The Volkswagen SP2 – The Car That Could Have Been Brazil’s Answer To The Porsche 911

The Volkswagen SP2 is a Brazilian-built sports car that was developed in the early 1970s, it entered production in 1973 and left production in 1976 after just 11,123 had been built.

Although it’s little-known outside of its native Brazil, the VW SP2 has become a cult classic in air-cooled car circles and they’re now highly sought after. Though relatively few have been exported.

Fast Facts – The Volkswagen SP2

• The Volkswagen SP2 was developed in-house by Volkswagen do Brasil for the Brazilian market, which was starved for sports cars due to prohibitive import taxes on automobiles.
• The development team was led by Senor Schiemann with designers Marcio Piancastelli, Jose Vicente Martins, and Jorge Oba.
• The SP2 uses pre-existing VW mechanicals with a new steel body, and it has a rear-mounted 1.7 liter Volkswagen engine producing 75 hp and pushing the car to a claimed top speed of 100 mph.
• Ultimately the SP2 wasn’t a success due to the fact it was underpowered for its weight. In more recent years owners have performed engine upgrades to increase power output by 200% or more, unleashing the potential of the car.

The Volkswagen SP2

In the early 1970s the best selling sports car in Brazil was the locally made Puma, a fiberglass-bodied vehicle that used VW Beetle running gear.

The interior of the SP2 was well-appointed for a Brazilian-made sports car of the time, considerably ahead of its competition.

Brazil had strict import taxes on vehicles at the time in an attempt to foster a stronger local automobile manufacturing sector, so the only real options for Brazilian sports car fans were low production volume vehicles like the Puma, Miura (not the Lamborghini), and the Santa Matilde.

It was likely the sales success of the Puma that set the ball in motion for the production of the SP1 and SP2, it was clear there was strong demand for a local sports car.

A team at the relatively autonomous Volkswagen do Brasil led by Senor Schiemann set to work on the project, using as many pre-existing VW parts as possible in order to keep development costs as low as possible.

They called it “Project X” and impressively they were able to go from prototype to production model in roughly two years. It’s clear that the SP vehicle series was intended for long term production as significant investments were made in steel stamping equipment for body panels.

With its rear-mounted air-cooled engine, sleek styling, and fastback rear the car has been compared with the Porsche 911 and 912.

Many parts for the SP1 and the SP2 were sourced from the Brazilian made Volkswagen Variant, including the distinctive headlights. Unlike the fiberglass-bodied Puma, the SP2 has a steel body and excellent fit and finish throughout, though this did result in the car being notably heavier.

Such is the popularity of the SP2 in Brazil that efforts have been made to bring the car back into production in redesigned form, though these plans are still on the drawing table at the time of writing.

Volkswagen SP2 – Specifications

The key difference between the SP1 and the SP2 was power output, the SP1 was fitted with a 65 hp engine and just 88 examples were ever built. It was intended to be the slightly less expensive model following the same formula as the Porsche 911 and Porsche 912 which had sold in parallel in Europe for a number of years.

Officially the names SP1 and SP2 stood for “Sao Paolo 1” and “Sao Paolo 2” however the cars were given the nickname “Sem Potência” shortly after the model’s release, meaning “Without Power” in Portuguese.

This nickname was given due to the fact that the 1.7 liter Volkswagen flat-four engine was producing just 75 hp, resulting in a 0 – 60 mph time of approximately 16 seconds, this was notably slower than the Puma, its arch rival.

The headlight assemblies were taken directly from the Volkswagen Variant, a Brazilian version of the Volkswagen Type 3.

Of course, the local tuning community wasted no time in setting to work on the cars, and in the years since there have been SP2s built with bored and stroked engines, higher compression ratios, hotter cams, and even turbocharging.

Unfortunately very little was done by Volkswagen’s Brazilian operation to fix the power issue when the car was in production, leading to a short 4 year production life with just over 11,000 built in total.

When the SP2 first entered production there was some pressure on Volkswagen to release a version of the car in Europe and other world markets. They opted not to do this, but they did sign an agreement with Porsche around the same time to develop a new VW sports car, this car would become the Porsche 924. A vehicle with a markedly similar side silhouette to its older Brazilian cousin.

Ultimately what could have been Brazil’s answer to the Porsche 911 failed due to its poor performance, that said, the car has become a cult classic in recent years, with owners applying modern performance parts to their engines to significantly increase power output and show what the cars are really capable of.

The 1.7 liter flat-four breathes through twin Solex 34 carburetors, power was a little on the low side with 75 bhp, however many owners have applied mods to boost output.

