Anyway I thought I had to share this one with you guys…
A Championship that was popular for a while in the mid 70’s was called “Supersaloons”.
The basis of this series were cars with the silhouette of a production car, but with unlimited modifications. One exception was that the engine had to be roughly in the same position as it was originally in the car – which meant up front or out back...
As a result, rear engine cars became the most popular allowing a mid engine entry.
This quickly developed into former single seater race cars like Ex Formula 1 (not as expensive a proposition as this would be today) and Formula 5000’s being used with simple lightweight GRP shells mounted over the top of them.
Racing together were Imp’s, Skoda’s, and the odd Beetle, but the ones that are of most interest to us here are the VW1600 Fastbacks!
The one that was the most successful and well known was the DFVW (Cosworth DFV engine and VW car – get it?!)
The car was built by Colin Wilson who raced it to championship winning success in 76 and 77.
Here it is in the paddock at Brands Hatch around that time.

Note the bonnet treatment which cleverly retains the silhouette of the original, but lowers the front to improve the aerodynamics – nice!
Interestingly the car it was based on was the Gordon Murray designed (He of Brabham F1 and later Mclaren Road Car fame), Alan de Cadenet (Amanda’s Dad for the FHM / Loaded readers amongst you


As an aside, Colin’s long time sponsor the Toleman Group, entered Formula 1 as a constructor in their own right in 1981, and in 1984 gave a young Brazilian driver by the name of Ayton Senna his start in F1.
They were bought by the Benetton in 86 who were then more recently bought by Renault.
Anyway I digress…
The car was sold to Walter Robinson in early 78 who modified it as it’s seen here at Croft in “high downforce” mode.

Not much is known about it after that, but apparently things have now gone full circle and it has recently been restored as the De Cadenet again – which of course is a great shame…
More to follow…