so, where did the body come from. RC v lorrie

[venom0427]

So were did you get the body from???

in the mid 1990s i bought a kit from lorrie (now trading as rcm) and it came with, body, chassis, 5ltr engine and gearbox, windscreen and bumpers and over riders I think that was it.
Anyway, I got the kit and I was happy, and naive, after drinking myself into a stupor and celebrating the buy, it was time to come to reality.

I needed a welder, fiberglasser, compressor, and a heap more tools than I had.
So the car sat and sat, over a year and a heap of phone calls my screen and parts didn’t show up, so I went around to get my money back.

thru this time I didn’t get any real help, yes once he came around and showed me his car and got me all worked up, to then you just fall back into the same heap, this before the days of the internet.

I called my self replicar autos (get it) , So I sold the kit to a kid (about my age then) and his name was jason (your right nassty) we worked on it together for a wile, he then took the kit and went to lorrie ( looking back, it was a good move).

Prior to selling it I bumped into a guy who knew where a body was, and he could fined out if this guy wanted to sell it.
But just prior to this I was looking at flopping a mould from Lorries, but after finding all the faults with it nobody wanted to paint it or work on it.

Errors like:
Door panels to small
Bonnet not fitting or to the right shape
Boot to small, not fitting the correct shape
Large gaps all round the doors bonnet and boot
Large hollow section in the drivers side and passenger side front corner
Mis alignment of mould across the top of the front and rear guards
Masking tape used to fill chips or discrepancies in the guards

all of these items on top of not getting the parts made me upset, due to that the money spent on lorrie was my fathers inheritance, and it wasn’t long after that he died that I brought the kit that I thought that it would be good way to meet and do something that I love.
So, I went to Toyospares in Bayswater and saw the body there in the corner of this factory, it was RED in colour, but with no bonnet.
All the inner panels were their, but they looked different to my kit (Lorries)
I later found out that it was set up for a MGB front end.
So decided to ether paint Lorries or buy this one and start afresh, and by the way it was only around $2000 which was about $1500 cheaper than to fix Lorries.

I payed the man, picked the body up, and was happy.

Now I was almost ready to start, I needed a chassis builder and a fiberglasser.
Some then I came across beachcomber boats and jimmmyyy, I took Lorries kit to him and I said, I want something new and different, and that he did.
The kit for sale on the eBay sight was the first chassis we built.
But the biggest problem was that all the mounting points were wrong.

So there you have it in a round about kind of way. It was a long time ago but the story is true

Now comes the fun stuff , to put to rest this thing that’s being going for so long.
How to tell the difference between, Lorries (rcm) and RC bodies.

Lorries filler neck is different to mine, I didn’t have a filler neck at the start, so Mick (who is the brother in-law of Andrew, lorries mate and makes parts for him, well I don’t know about know) anyway, he had to make a filler neck hole for me, so when jason went to cut the hole for the fuel cap, he would have found the tin and filler there from Mick.
By the way Mick was to get a body for fixing Lorries body (JUST TRICKING YA) he got a yellow one.
Now here we go..
1.) My body doesn’t have a return lip on the body, it did but b/combers said that it would be to much like hard work, so I said don’t worry, we will do with out it. BIG mistake
2.) My edgers on the guard’s front and back were very clean (if the fibreglasses didn’t stuff up with the assembly of the mould).
3.) MGB front guards came with the kit, I got jimmmmyyy to do the guards in alloy as the inners were all different than what we were going to run (even though artnz had MGB front and Jag rear) I wanted alloy and I got it. B/comber wanted them in alloy as well so they could take a mould of them.
4.) Jason’millingtons car has red gel coat under the blue hi fill that you see in the photos. Lorries kit (the one I bought from him was black)
5.) Lorries doesn’t have the exhaust cut outs, mine did. From the genuine body.
6.) The original tunnel was wider to accepted the big block and the shifter, we cut it down by around 2-3” and moved it over to the left a bit. Lorries doesn’t have the tell tail marks of the move.
7.) Boy is there more??, narr that’s about it.
8.) Sorry, Just one more, this is the photo I took of poor jason as he was working on his body, look closely and you will see the red gel coat under the hi fill, thanks jason.


Now when all you guys go to you cobra bash nights, and you see a guy saying that it’s a RC or lorries kit, now you know what to look for.

just to clarify this issue from nastty (don’t want to leave you out), in not to much detail I will go thru and try and answer a few of your doubts.

Seeing double?
Well you are right, after about 6 years of hearing the same story, well if every one thinks that we copied his chassis, lets build one that was a lot easer, cheaper and more affordable the same as lorrie, GV and arntz.

Well we never had a demo car, we all know that, that’s what let us down; I did put his kit out the front of my house to sell it (privately).
It was hardly a good (demo as you call it) selling item

I didn’t think I did, but if I did, o well it’s been fun.

Well that is good, and I do mean that, the industry needs people to support and give guidance. What can I say?

Now I don’t think it stuck, it was more like being pushed onto us, we would have customers come in and ask “were did the body come from” so we told the truth, (maybe some one just got it wrong from the start and lost some sales to a better kit, or is he bitter???)
Because we never fed it, we denied it, and promoted the fact that our body was taken from a shell that wasn’t Lorries, what do think we should have done, agreed to a lie.

Open your eyes, look ate the cars, don’t just look at the bling, really look. I’ve got nothing to hide or loose, I think Lorrie has more to loose than me, don’t you think, because we lost everything.

mmmmm……..ring lorrie………I think ill have to pay STD on the call?

Get him to call me, now that would be a blast.

Narr I’m happy, it’s been good to get this off my chest.


thanks for listing

sorry it was so long.....