The 1974 Volkswagen SP2 Shown Here

The car you see here is a 1974 Volkswagen SP2, it was exported to Kuwait early in its life and possibly as a result of this it’s avoided the rust that plagued so many cars of this era.

In 2010 it was imported into the UK and it now benefits from a new VW Heritage SP2 1641cc engine fitted in 2018. This SP2 is one of just four believed to be on the road in the United Kingdom and one of every few shipped out of Brazil.

It’s clear that this car has never been restored and is in original condition throughout with some patina visible, particularly on the interior. It’ll be the new owner’s choice whether they undertake a full restoration, a more sympathetic cosmetic restoration, or simply keep the car as it is now.

It’s now due to roll across the auction block on the 17th of November with a price guide of £20,000 – £30,000, or approximately $26,900 – $40,400 USD. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of H&H Classics

The post The Volkswagen SP2 – The Car That Could Have Been Brazil’s Answer To The Porsche 911 appeared first on Silodrome.

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The CCM Spitfire Cafe Racer – Just 250 Will Be Made

This is the CCM Spitfire Cafe Racer, it’s a limited-production motorcycle, just 250 will be made by the decades-old British motorcycle marque Clews Competition Motorcycles.

In recent years CCM has made a name for themselves building ultra-lightweight motorcycles designed for blasting around canyon passes and British B-roads. The company’s bikes typically weigh less than 320 lbs, ands they’re fitted with a state-of-the-art engine, brakes, frame, and suspension.

Fast Facts – The CCM Spitfire Cafe Racer

• The CCM Spitfire Cafe Racer was unveiled in 2019 as a limited edition production motorcycle that meets modern emissions regulations thanks to its fuel-injected 600cc Husqvarna-designed engine.
• The CCM Spitfire model family is a return to classic British single-cylinder motorcycles, bikes like the BSA Gold Star, Velocette Venom, Matchless G50, AJS 7R, and of course the legendary Norton Manx.
• The Cafe Racer variant of the Spitfire features classic cafe racer styling with low slung handlebars, a single seat with a rear cowl, and it’s all stripped back to keep weight as low as possible.
• CCM have managed to keep the MSRP of the Spitfire Cafe Racer surprisingly affordable for a low-volume motorcycle of this type, selling for £9,274 ($12,460 USD) directly from the factory.

Clews Competition Motorcycles

Clews Competition Motorcycles, better known simply as CCM, was founded back in 1971 by the successful Trials and Scrambles rider Alan Clews.

Just 250 examples of the CCM Spitfire Cafe Racer will be built, this is bike number 24 from the first year of production.

Clews had made a name for himself as a racer however when the BSA Competition Department was disbanded in 1971 due to financial difficulties he saw an opportunity, and bought all of the factory equipment he could get his hands on.

Initially working out of his garage, Clews set about building 500cc four-stroke motocross and enduro machines that were capable of competing against the dominant two-stroke motorcycles of the time – a feat many considered impossible. Alan proved them wrong with a slew of top five finishes in international competition.

Over the intervening decades the company would build a variety of different motorcycles including the Armstrong MT500 for the military, the CCM GP450 which was a middle-weight adventure bike, and most recently the CCM Spitfire.

The company has no dealer network an all sales are handled directly out of the factory, allowing the buyer to form a direct connection with the people who will actually be building their machine.

The CCM Spitfire Cafe Racer

When it was released in 2019 the CCM Spitfire Cafe Racer caught the attention of the motorcycle world thanks to its combination of classic cafe racer styling cues combined with the scrambler DNA of the Spitfire model.

True to its name this model has a number of cafe racer styling cues including low slung handlebars, a single seat with a small rear cowl, and a low curb weight for sharp performance.

Like all of the motorcycles in the Spitfire model series, the Spitfire Cafe Racer has a hand-welded trellis frame made from high-strength T45 carbon steel that is finished with a clear coat to showcase the welds.

The 600cc Husqvarna-designed engine is a stressed chassis member and it includes a built in 6-speed transmission. It produces 55 bhp and 43 lb ft of torque at 5,500 rpm, it has a compression ratio of 12.0:1, a bore x stroke of 100 mm x 76.5 mm, it’s liquid cooled, and it has Mikuni D45 fuel injection.

The Spitfire Cafe Racer rides on modern suspension front and back consisting of fully adjustable upside down forks up front, with a fully adjustable monoshock in the rear. The bike is fitted with a 320mm wave disc up front with a four piston Brembo caliper, and in the rear there’s a 240 mm disc with a smaller two piston Brembo caliper.

