One-hit wonders: 5 car makers with only one model

DMC DeLorean

The DMC DeLorean could have been the start of something great. Established by former General Motors man John DeLorean, this eponymous company had ambitions to build a rotary-powered mid-engined GT car with a host of innovative features. Add styling by Giorgetto Giugiaro and it looked like a recipe for a sophisticated sports car for the 1970s.

But it had a tortured development. The cutting edge elastic reservoir moulding technique for the car’s construction proved unsuitable, so Lotus founder Colin Chapman was drafted in to re-engineer the car. That could have been great, but adding an Esprit-derived backbone simply made the car heavier. The rotary engine was dropped in favour of the PRV V6 (jointly developed by Peugeot, Renault and Volvo). It was relocated from amidships to the rear, which did nothing to enhance the car’s handling.

By the time the DeLorean reached production, after many delays, it was heavy, slow and not good to drive. It was also blighted by poor build quality. To round off a sorry tale, DeLorean himself was arrested on drug trafficking charge just days after his company filed for bankruptcy. 

Was it a hit? More than 8500 were built and its cult status was assured by its appearance in the Back to the Future film franchise. It wasn’t a good car, but it is a cultural reference point known to all generations.

LCC Rocket

By the early 1990s, Gordon Murray had more than proved his mettle in race car design. He led Brabham to two World Championships and McLaren to four. For his first road car, he joined forces with friend and racing driver Chris Craft. The resulting Light Car Company’s Rocket was laced with Murray’s principles of light weight. The tandem two-seater weighed a scant 380kg, thanks in part to the flyweight Yamaha motorcycle engine. It was a real screamer by car standards: the 147PS (108kW) unit revved to 11,000rpm.

The Rocket took some lessons from Formula One. The engine was a stressed member of the structure, as pioneered by the Ford DFV-powered Lotus 49. The styling was influenced by 1960s grand prix cars, too. Today, it would seem a bit cheesy for a road car to take styling cues from a 25-year-old F1 car, but the cigar-tube Rocket gets away with it, despite the quirky proportions of its in-line seating. 

The Light Car Company is still trading, these days focussing on classic car restorations alongside maintaining the 40 Rockets built. The website cites the introduction of the SVA test as a reason the Rocket ceased production, but many low-volume cars have complied with the regulations (and the subsequent IVA test). 

It seems more likely that there weren’t that many people who wanted a car that demanded more of its driver than a Caterham Seven for double the money. For those of us who do like their lightweight sports cars utterly focused, though, the rare, lithe LCC Rocket is pretty much the holy grail.

BAC Mono

Contradicting what I just said above, BAC has proved you can find enough people who want a car that’s more compromised and more expensive than a Caterham Seven. With the Mono, you can’t even take a passenger. Perhaps it’s because track days are more prolific now than thirty-odd years ago.

The Briggs Automotive Company was established in 2009 by brothers Neill and Ian Briggs and the Mono was launched two years later. The brothers had worked as consultants to a number of OEMs before striking out on their own, and the Mono was developed to fill a gap in the market: that of a single-seat track day car making no compromises around practicality.

Initially launched with 2.3-litre Duratec power, the Mono moved to a 2.5-litre Mountune engine later. In both cases, the longitudinally mounted engine drives through a Hewland gearbox. The Mono R arrived in 2019, making its debut at that year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Innovation and light weight are pillars of BAC’s activities. For example, the Mono became the first car to use graphene for all of its its carbon fibre body panels, reducing their combined weight from 41kg to 32kg. It’s that single-minded focus that gives the Mono its place in the market.

Sustaining a low volume sports car manufacturing business isn’t easy and many  fall by the wayside. BAC is one of those rare success cases that has become part of the establishment.

Zenos E10

Zenos is one of the car-makers that shows how difficult it is to find a firm footing in the world of low-volume sports car manufacturing. The company was founded by Ansar Ali and Mark Edwards who had worked together at Lotus and Caterham, so they knew the game. The E10 was the result, and more than 100 were eventually assembled before production came to a premature halt.

Zenos Cars was established in 2012 and attracted talent from many quarters – in 2015, Matt Windle joined as Operations Director from a seven-year stint at Tesla. Today, he is the MD of Lotus Cars.

Ali and Edwards used their experience at Lotus and Caterham to set out their plans for the E10. First establishing a price they thought the market would stand, and then designed the car to meet it. The target was £24,995, which was £5000 cheaper than the entry level Elise of the time. Unlike the Elise, the E10 didn’t have a windscreen as standard, and there were no doors. There wasn’t even a boot.

A 2.0-litre Ford Ecoboost engine was mid-mounted, while the car’s main body tub comprised five separate pieces making it easy to repair. The E10 was envisaged as a track car, so that was a useful precaution.

Having reached a three-figure production run within a year of manufacturer, Zenos hit the buffers in 2016 after a number of cancelled export orders. The assets were acquired by AC Cars, but there hasn’t been much noise around a return to market. In fact, at the time of writing the website is still live but says there will be news in 2023. A sorry end for a car with a different recipe that looked like it might take a slice of the Caterham market.

Clan Crusader

Another hopeful from ex-Lotus personnel was the Clan Crusader. Paul Haussauer has risen through the ranks at Lotus to the extent he had the confidence to go it alone with his own car company. He moved in with colleague Brian Luff, they threw away the television and set about designing their own car.

Clan didn’t want to compete with Lotus, instead taking aim at entry-level sports cars of the time such as the MG Midget and Triumph Spitfire. The Crusader was a sharply styled two-seater that used the Coventry Climax engine more commonly found in the Hillman Imp. Unusually for a low-volume car maker, Clan had the Crusader type approved at considerable expense. It was an illustration of just how serious the fledgling manufacturer was.

While the car was designed in Norfolk close to Lotus’s Norfolk home, the factory was set up in in Tyne and Wear since the local authority was offering funding to help employers get started. The car received critical acclaim and on the surface things appeared to be going well. The finances painted a different picture, however. Funds were tight, and it was eventually the seat manufacturer who refused to continue supplying the cash-strapped company. With no seats, there were no cars and Clan was out of business. Plans to expand the range beyond the Crusader therefore came to naught.

DeLorean image courtesy Bonhams|Cars; LCC image courtesy Duncan Hamilton