British Sports Car Brand Marcos Is Returning With An All-New Model

The list of British sports car brands that have given it a jolly good go but fallen by the wayside over the years sometimes makes for glum reading. Allard, Austin-Healey, Bristol, Jensen, Triumph – they all made some cracking machines, only for financial strife to see them off.

Another one on that list was Marcos, and we say ‘was’ because rather unexpectedly, the company is back. Again. Founded in 1959 by Jem Marsh and Frank Costin (hence the name Marcos), the company carved out a handy niche for itself building various voluptuous front-engined sports cars, not too different from what TVR was doing at the time.

Most were on bespoke chassis and rear-wheel drive, but there was also the front-wheel drive, Mini-based Mini Marcos. The company went bankrupt in 1971, getting revived a decade later and seeing decent motorsport success in the 1990s (one of its race cars, the LM600, is set to feature in upcoming sim Project Motor Racing). Around the turn of the millennium, though, the company went under a second time, and although there was a brief revival in the 2000s, it disappeared yet again in 2007.

Now, though, it’s back once again with the backing of businessman Howard Nash, who bought the rights to the company in 2022. The reborn company is promising three separate projects to spearhead its relaunch.

The first is a “faithful reimagining” of a classic Marcos model, featuring a modern platform and powertrain, and 10 to 15 per cent bigger than the original. Not much more detail is given, but we can take a pretty good guess given the image of an unpainted bodyshell that a revival of the Mini Marcos is on the cards. An early prototype of this has already run.

Project number two, and the one that’s caught our attention the most, is a brand new Marcos, said to “owe nothing” to the company’s past beyond the ethos of being simple, lightweight and offering “seat-of-the-pants” handling. Designed with both road and track applications in mind, a rolling chassis has been built and crash tested.

Finally, with the reborn company having access to original body moulds and tooling, it’ll start producing continuation versions of the brand’s back catalogue of cars. The company will also continue providing parts and maintenance to existing Marcos owners, something it’s been doing under the Heritage Spares brand for many years.

“[Marcos] has a wonderful history but also an ethos of simplicity for raw, driver-focused handling. It’s an analogue experience you can’t get from large car manufacturers and supercar brands, and one which I think enthusiasts hanker after today,” said Nash.

Of course, it’s no easy task reviving a defunct British sports car brand – just look at Marcos’ last attempt, or the conspicuous absence of any production versions of the new TVR Griffith. Hopefully, though, this latest ambitious relaunch pans out – we certainly won’t complain about more new sports cars.