TMC Costin

Why is it that whenever anyone cracks the code — Lotus 7, Porsche 911, Citroën 2CV, Austin Mini — pretenders start to come from the woodwork with their own interpretations on the theme. 

For every Mini, there are a half dozen soul-less compact cars; for every Citroën 2CV, there are hundreds of tin can econoboxes sold at a bargain price; for every Porsche 911, there’s an entire sports car industry trying to best the Porsche 911.

The Lotus 7, a car simple enough to assemble in the shed, pre-Internet? Thousands of pretenders. The most loved vehicles seem to get the most love from those hoping to improve upon it.

However: if there was anyone in Britain to improve upon the Lotus 7, it would have to be Frank Costin.

An aerospace engineer by trade, he became involved early in Colin Chapman's Lotus Engineering Ltd., notably designing the bodywork for the Formula 1 Constructor's Championship-winning Vanwall VW5 after Chapman had been contracted to design the car for Tony Vandervell. (From Wikipedia: [Vandervell] made his fortune from the production of Babbitt Thin-Wall bearings by his company Vandervell Products. Imagine having bearing money!)

Costin was also one of the first to adopt the NACA duct on his race car designs, and co-founded Marcos — named after founders Jem Marsh and Frank Costin.

(His brother, engine specialist Mike Costin, also brought the 'Cos' in Cosworth.)

Frankly, Costin knew how to design race cars. I'll even go so far as to say that he's the partly the reason most race cars looked like they did through the 1950s and ’60s — certainly until spoilers and wings came into use.

Later in life, Costin was contracted by an upstart car company called Thompson Manufacturing Company (TMC), so-named for the four Irish brothers who founded the company. Wikipedia's overview on the company is short, sweet, and accurate — from how it was funded to how Frank Costin would be paid for his services.

Back to the car…

Designed to be a far better aerodynamic shape than the original, with its small protruding trunk, the new car would have a semi-enclosed targa-top'd cabin, curved windshield, and sloped rear hatch section.

Features, baby — features.

From the Bane-like metal bumper up front, shaped to echo the front air intake to the integrated turn signals in the front cycle fenders, to the single rear license plate light, it was clearly designed by someone who knew what he was doing technically…but perhaps not aesthetically.

But to take a more traditional design approach, updating it for the 1980s, with an imprecise fibreglass body and parts sourced from other automakers…the result is perhaps better than what I could do as a designer, but far from what I would expect as a customer.

As for practicality, with its full cabin and raised boot, reports have said it was nearly impossible to enter or exit the car in an elegant way — choose your undergarments wisely.

Underneath the skin is a complex spaceframe made from small-diameter tubing; also underneath was a choice of engines, to be fitted at the factory or left to the owner. Yes, you could order it as a kit. Again, no internet…so…not sure how that worked. Maybe they sent the parts in a box with…printed paper instructions?

To build a whole-ass car…? And we're impressed by A.I.…?

I found a period review of the car in Motorsport Magazine, and the performance is explained quite well:

“Most of my driving was done in a car fitted with a standard Ford Kent engine, giving 84 bhp, and driving through a four speed gearbox. Even so, 60 mph was reached in under nine seconds with a maximum speed of just over 100 mph. With the CVH engine, the company claim a 0-60 mph time of 6.7 seconds and a top speed of about 120 mph. 

“‘My’ car felt dreadfully underpowered for the chassis is designed to take up to 300 bhp with a safety factor of two (i.e. it conk!, it is claimed, handle 600 bhp). That is a claim which has yet to be put to the test, but the car felt as though it was hungry for a well-tuned BOA or, perhaps, the turbo-Pinto engine which will form the basis of the new Formula Turbo Ford.”

In its limited on-track appearances, the TMC Costin often won — hell, it won its first race despite being completed hours earlier. The best-looking car is a winning car.

But for a road-going model where image is 75% of the equation, the chance to develop the TMC Costin into something faster or better-looking was never going to happen. Only 39 were made before the enterprise went bust.