“Hi,
I just came across your page looking for my late fathers car 712 PTB, he was Graham Bloor owner of one of the three Sebrings built by him, looks like the owner is currently Brent Fowler.
Some history for the archives:
The car was actually first sold to Alastair Chalmers in the early 2000’s, as he had sold his original car, Alastair raced it in Europe for a few years but stopped and was sat in his garage for some time as he was racing his Caterams, then he sold it to Ivor Watson, a friend of his just before the end of 2015 when Alastair moved out to NZ. Ivor was racing TVR’s prior to that but ended up selling it as it was not fast enough for him even after modifications that he made, believe it was fitted with a 1340 engine and single webber to compete in FISC. Car was swapped for a Caterham but was never able to locate it from then on.
Originally all three cars were built from the frame up by my father, he did all the bodywork except for the bonnets which were made by John Hopwood from a mould he made from a steel bonnet (he came to my fathers funeral in 2022 and told me he still has the mould!) Interestingly John still has his original car and still competes with it. My father also hand made the inner wings out of aluminium for all the cars and painted the cars in his business body shop workshop (Accident Repair Service, Knutsford, Cheshire, now closed). Engines at the time were 948 overbored to 998 and running 1-1/2 SU’s. Engines were built by RaceSpec by Phil Hepworth. John Hopwood was certainly the brains of the operation with design and build of things like custom adjustable brake balance, roll cage design and build and much more that I can’t remember as was when I was only around 18-19. I did race the car myself (pic attached with me next to my father at my first race at Oulton Park. All cars also raced at Spa one year.
I moved to the USA in 1995 and in 2019 was looking for the car to purchase myself but was unable to find it, I now own a 1960 race Frogeye and compete with SCCA at Sebring, it is not however a Sebring Sprite. I hope to one day own my father’s car.
Great website and nice to see history and archives of these cars, they are very close to my heart.
best regards, Austin Bloor”.
