented specialist British GT might be the classic for you, we recommend arranging an inspection before you raise your bidder’s paddle.
With our Saturday instalment of Prime Find of the Week, we’re offering our services to the classic car community, by passing on our favourite classic car for sale from the week that passed. This top-tip might help a first-time-buyer to own his first classic, or it could even be the perfect motivation for a multiple-classic-car-owner to expand his garage with something different. We’ll let us be inspired by anything from a cheap project to a stunning concours exotic, and hope that you will do the same.
Just remember – Any Classic is Better than No Classic! We obviously invite our readers to help prospective buyers with your views and maybe even experiences of any given model we feature. Further to that, if you stumble across a classic which you feel we ought to feature as Prime Find of the Week, then please send us a link to primefindoftheweek@viaretro.co.u