Ashley Hardtops & Bonnets
Fibreglass bonnets and hardtops for Sprites & Midgets
Ashley Laminates Limited was formed by Peter Pellandine and Keith Waddington in 1956 and in its early years produced fibreglass bodies, mainly for conversion of Austin Sevens and Ford 8s into stylish sportscars. With the arrival of the Frogeye Sprite they branched out into hardtops and lightweight forward-hinging bonnets, there being a demand to change the odd-looking Frogeye front to something more conventional and streamlined. The original Ashley hardtop was a rather bulbous affair and a lower sleeker one followed it with opening quarterlights and, for the Sprite Mk2 and Midget 1, a little bootlid to enable the spare wheel to be extracted. A new bonnet was also then introduced with a bigger air intake and a central power-bulge. The low-line hardtop was later made available for the bootless Frogeye, and the last of the Spridget hardtops had a bootlid which incorporated a small spoiler. In the mid-60s Keith Waddington died and the company continued to make hardtops and bonnets until its demise in 1972.
In recent years the tuning and race preparation company, Motobuild Racing run by Darryl Davis, has re-started production of Ashley components calling a Sprite or Midget fitted with one of his hardtops and using a Williams & Pritchard Sebring 2 bonnet, an Ashley GT, not a designation I can recall being attributed to such a car in-period though Ashley did offer what they called their "Ashley GT Range". The correct Ashley Mk 2 bonnet is available from CCK Historic.
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An early Ashley top & bonnet |
Early Ashley hardtop |
Ashley top/Speedwell front |
Later Frogeye hardtop |
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..with W & P front |
Later Ashley bonnet |
...on SS1800 Lenham GT |
Motobuild's Kamm tail |