The world of fiberglass classic cars is quite vast, with a wide range of near one-offs made throughout the 60s and 70s. It was a unique era in which sole proprietors effectively started their own manufacturing businesses, oftentimes creating a desirable model in the process that could easily be modified for greater performance. Today, fiberglass connoisseurs scour garages and warehouses for finds like this 1952 Atlas Swallow, listed here on eBay with bids to $6,100 and no reserve.
The Atlas Swallow was the brainchild of s Bill Burke and Mickey Thompson who partnered with Roy Kinch. Kinch owned Atlas Fiber-Glass, Inc. which obviously held a central role in the development of a fiberglass coupe such as this. It’s been said the entrepreneurs were inspired by the gorgeous Cisitalia 202 when designing the Atlas, and the two cars do share many similarities – save for the price tag.
The Atlas coupe was designed to work with an MG TD chassis and later on, Ford frames. That being said, the seller claims the car shown here rides on a Simca Sport 8 chassis. While there’s undoubtedly going to be some trim pieces that are near impossible to find, and components like glass will have to be custom fabricated, that’s just par for the course for vehicles like these built in limited batches by small shops as part of a kit-style assembly process.
The seller’s listing incredibly includes a full-on second whole vehicle, described as a parts car. The seller doesn’t know much about this one, but it will undoubtedly prove useful in restoring the other car if this one can’t be saved. The seller notes that both cars are unfortunately “….missing engines, transmissions, radiators, and more,” so there’s plenty of legwork ahead of whoever brings these forgotten fiberglass classics home.
Gorgeous cars. The first picture looks a bit like a Cobra.
While there is a mild Cisitalia influence and the air intake has an AC Ace/Cobra look, the profile shows similarities with the Porsche 365 and the Morris Minor!
A lot of money would need to be infused and I doubt it could ever be recouped, but I hope someone saves these two bits of history for posterity.
There are a bunch of other cars in there, i wonder what they are.
Never saw one of these guys before, the description was a lesson in how and who eventually made the Cobra coupe the collectable it is today. It deserves to be got by a serious restorer who knows what he’s doing.
I think that the “parts car” was mine many years ago (1990’s) here in California. How it ended up on the other side of the country is anyone’s guess.
The website Undiscovered Classics probably has the most info on these cars, and the original brochures indicate it was sold as the Allied Swallow, made by Atlas/Allied Fiberglass Co. The site also indicates these were the first fiberglass-bodied sports cars to be created.
https://www.undiscoveredclassics.com/forgotten-fiberglass/the-atlas-allied-fiber-glass-company-americas-first-production-fiberglass-coupe-body/
As the bodies had steel brackets hand-laid into the body assembly at specific points, intended to align with the MGTC and TD chassis, they also indicated if the buyer wanted to use a different chassis they would work with the buyer to supply a body with other bracket locations. It would be interesting to see if this body had the original MG location brackets that were subsequently modified for the Simca chassis.
If it was indeed an original MG chassis spec body, it would be much easier to return the car to the MG specs. Here in the USA it’s easy to find everything for the MG “T” cars, and could make a big difference in restoration costs. I would consider buying an unrestored MGTD, and like many other kit car builders, use not just the chassis and running gear, but the dashboard items, seats, and other MG parts.
And more importantly, the availability of MG parts could mean BOTH cars could be restored. The ads from Allied Fiberglass Co. indicate all the various ancillary body parts were sourced from common US automobiles, so it would be a matter of figuring out who made the various parts, then buying them from various sellers. If I remember right, the rear axle shown installed in the 2nd car, appears to be a MGTD/TF unit, so that car probably has a MG chassis and suspension..
With the final bid likely to remain at the $6,100 value, Had these 2 cars been offered 30 years ago [when I could still tackle such a project], these would probably be going back to my shop.
Sold for $8600 sometime this morning