HISTORY






HISTORY OF TIM - Complete Kit Car Article

Many years ago a customer scanned this article for us, unfortunately his scanner was not up to much but we show the write-up so at least you can see the photos
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIM
In 1969 Tim Dutton-Woolley successfully completed a 5 year indentured tool making apprenticeship with Pressed Steel Ltd. in Swindon UK. At that time they were making body shells for the Mk X Jaguar and BMC 1100. As soon as the 5 years training was over he built his first car (1968). Deciding that naming a car a 'Woolley' was not a particularly clever idea he settled on Dutton instead.

As an aside Tim's father Commander Edward.D.Woolley GM & bar pre and post WW11 use to build "Specials" (as kit cars were then called) he called his "Edwools" - no IVA tests in 1935 or indeed any vehicle regulations in 1935 - oh joy!

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"Something" in 1935!
Dutton will always consider taking up a business challenge, this has resulted in him being proud to be involved with over 14 companies during the last 56 years (and there is still much more to come):-

Tim Now
Then Now

DUTTON SPORTS LTD 1968 - 1973 manufacturer of production cars and boats, sold on to Dutton cars

The first Dutton, the Mantis registered November 1968. Kudos to DVLA that you can still check this on their "MOT check web site" (YBP 721G)
DUTTON CARS LTD 1973 - 1989 During this time Dutton Cars rose to become the largest kit car company in the world producing over 8000 vehicles. At its height over 80 staff were employed and production hit 22 cars/week spread over 4 factory sites covering 25,000 sq. ft. in Worthing, West Sussex. For most kit car companies building 22 cars in their entire existence would be considered an achievement.
In 1979 Dutton launched a new "off road" look-alike, the Sierra. In 1982 Ford Motor Co wrote to him advising that they wanted to use the name on their Cortina/Taunus replacement and gave him 3 months to stop using the name. Always being one to fully appreciate the benefits of free publicity Dutton was in no mood to relinquish the name and made his thoughts patently clear to FMC. There then followed a year of discussions which came to nothing and FMC took Dutton to the High Court in London, the case took 5 days and Ford lost, Dutton continued to use the name Sierra until its production ceased in 1989.
By 1989 Dutton had lost faith in the kit car industry with many companies ripping off other companies designs. Lotus 7/Countach/Cobra etc etc ... and it was time to get out. In 1989 Dutton had 11 different vehicles in production and it soon became apparent that no one company wanted to purchase the whole of Dutton Cars so it was split into 3 and successfully sold off
DUTTON/POLSKI FIAT (FSO) 1979 Dutton was approached by an intermediary to design an open 2 seater sports car for the FSO factory in Poland based on the Polski Fiat P125. Prototypes were made and delivered to Warsaw by Dutton. 1979 was at the start of the "troubles" at Gdansk and various directors "disappeared" so the project was dropped

Outside FSO factory in Poland.
The following companies were formed in the 70's and 80's with Dutton being either a director or shareholder or both :-
STARBRIGHT LTD formed to sell 4X4 K5 Blazers imported from the US. At 10 miles to the gallon these ceased to be sellable in the UK when petrol reached £1/gallon (those were the good old days!)
EAGLE CARS LTD formed to sell the US version of the de-funked Nova, within a couple of years this became the 2nd largest kit car company in the UK and was taking up too much of Duttons time so he resigned his directorship and disposed of his shares - the company traded for many years after that with his cousin at the helm.
CARMONA ENGINEERING (Italy) formed to manufacture aluminium road wheels near Turin. This unfortunately coincided with most vehicle manufacturers offering aluminium wheels as standard equipment so sales were very slow.
DUTTON/MOKE Dutton was approached by Austin Rover in the late 80's to become the sole UK importer of the Portuguese built Mini Moke. Dozens were sold thru the Dutton showroom in Worthing then Austin Rover decided that their manufacturing plant in Lisbon was not producing cars to a "high enough standard", so they shut the factory. Rather ironic as the Moke was one of the only cars that Austin Rover ever made that anyone actually wanted to own.


GOODWOOD REPAIR PANELS formed to repair space frame chassis and composite body parts
TIMEKITE LTD a motor magazine publishing company
PARTEX DISCOUNT LTD formed to sell new parts to kit car builders. Ceased trading when the kit car market crashed in the early 90's
LANGLEY SPORTS LTD formed to manufacture electric golf buggies and personnel carriers. Successful for a couple of years until the Japanese repeated what they did to the UK motorbike market - they imported products into the UK for less money than we could even buy the parts for.

Dutton and Dennis Thatcher.

HACKER ENGINEERING LTD originally formed to sell a fully built Type Approved sports car - the Hacker Maroc - based on the Ford Fiesta floor pan. Owing to the pressures of work the project was sold off. The company turned to consultancy and designed and built many vehicles for companies in the UK, India, Iran, Guadeloupe, Russia and Nigeria

Hacker Maroc 1992.
AMPHIBIOUS CARS 1994 A factory at Littlehampton Marina was located and production of the first Dutton amphibious cars started. In 1998 we were the first kit car company in the World to have a web site - www.timdutton.com - In 2023 the entire amphib manufacturing facility was sold off to our Polish distributor who is now producing the Surf and Reef. Full info still on our amphib web site
1992 There was a major fire at the Worthing factory. Every project was destroyed (free tip for other manufacturers - if you have 2 prototypes don't keep them in the same factory). The factory took over a year to rebuild by which time everything had ground to a halt. The staff were made redundant and Dutton had lost virtually everything. This forced Dutton to re-think his direction and the decision was made to design and produce amphibious cars



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