Costin-Nathan GT |
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Total Rebuild |
charpentier 03-19-2012 |
Hi,about 30 yrs ago, David Becket of the UK owned a Costin Nathan Astra GT. The car in question was destroyed in a crash at Silverstone. I built him a new car using the open version as a guide to the construction of the main plywood centre section as no plans were available. Some body parts that were salvaged (fibreglass bonnet, engine cover, roof etc all had to be repaired) and a laminated ply roll bar was incorporated into the roof line, marine ply and powder/resin glue was used in all the rebuild.I have photographs of the build and of the finished car which is in Red with White stripe, I think a 2 ltr Ford engine with a twin cam conversion is the power plant. Does anybody know of the whereabouts of this car? Who owns it now? Did it go back on the track? Colin |
Costin |
Costinamigo 16-1-2003 |
"This car is actually a Costin-Nathan GT Coupe and was designed by Frank Costin who is the ""COS"" in Marcos. Frank's brother Mike is as indicated the ""COS"" in Cosworth. The Costin-Nathan was based on the design of the Costin Sports Racer, campaigned in California in 1965/66 by Norbert McNamara in SCCA events. The first Costin-Nathan was finished in 1966 as an open sports racer. The car was raced by Roger Nathan achieving class wins and lap records in it's first 6 races. In Paris for example, in October, Roger won the Coup'e de Vitesse having left the field far behind - including works Abarths. The Costin-Nathan GT Coupe, was initiated at the request of Roger Nathan, and Costin liked the idea because it would provide the opportunity to reduce aerodynamic drag even further than the open car. Most of the GT's were fitted with bored out 1 litre versions of the Hilman Imp engine, but some were also fitted with standard 850cc engines and some with 2 litre BMW engines. Roger Nathan in a 1 litre GT Coupe, captured 14 new lap records in 1967 and 1968 on his way to winning both the Motoring News and Total National GT championships. In 1967, Roger Nathan took over design and manufacturing of the Costin-Nathan and promptly re-named it the Nathan GT. Subsequently it was re-named again to Astra. Total production of Costin-Nathan's, Nathan GT's and Astra's was about 30 cars. Costin was responsible for about 6 open racers and 6 GT Coupe's. Costin later went on to design and build the Costin Protos and the Costin Amigo of which I have 3 of 8 built. During his career Frank Costin was involved in designs for Lotus, Maserati, Vanwall, TVR, Vauxhall and March not to mention the neumerous cars that he designed and built as ""Costins"". Regards Jonathon Till """ |
Article | Image gallery (6) | Specifications | User Comments (2) |
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