“This is going in an Autosport Engineering supplement,” says Peter Thurston incredulously as he reveals his extraordinary Citroen 2CV8 racer, yet to turn a wheel. In place of a wheezing 602cc air-cooled flat-twin engine making a whopping 45bhp in racing trim sits a gruff 4.6-litre Rover V8. Even in mild tune, developing 280-300bhp, this powerplant should propel the circa 700kg bolide at a fair lick in a straight line.
“It’s anti-engineering really, something I’ve put together from parts lying around my workshop, purely for my own amusement,” he says. “Will it work? I don’t know, but I’ve always raced for fun and this is guaranteed to put a smile on spectators’ faces.” Societe Nationale des Escargots de Fer enthusiasts read on.
Peter Thurston Racing in Faversham, Kent, is one of Britain’s longest-established and best-respected classic Jaguar restoration specialists. The business dates back to 1992, but Thurston worked in his father’s garage long before setting it up.
“I have no formal engineering qualifications,” smiles Thurston, 61, “but I’ve spent my entire life playing with old cars, watching what skilled people do and learning from them. I had 30 working for me at one time. We’ve done cars for celebrities and prestigious film work, but I’ve always been a sucker for a project.”
The Citroen is the sum of three ideas; two that changed direction abruptly and a very competent kit car of which a few dozen may have been sold before the local enterprise hit the buffers, like so many in the industry, now in its 75th anniversary in Britain having been pioneered by Derek Buckler in 1949.
“A customer commissioned me to build a sort of Austin Seven Salamander replica, which looked old but had a modern engine,” explains Thurston. “As he wanted it to handle, I reckoned a [Lotus] Seven-esque chassis would be ideal.
“It was about half-done when I found an Austin Big Seven chassis with an identity and the plan altered [to use that]. I’d made the two-seater boat-tailed body from wood and aluminium, and the 1600cc Ford crossflow engine on twin Weber carbs is done, but the owner prioritised other cars so it’s on the back burner.
“As I’d agreed to buy the GTS Panther ‘show chassis’ from agent Rally Design [to underpin it], I wasn’t going to renege on the deal. I got it in 2016 or 2017, so it had been gathering dust on the mezzanine for seven or eight years.
“I’d also been asked to restore a Triumph Stag with a Rover V8 engine and transmission instead of the originals, thus acquired everything before the customer changed his mind. I sold the car to a Triumph specialist, but ‘won’ the engine and new Rimmer Brothers LT77 gearbox. That set me thinking about marrying them with the Panther chassis and dropping a saloon body over the top.
“The idea first struck me in 2004 when battling Ben de Zille Butler’s crisp-handling Caterham at Brands Hatch in the Group C2 Spice-suspended Honda Prelude-Cosworth YB turbocar. I’d outrun him past the pits, but he’d outbrake me into Paddock. Very frustrating.”
"The rear wing is something I knocked up in a morning to complement the aesthetic. But I’ll probably work through several options"
Peter Thurston
The man behind the GTS Panther – described as “a genius” by veteran kit car guru Steve Hole, publisher of TKC magazine – was Darren George, who had worked with John Barnard of Lola Cars and F1 Ferrari fame. “They spoke the same language,” said Hole. However, like so many clever engineers focused on cars, George’s business failed, despite him being credited with solving the steering issue Achilles’ heel of Ron Champion’s original Locost design, and selling countless parts to fix it.
So Thurston’s bolide should be persuaded to go round corners, at least once adjustable rose-jointed suspension replaced the standard headwear. The chassis, which Thurston has panelled beautifully and added further stout roll hoops, cross braces, door bars and stays, resembles a steroidal caricature of the fabled Deux Chevaux while retaining its charm. While the wheelbase of the utilitarian French machine is an inch different to the Panther’s, the body’s height alters the proportions radically.
Indeed, the underpinnings create a curious ‘back seat’ driving position, accessed through rear-hinged suicide doors. From the cockpit, front corner visibility, crucial for apex-clipping, looks compromised. It’s not dissimilar to the six-wheeled F1 Tyrrell P34s’ of 1976-77, but without a helpful cockpit side window. Thurston may find himself peering through the air vents under the windscreen for accurate placement until he gets used to the unconventional sightline.
The shell itself had its floor cut out, but the rag top aperture is filled with sheet aluminium fixed to steel ribs for rigidity and covered in vinyl. “No 2CV is complete without a knobbly roof,” grins Thurston, who crafted the striking fibreglass front wheel arches, a foot wider than the originals at 71 inches, and the clamshell bonnet with its cheeky grille. The rear arches are work in progress as 13in Compomotive wheels in 10 and 12in widths with different offsets will replace the temporary 8s and 10s from the parts bin, and shroud the Wilwood brakes up front.
“The rear wing is something I knocked up in a morning to complement the aesthetic,” says Thurston. “But I’ll probably work through several options, including a one-off whale tail made by a local fibreglass guy, another spoiler to generate frontal downforce and a rear diffuser, before deciding on the final look.” The livery was created by Capri and Eurocar V8 racer Luke Bennett of Heron Workwear & Graphics, a neighbour on the trading estate.
