Dutton,not as bad as some say

[madmartin]

In the " You can't faught their ambition" thread someone asked why dont we start a thread on our cars, well folks here it is,

 

Firstly i will agree, Dutons are seen as being shite, generally by people who have never owned or driven one , which is unfortunate, so what are they actually like ? best way to discribe it is an go cart on steroids

 

Mechanically they are genuinely sound, these were designed to use ford parts, the crossflow or pinto, but can take anything you can shoehorn in , where they do fall down though on the early ones is the chassis, most of us have welded in strengthing triangulation, but on the later chassis that was sorted ,

 

For many years i looked after a friends dutton, repaired it, overhauled it , kept it on the road for him, but didnt own one myself, i did though at one point have a locost, and later a charger, now if you want to call any kit car shite, then that was the charger, VW beetle mechanics, bodywork that didnt look right and it broke down far too often, when i borrowed the dutton, i was hooked, a far better handling car and fun . the charger though wasnt, the road holding was awefull., so i sold the charger and purchased when it came up a year later a Dutton Melos , this was a right state, been stripped down parts lost, or sold but most of it was there, and it came with a 2.0 pinto and a spare head, these i sold on and used the money to buy what ever bits were missing and a 1300 crossflow, because i already had a 1300 gearbox and back axle if people want, i will continue this thread, but i am sure others who use their Duttons as a daily drive want to tell you their story of living with probally one of the most derided kit cars out there

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Fair play to ya for sticking with your dutton. I guess like all kit cars, they are as good or as shite as the guy who nails it all together. I reckon a lot of their shite rep is due to ham-fisted owners making wiring looms out of shoelaces and twin & earth and so on rather than a particular weakness of the car design. Any pics of yours?

[HillmanImp]

You have to hand it to Worthing. It might be a shithole but it is a mecca for fucking shite cars.

 

Not only did Dutton spring up from there you had IAD who designed the Daewoo Matiz and the Nubria amongst a whole host of totally shite concept cars that never went into production.

 

In the middle they did design the MX5, a slight blip of reasonably good form on the shite graph, mirroring the period of Robbie Williams career when her paired up with that Guy Chambers chap and made some half decent music in between the half cocked, ill thought out shit that he did before and after.

 

If anyone wants to look at some of the shit that IAD vomited out its listed here:

 

http://www.carstyling.ru/en/studios/studio/I_dot_A_dot_D/

 

And we need photos of the Duttons you have. Judging by your posts defending them and your eternal optimism trying to convince the readers of Autoshite that they should love them, warts and all I bet yours are lovely* well looked after examples.

 

 

*relatively speaking.

[Rebuilda]

Meant to do this last night

You are so right about the way these were put together. People used to buy them because they were relatively cheap, recycle and old escort or triumph and were quite happy with what they had produced in the garden shed. Now days peoples expectations of kit cars have changed and older builds that haven't been maintained are bloody lethal by todays standards. As a club we are trying to change that image by rebuilding some of the cars to a much higher standard.

The photo's I am posting below have all been taken by me or other club members over the last 7 years at shows up and down the country. The last photo was taken yesterday, not by me, but at a show where the owner picked up 5 trophies for that Phaeton. There may be a few that take a while to load as I don't have access to photo editing software on this laptop.

 

My winter car for 2012.

New Toy by Adrian Southgate, on Flickr

 

My Legerra back in 2007.

IMG_2029[bW] by Adrian Southgate, on Flickr

 

Ed's Legerra taken at Donington this year.

IMG_9523 by Adrian Southgate, on Flickr

 

Although this is a 'work in progress' you get the idea..

 

Allan's Phaeton.

 

Thing is with all Dutton's, you have to be slightly mad to own one, even madder to want to boast about it. They started out cheap and cheeful but some of the ones you don't see are actually quite tidy. The ones for sale on fleabay are normally sheds, part finished projects or 'track cars' that have had the plates transferred onto a new build to avoid the IVA (which pisses me right off )

Mock us if you wish, we can take it, we love our shite just like you guys.

[dollywobbler]

Hold on. IAD didn't design the Matiz. Guigaro did. It was mean to be a Fiat.

 

Back to Dutton, they may be decent to drive but the looks have always been questionable at best. The Phaeton and Sierra aren't too bad really, but some of the others are truly shocking! Naturally I'd probably still own one...

[Rebuilda]

I have to agree. The Rico and Cantera are very odd to say the least. My mrs thinks the Sierra looks like a lada, hates it. But she likes the Legerra so thats ok.

Luckily there were only 6 Cantera's made so we don't get to see many... although I know where there are two.

One we have skipped over is the Beneto, the MK2 escort based follow up to the Sierra and although its not a superb example being all shiny and clean, this onme has been a regular daily driver for 12 years for the owner and is very well sorted mechanically etc. I like them, problem is they all seem to have vanished, probably all got undertarpitis by now.

 

 

 

The green Legerra has done over 40,000 miles in 6 years, something it was never originally designed to do as a 'toy' car, its got me to work and back in torrential rain, snow and of course those rare days like today when the roof comes off and its a great little drive. I don't own a tin top any more, the last one was a 105E, wouldn't go back to a 'normal' car.

