Marcos Engineering-Part 2: Back in business... #Blogpost

Hello CTzens,I present to you part 2 of the history of the obscure British sportscar manafacturer Marcos. As always enjoy the post!

1976-2000 The evolutionary return

In 1976 the rights to Marcos had been in the hands of the aforementioned Rob Waker group for 4 years since the company went into voluntary liquidation. However Jem Marsh,Co-founder of Marcos, bought back the rights to the Marcos name the very same year and immediately set to work on reinventing the sportscar for the new generation…

1984 brought the Mantula,a newly revamped GT with the tech from the 80’s. It was fitted with the 3.5L Rover V8,most commonly used in the Rover SD1. The engine proved not only to be lighter than its predeccessors but also more powerful,this enabled the Mantula to sprint from 0-60 in less than 6 seconds and onto a reasonably fast top speed of over 140mph. At the time it was one of the fastest cars Britain had ever produced… 1986 was the first model year when the Mantula was available as a soft top convertible and towards the end of its production it recieved the bored out 3.9L Rover V8 Vitesse engine.
Alongside the Mantula,the Marcos Martina was produced and it was a cheaper alternative to the Mantula. It was based on the Ford Cortina and used all of its components,including the 2.0L engine, but to accomodate the wide steering rack of the Cortina,Marcos had to give the Martina flared arches…
The Martina had very successful sales and both it and the Mantula ceased production in 1993.

In 1991 Marcos aquired the rights back to the Mini Marcos and sold it for four years exclusively for the Japanese market until 1995,it was equipped with a 1.3L Mini Cooper engine…
Marcos released its new TVR competing Mantara in 1993 and is fitted with various engines during its lifetime,initially being fitted with the same 3.9L Rover V8 as the late model Mantula. With sponsorship from Computacenter,Marcos entered the racing scene once again with the Mantara based LM series,the LM400 (fitted with the 3.9L V8) was highly competitive in the UK BDRC GT Championship of 1994 winning numerous races. One of their best racing achievements came during the 1995 24Hrs of Le Mans where the Marcos LM600 (6.0L Chevrolet V8) finished 7th in its class which was very respectable for a manafacturer of their size… A very small number of LM600 road cars were produced in celebration of their motorsport success.

The Mantis name was revived in 1997 as the name for a new two seater sportscar based on the LM series,it was greatly recieved by critics. It even appeared on Top Gear,reviewed by Tiff Needell… It featured the 4.6L Ford Modular V8 as seen in the Mustang GT of the same era and it produced around 350Hp,this propelled it from 0-60 in 4.2 Seconds with a top speed of around 170mph. The following year they introduced the GT variant, fitted with a vortech supercharger it produced over 500Hp and required a rear wing for stability at high speed. It could sprint from 0-60 in 3.5 seconds and onto a top speed of nearly 200MPH! For a cheaper alternative,Marcos produced a Mantis GTS with a 2.0L engine producing around 200Hp…

In total,only 51 examples were produced, 16 of which were the supercharged GT model.

The Marcos Mantaray was introduced in 1998 to replace the Mantara,it was an evolution of the Mantis GTS designed to yet again compete with TVR. Engine options were either a 4.0L or 4.6L Rover V8. (no Ford V8) There were also options for a 2.0L or 2.0T engine… Only 26 were made making it more rare than the Mantis! Only seven of the 26 were fitted with the 4.6L V8.

Lightning struck a second time in the year 2000 when Marcos went bankrupt and was forced into voluntary liquidation yet again,production of the Mantis and Mantaray ceased.

Surely this is the end for Marcos?

I hope you enjoyed part 2 of my history on Marcos, and I hope to bring out the final part of the story very soon!