KAZ, who’s been building kit cars since the seventies, scanned a few photos from his archives for us. From start to finish below are a Bradley GT, a Kelmark GT, a Laser 917, a Marauder GT, a 40s-style Willy VW conversion, and a Talon.
He built lots of Bradleys, including three Bradley GT cars for a Bradley dealership that opened in Houston in ‘76, who unfortunately went under months later. He also built four Kelmarks — this one below with the great paint job was done by Richard Hildebrandt of Houston. He also bought a Kelmark from the insurance company that had been built by Kelmark themselves and was stolen, then recovered it at the Mexican border where the thieves were apprehended. It was fast, with a 2100 cc dual carb VW engine, and an awesome Blaupunkt stereo.
Following up on the coverage I’ve given the Matula recently, here’s an article on the four-seater version (a rarity in exotics — although those back seats were tiny) of the Talon GT. Like many kits of this type, few cars — if any — other than the original prototype ever saw the road. Thanks to Joe Lee for scanning in this old article by John G. Rettie in HotVW (Nov 1980) for us.
THE TALON GT
IT’S A REAL TWO-PLUS-TWO GRAND TOURER
Long-time readers may well remember the issue when we featured the Talon kit car produced by Ed Matula from Panorama City, California. At that time he stated that his real dream was to produce a sleek 2+2 GT car. Ever since then, Ed has been developing the Talon GT 2+2 that you see in the accompanying pictures.
As I mentioned in the previous entry on the Matula kit car, it passed through four manufacturers. The last two (”Bart Holland” and “HD Replica Cars”) sold the car with Delorean-like gullwing doors rather than a flip-top like Bas’s version that’s in the first entry. The example below belonged to Hans Schouten until he sold it in 1999 — I believe his Manx SR-style scissor doors were a one-off conversion.
Another rare kit car classic is the Matula, designed in 1972 by Ed Matula and tested in NASA’s wind tunnel. In the States it was sold as the Talon, but after being discontinued there it was sold from 1975-1984 in Holland as the Matula by a series of companies. Pictured below is the two seater version (but it also existed as a 2+2), which belongs to Bas from Speedon Kitcar Collection, the largest kitcar dealer on the European continent — check his site for tons of great cars for sale. Bas estimates that somewhere between ten and fifteen Matulas exist. He’s since sold his, which he restored and swapped a Ford Cortina engine into in the nineties.
There’s also a video of a Matula on YouTube.
Recent Comments