With a curb weight of 142 kilograms, less than 320 lbs, the Cafe Racer is punchy, nimble, and devastatingly quick on the kind of curvy mountain roads it was designed for.

The 2019 CCM Spitfire Cafe Racer you see here is from the first year of production, it has just 541 miles on the odometer, it’s finished in gunmetal grey with a hand-stitched quilted leather seat, and it has the racing number 71 fixed to the side – a reference to the year CCM was founded.

This bike is currently being auctioned live by Collecting Cars, if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

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The Rare Marcos 1600 GT – A Little-Known Lotus Rival Descended From The Mosquito

This is a Marcos 1600 GT from 1969, it’s a classic sports car largely unknown outside of Britain. Inside the UK the car has a cult following thanks to both its unusual history and its long list of David vs Goliath successes on race tracks across the country starting in the 1960s.

The Marcos GT first entered production in 1964 as an affordable fiberglass-bodied sports car designed to compete with the offerings from contemporary competitors like Lotus. Unlike any other car in production these first Marcos GTs had chassis made from a material more closely associated with boat building.

Fast Facts – The Marcos GT

• The Marcos GT is best known for the highly-unusual plywood chassis used on the first series of production cars that was made from 386 separate pieces all bonded together into a complex 3D shape.
• This plywood chassis was developed by Frank Costin, an engineer who had worked on the de Havilland Mosquito – a WWII multirole combat aircraft that was largely made from plywood and was faster than the Spitfire.
• Later Marcos GTs, like the car you see here, have more traditional steel chassis as they proved much easier to manufacture, but the cars retained the “Flying Splinter” nickname that had originally been given to the very first Marcos prototype.
• Over the course of the production run the Marcos GT was powered by a number of different engines including inline-fours, V4s, straight-sixes, V6s, and V8s.

Marcos And “The Flying Splinter”

Marcos Engineering Ltd was founded in Wales in 1959 by Jem Marsh and Frank Costin, the two men would form the company name by each contributing the first three letters of their surnames.

Costin is now remembered as one of the most influential engineers of the era, and with Marcos he would be applying lessons he learned while working on the plywood de Havilland Mosquito fighter/bomber during the Second World War.

Above Video: Jay Leno takes a look at one of the few Marcos GTs to have made the United States its home.

The men developed a 386 part plywood chassis for the new car that was bonded together to form a complex, rigid, and lightweight three dimensional shape. The car was fitted with a fiberglass body, a four-cylinder Volvo B18 engine with an overdrive gearbox, independent front suspension, and a De Dion rear end.

The original Marcos prototype had been nicknamed “The Flying Splinter,” the same nickname that had been given the the Mosquito during the war. Later Marcos cars would share this nickname and despite people’s reservations about a car with a plywood chassis it proved highly competitive in the British club racing scene.

The cost of the plywood was low however it required significant man-hours to bond it all together, as a result the company developed a welded steel box section chassis and made some changes to the internal body structure to match.

These new steel-chassis Marcos GTs were introduced later in the 1960s and most of the surviving cars are fitted with it, resulting in the earlier plywood chassis cars now being highly sought after by collectors.

Marcos has proven surprisingly resilient, surviving a number of company shutdowns over the years. Their most recent offering was the Marcos Spirit 220 that was launched in 2013.

The interior isn’t dissimilar to the Lotus Europa and many other British sports cars of the era, with a high center console, deep bucket seats, and a purposeful dashboard with all the gauges and flip switches you could possibly want.

The Marcos 1600 GT Twin Cam Shown Here

The Marcos 1600 GT you see here is a little unusual as the original Ford Kent crossflow engine was swapped out in the early 1970s and replaced with a Lotus Twin Cam inline-four cylinder engine.

The Twin Cam is one of the most desirable British engines of the era, it was developed for Colin Chapman of Lotus by a remarkable engineering team that included some of the biggest automotive engineering names of the time, including Harry Mundy, Mike Costin (of Marcos and Cosworth), Keith Duckworth (also of Cosworth), Neil Francis, and Bob Dance.

The engine would power a vast array of cars, from the Lotus Cortina to the Lotus Esprit, and it would take a slew of both class and overall victories in international competition.

Due to Mike Costin’s early involvement in the Twin Cam it makes a lot of sense to fit one to a Marcos GT, which was obviously the line of reasoning used by the owner of this car in the 1970s. The car is now being offered by Historics Auctioneers out of the UK and it comes with heritage records and an impressive history file.

If you’d like to read more about this car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Historics Auctioneers

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