Page 1 of 1 An artisan chassis builder, John Tojeiro spent the 1950s building a small number of competition cars to custom order. One of these would form the basis for the AC Ace, while the Jaguar engined specials were very competitive during the second half of the decade. Ahead of the 1958 season, he was approached by Richard Utley with the request to build him a sports racer for the competitive 1,100 cc class. Tojeiro racer and mechanic Chris Threlfall was also interested.
Even before he had a concrete offer, Tojeiro had already laid out a chassis design for the popular category. Once he got orders from both Utley and Threlfall, he fast-tracked the development. For the new racer, Tojeiro had created a lightweight spaceframe chassis that was a vast improvement over the rather heavy 1,100 cc racer that he had built a few years earlier. Like most of its rivals, the new Tojeiro racer used a Coventry Climax FWA engine.
Once the rolling chassis was completed, the cars were shipped to the shop of Maurice 'Mo' Gomm. He was one of England's leading panel beaters, creating bodies for a wide variety of competition cars that even included Grand Prix cars. For the little Tojeiro Climax, he crafted a very slippery shape that was tightly wrapped over the Tojeiro chassis.
The two cars for Utley and Threlfall were ready early in 1958. John Tojeiro found that there was room for improvement and applied the lessons learned to create the Climax Mk2. There was serious interest in the car from other customers. With an eye on producing a small series, John Tojeiro established Tojeiro Automotive Developments in a corner of Mo Gomm's workshop. Utley was hired as the shop manager.
Tojeiro did end up selling a couple of Mk2s but the demand did not match the expectations. This was certainly not due to the car's performance. Threlfall was particularly successful, who raced his new Mk2 with great success, scoring four victories and five further podium finishes from 18 starts in 1959. Longtime Tojeiro customer John Ogier also fielded a Mk2 in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Sadly, it failed to finish due to a rear axle failure.
Following the disappointing sales figures, Tojeiro turned to building one-off sports racers once more. In anticipation of a larger production run Gomm had built several additional noses and these were re-used for Eric Broadley's Lola, which did manage to attract sufficient customers. Page 1 of 1
Ultimatecarpage.com
> Cars by brand
> Great Britain
> Tojeiro
Racing cars
> Other Sportscars
An artisan chassis builder, John Tojeiro spent the 1950s building a small number of competition cars to custom order. One of these would form the basis for the AC Ace, while the Jaguar engined specials were very competitive during the second half of the decade. Ahead of the 1958 season, he was approached by Richard Utley with the request to build him a sports racer for the competitive 1,100 cc class. Tojeiro racer and mechanic Chris Threlfall was also interested.