[outlaw118]

Back in 1989 i looked into buying a Sierra; a mate had just written off an Escort 1600 GL but all the required mechanical bits were ok, and at the time stuff like doors and other body parts were still fairly readily available, either as NOS or at breakers.

 

The purchase price was reasonable, but I had all sorts of arse-ache trying to get an insurance quote. I was 19 at the time, and the quotes were astronomical(at the time).

Also, as it was going to be a weekend project, and my mechanical skills(?) were limited I needed to get something as a daily as my R4 had just spectacularly failed it's Mot, so I bought a Mark 3 Escort, with a view to collecting bits for the Dutton as I went along.

I bought my mates Mk2, rented a council garage, took it to bits, then next doors garage caught fire while i was on holiday. Garage and contents fried to a crisp.

So that was that.

 

A narrow escape? Perhaps. If I had the time etc etc, would quite fancy a Rico or a Sierra with a V6 in.....

[Pete-M]

There's a chap near me who's had a Dutton Sierra V8 for years. Mad thing, 5.0 Rover V8 in it. It's quick, but he built it to tow stuff, which seems like madness to me.

 

I also know of a Phaeton that has been in a friends garage for at least 15 years. Well sorted 1760 x/flow in it. It was quite quick and well sorted but hasn't moved for a long, long time. I will dig it out at some point.

[garethj]

Good on you for driving a Dutton, my daily driver for a while was a Ginetta G26 which I took from this

 

to this

 

Before selling it on and the next owner driving it into a bridge Kit cars can be a cheap way into fun motoring but you depend on the initial design, the hooligan that nailed it together and the previous owners. It's like the lottery of buying a BL car only with an extra variable

 

I'd have another

[garethj]

I think we should club together and buy this handy kitcar company that's up for sale.

 

http://www.murtayasportscars.co.uk/

 

I've got loads of hair-brained schemes that would end in financial disaster, I'm clearly qualified

[Rebuilda]

The G26 always seemed like a practical car, you know, roof, doors, locks and a boot into the bargain. Shame what happened to yours, looked nice when you had finished it.

 

Murataya being up for sale is a bit of a shock. I spoke to one of the owners at Stafford kit car show last year (2011) and everything seemed to be going well with the impreza based monster. There are loads of 'barried' WRX's in the salvage yards.

I blame the government..

[Pete-M]

Those Murtaya things are bloody brilliant. Huge amount of want from me.

[RedSparrow]

Nice write-up, thanks.

Those Legerras are quite smart looking. Are they based on something else? Escort?

[Rebuilda]

Escort drive train with english or atlas axle on Dutton five link rear suspension, front end is escort lower suspension arm, and Dutton top wishbone, maxi upper ball joint on modified escort strut. Shortened prop shaft. Most common are 1600 xflow powered ones but I think the pinto/type 9 conversion runs a close second.

It was supposed to be big enough for a V6 Essex lump but thats a tight fit.

According to the old points rules it was just possible to keep the donor reg if you used every single part you could from the donor car. Most ended up with a Q plate.

[scaryoldcortina]

Escort drive train with english or atlas axle on Dutton five link rear suspension, front end is escort lower suspension arm, and Dutton top wishbone, maxi upper ball joint on modified escort strut. Shortened prop shaft.

 

My problem with duttons is in bold. Every one I've seen looks like a badly welded POS, and the way it is done (hack through the shock tube on the mac strut, then weld 2 lugs onto it and plonk a maxi ball joint into the hole) gives me shivers every time I think about it. Same goes for the two flat plate brackets welded onto the escort bottom arm to locate the coilover. If I found mods like these on a production car at MoT I'd have to fail it, but on a dutton it's a design characteristic!

 

Ps, I'm not a kit car hater either!

[Rebuilda]

The Legerra has the shock mount on the upper wishbone, no pigeon poo welding anywhere in sight so I bet he outsourced

Same goes for the welding on my cut down struts although I have seen some that were 'not so good'.

At least the metal is a decent thickness, have you seen the paper thin rear suspension arms on an 02 plate mondeo... now thats scary.

[madmartin]

Escort drive train with english or atlas axle on Dutton five link rear suspension, front end is escort lower suspension arm, and Dutton top wishbone, maxi upper ball joint on modified escort strut. Shortened prop shaft.

 

My problem with duttons is in bold. Every one I've seen looks like a badly welded POS, and the way it is done (hack through the shock tube on the mac strut, then weld 2 lugs onto it and plonk a maxi ball joint into the hole) gives me shivers every time I think about it. Same goes for the two flat plate brackets welded onto the escort bottom arm to locate the coilover. If I found mods like these on a production car at MoT I'd have to fail it, but on a dutton it's a design characteristic!

 

Ps, I'm not a kit car hater either!

Oh believe you me, there are a lot worse than that, i have never known one to break its top mount, so it must be strong enough, i would be more concerned with rear u bolts that have had the trailing arm mounts welded on, than the front set up its a bit of a sweeping statement to say that every one is a POS i would bet that you get more tin tops that are failures than kit cars. go on just admit it you dont like kit cars, you will feel better once you gave come out of the closet and showed your true self

[dollywobbler]

I've decided that if Autoshite did T-shirts, one of them would need this subject title as a slogan.