About Tough to Crack Car Puzzle #198: 1963 Attila MK7

Last week’s pre-war quiz is not solved yet and there are still a lot of different opinions. The focus might be on that quiz and not on this week's Puzzle as we only received 4 answers and only 2 of the top 5 participated. Another reason might be that the puzzle was ‘just hard to crack’!

We received this photo from our friends at Autopuzzles.com. Thank you guys!

 

What it is? Not an Autralian Bolwell, as Richard McKenna mentioned. Nor a Huffaker Genie CanAm car, as D. Macnab thought. But our regular participant Robbie Marenzi was the first one to give the right answer: Attila MK7 built in 1963 in England by Roy Pierpoint, one of a series of nine cars, homologated in 1965. It has a Hewland LG500 gearbox and a dry sump Chevrolet V8.

Neil Beadle added to that: powered by a dry sump V8 Chevrolet engine with 4 twin choke Weber carburettors. The ingenious front suspension was a clever design with vertical inboard coilover shock absorbers. Attila cars were built by Racing Developments of North London and later Woking in Surrey. The designer was Val Dare-Bryan, formerly of Lotus (and the designer of, amongst other things, the fantastic mini based Unipower), the builder was Mark Perry, and it was funded by racing driver Roy Pierpoint who raced Attilas with some success in the 1960s.

Neil also gave us a source where one was in an auction, earlier this year. See Bonhams Goodwood Members meeting (click).

Thank you Robbie and Neil for telling us more about this very unusual racing car.

 

As Neil gave us most information, we declare him the winner of this week's quiz and he is now able to reduce the gap between him and the number one to 6 points! Good luck next time!

 

The current top 5 in the six months competition, sponsored by Hans Compter Rare Cars:

1. Gerd Klioba - 34 points
2. Neil Beadle - 28 points
3. Fritz Hegemann - 21 points
4. Robbie Marenzi - 23 points
5. Ace Zenek - 13 points