With the best will in the world, the “monster griff” will never be a competitive “Group A” car. The sheer weight of a road-bodied car makes its performance under braking and through the corners inadequate when up against a pure racer, such as a Group a Tuscan…or God forbid…a GTF! Marc Hockin managed an outright win at Brands Hatch in his tvr Power sponsored Griffith, but with so many cars appearing this year (GTFs, Cerbs, T350 etc) the likelihood of this happening again are very slim. So a racecar is required. To be completely honest here, the sight of Grant Couch’s road legal Tuscan racer (the black hawthorns car) belting down the Autobahns on our last “Monster International” sold it for me. It looked spectacular, awesome. I had been sorely tempted in the past, but had always faltered at the finishing post, as I could never sell my Griff. But now I have done it! And kept the Griff too.

Which car? Where?

Mike Caine’s Championship winning car (2000) was purchased by Warren Gilbert in 2002. Warren was Team manager for Mike in both his campaigns, first as runner-up then Champions, and when the Tuscan Challenge series finished he purchased the car (both Tuscans in fact) and formed his own Team – Topcats Racing. From there both Tuscans contested the EERC “Britcar” Endurance series, competing in several years of this arduous Championship and helping to fund the teams campaigns by also becoming well known Corporate Trackday twin-seater. It was one of the fastest ever (still holding some Tuscan lap records) and most prolific (race winning in the UK and Europe) Tuscans ever built but things have now moved on!

The car has now become the Topcats Sagaris. Chosen for development, as it was the faster of their two Tuscans, it was de-bodied and a Sagaris shell was placed on the original chassis with a bespoke roll cage. It then spent 2006 contesting the “Britcars” once more - as the Sagaris GT. With no home to go to it was abandoned to the rear of Topcats. Until last month that is. After many months, we have sourced an original and unused Tuscan Chassis that was originally bought to build a third Tuscan for a Race Team. This done we asked Warren if we could buy the body of Mike’s car (car 44) so that it could race again. Even though Topcats still races a Tuscan and the Body would be a very useful spare for his team, he agreed. “It was a great shame that we had to break the car up” said Warren “but racings racing, and that was the fastest car! Okay! You can have it. It’ll be great to see it race again.”

The “Dulford Monster”

So that’s it so far. I now have a Tuscan (one of the most important ones for my money…literally!), which we shall return to race trim over 2007 as funds permit. The car will be built in partnership with Dulford Automotive & tvrcarparts who have been so supportive over the last few years. They have loads of experience with racing and Tuscans in particular and I am very pleased to have them onboard on this project. Not much will happen over the summer as we will spend most of the time sourcing parts and preparing the body ready for a proposed build early in 2008, but its started!

In the end, the car was never built. Racing took the budget away and although we collected almost an entire car...I didn't have the time to build. The chassis and corners went to GTF and are becoming their two seater sales and development car. Meanwhile the body and all panels went to Mike Saunders who is building a car for running in the Tuscan Challenge whilst still retaining his "Yella" Cerb for GT competition. I went for a complete car. Now the Monster Tuscan which we will contest several series with including the Tuscan Challenge and Classics.