Thurston has previous with the aluminium Rover V8s from his beloved Ford Escort, acquired from Lydden regular Mick Tester. Upsized to five litres, it was good for 160mph plus. The Citroen’s unit is deliberately mild, at least to begin with.
“It’s pretty standard, with iron crank, a Piper fast road cam, breathing through a quartet of Chinese copy Weber IDA down-draught carburettors,” he says. “I found a Formula Ford 2000 dry sump and pump on eBay, cut and shut the vee in the Pinto oil pan and added some baffles. When everything’s working I could build a 4.8 or five-litre engine with cross-bolted mains to get 400bhp. That’s over 600bhp/ton, more than a Bugatti Veyron!
“People reckoned I’d have trouble getting the engine, ’box and exhausts in, but I enjoyed the challenge. The rear end is stock Sierra, so the propshaft is [a spliced] Rover front/Ford rear to mate with gearbox output shaft and diff, currently a 3.62:1 Quaife Powrlok unit.”
A similar five-speed ’box withstood the torque of the Escort’s big engine without complaint: “To be honest I never changed the gearbox oil in 13 years, but rebuilt the ZF plate diff after every race.”
Thurston’s previous 2CV competition experience is a handful of events in a local Citroen dealer’s Wall Clippers car in 1991 – “I was paid £200 per race” – and the Mondello 24 Hours in 1992, which needless to say was a hoot. Plus he drove one, packed to its gunwales with luggage and outboard engines, for 23 and a half hours solid from Dunkirk in France to Ancona, on Italy’s east coast, a distance of 1500km. Following a ferry across the Adriatic, the epic journey continued south to his boat in Greece in 1994: “I lived on it for a year, using the Citroen as a runabout.”
His wacky racer is a very different kettle of fish. Since we saw it a couple of weeks back, the engine has been fired up for the first time from the driving seat.
“I’m looking forward to getting it on track, driving it and finding out how it works,” says Thurston. “I have no idea what to expect, but it should be entertaining and go like stink in a straight line. Considering how little it has cost to date it will be the cheapest car on the Special Saloon grid.” And among the most photographed, like Mike Berman’s ultimate Rover V8-motivated E93A Ford Popular ‘Berpop’ 50 years ago, fond memories of which it evokes.
A thirst for speed
Peter Thurston grew up around motorsport. His NSU scooter dealer father, also Peter, raced a front-engined Elva-BMC 100 Formula Junior in 1961, then put a Heron Europa kit car body over it, naming it Prima GT.
When Thurston Sr’s wife banned him from buying a Lotus 22, he made his own early Formula Ford, from which young Pete saw him ejected at Brands Hatch and hospitalised. Undeterred, Jr grass tracked as a teenager, then tried bangers “with a Ford Capri 3000GT. I was on £40 a week and in my third meeting won £36. But it wasn’t for me!
“John Sabourin [winner of the 1974 Luanda 2 Hours sportscar race, sharing a March 74S he prepared] got me into circuit racing. He’d moved to Kent and worked for me. We watched Paul Sleeman and Tim Barry in Formule Libre at Lydden and when I saw a Royale RP29 for sale I couldn’t resist. It scared me initially, but I said I would so went through with it. I was 26.”
Having raced the Honda Prelude – built by ex-Alan Mann Racing engineer Jim Morgan for Rod Birley – in the interim, Thurston sold the Escort back to the Costello family in 2009, but misses it
In the ex-Chris Hall works Jamun M89, he became Lydden FF champion in 1990, his first season. “When John persuaded me I needed a ground-effect F2 car for Libre, I bought the ex-Quique Mansilla March 832 back from South Africa with a Mazda rotary engine,” he adds. Turbocharging the raucous unit quietened it, and much fun was had tearing round with Eddie McLurg’s BMW M12-powered 822.
But Thurston is synonymous with the DJ Invicta radio Ford Escort Mk1 that Barry Costello and Maurice Lyon bought as a shell, traced back to Whitley Bay tailor Johnny Blades and Scot Walter Robertson. They installed a 3.5-litre Rover V8 from a P5B found in a field, but Pete went the whole hog. A spectacular ride, ClassicFord’s January 2003 cover star bounced back from massive shunts at Lydden and Brands to thrill anew. Having raced the Honda Prelude – built by ex-Alan Mann Racing engineer Jim Morgan for Rod Birley – in the interim, Thurston sold the Escort back to the Costello family in 2009, but misses it.
Later dalliances with the ex-Pat ‘Revolution Wheels’ Mannion FF2000 Delta-based Stiletto-Ford [now Ray Rowan’s], Holden Special Vehicles [Tom Walkinshaw] built Commodore VZ and unique self-converted Jaguar XJ40/300 hybrid underline his enduring passion for tin-tops.
