Fairthorpe cars were made in Chalfont St Peter

Chalfont St Peter

Chalfont St Peter is a village and civil parish in Chiltern district in south-east Buckinghamshire, England. It is in a group of villages called The Chalfonts which also includes Chalfont St Giles and Little Chalfont. The villages lie between High Wycombe and Rickmansworth. Chalfont St Peter is...

, Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

, England between 1954 and 1976.

Fairthorpe Ltd was founded by Air Vice Marshall Donald Bennett

Don Bennett

Air Vice Marshal Donald Clifford Tyndall Bennett CB CBE DSO RAF was an Australian aviation pioneer and bomber pilot who rose to be the youngest Air Vice-Marshal in the Royal Air Force. He led the "Pathfinder Force" from 1942 to the end of the Second World War in 1945...

. The first cars were lightweight models powered by motor cycle engines and with glass fibre bodies called the Atom and Atomota. In 1956 a new larger car, the open 2 seat Electron appeared using a Coventry Climax

Coventry Climax

Coventry Climax was a British forklift truck, fire pump, and speciality engine manufacturer.-History:The company was started in 1903 as Lee Stroyer, but two years later, following the departure of Stroyer, it was relocated to Paynes Lane, Coventry, and renamed to Coventry-Simplex by H...

 engine. A reduced price version using a Triumph

Triumph Motor Company

The Triumph Motor Company was a British car and motor manufacturing company. The Triumph marque is owned currently by BMW. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann of Nuremberg initiated S. Bettmann & Co and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them with his own...

 engine followed in 1957 and was the mainstay of production until 1973 with about 700 being built. There was also a closed version called the Electrina but only about 20 were produced. The cars were available fully assembled or in kit form

Kit car

A kit car, also known as a "component car", is an automobile that is available as a set of parts that a manufacturer sells and the buyer then either assembles into a car themselves, or retains a third party to do part or all of the work on their behalf...

. Production peaked at about 20 cars a month.

The Zeta

A high powered car, the Zeta, was introduced in 1960 using a modified Ford Zephyr

Ford Zephyr

The Ford Zephyr was a car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United Kingdom. Between 1950 and 1972, it was sold as a more powerful six-cylinder saloon to complement the four-cylinder Ford Consul: from 1962 the Zephyr itself was offered in both four- and six-cylinder versions.The Zephyr...

 engine with up to six carburettors and a BRM cylinder head. Another version, the Rockette used a Triumph Vitesse

Triumph Vitesse

The Triumph Vitesse was a compact six-cylinder car built by Standard-Triumph from 1962 to 1971. The car was styled by Michelotti, and was available in saloon and convertible variants....

 1600 cc engine, few were made of either of these models. In 1961 the company moved to Gerrards Cross

Gerrards Cross

Gerrards Cross is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the south of the county, near the border with Greater London, south of Chalfont St Peter. Gerrards Cross is also a civil parish within South Bucks district, which was known as the Beaconsfield district from 1974 to 1980...

 and in 1964 to Denham

Denham

- People :* Carl Denham, fictional character from King Kong* Daryl Denham, British radio DJ* Digby Denham, Australian politician* Dixon Denham, British explorer* Henry Denham, British printer* Henry Mangles Denham, , Royal navy...

, both in Buckinghamshire.

The TX

In 1967 Donald Bennett's son Torix (Torix Bennett) joined the company and a new car the TX-GT based on a Triumph GT6

Triumph GT6

The GT6 was a 6-cylinder sports coupé built by Standard-Triumph and based on their popular Triumph Spitfire convertible. Production ran from 1966 to 1973.- Development history :...

chassis but with transverse rod independent rear suspension was announced. By this time the market for hand built small production cars was declining and the last model, the TX-S was a modified TX-GT with a variety of engines and the choice of the standard GT6 rear suspension. Only about 30 of the TX cars were made.

Another car, the TX Tripper, was produced by Torix's company, Technical Exponents, which shared premises with Fairthorpe. Looking like a psychedelic cross between a beach buggy and a sports car it was marketed as a TX and offered with either the Triumph chassis or a TX designed chassis. Triumph engines powered its various models: 1300, 2000, and 2500.

Fairthorpe Ltd remains listed (as does Technical Exponents Ltd) at Denham Green Lane (as at 2007), but Fairthorpe does not trade.

Cars

• Fairthorpe Atom - 1954 to 1957 - 250 cc to 650 cc, chain drive
• Fairthorpe Atomota - 1958 to 1960 - 650 cc, live rear axle
• Fairthorpe Electron - 1956 to 1965 - Coventry Climax engine. front disc from 1957. Final version with Triumph Spitfire engine.
• Fairthorpe Electron Minor - 1957 to 1973 - Standard 10/Triumph Herald engine. Final version on Triumph GT6 chassis with Spitfire engine (1968).
• Fairthorpe Electrina - 1961 to 1963 - Closed 4 seat version of the Electron
• Fairthorpe Zeta - 1960 to 1965 - Racing version. Very few made.
• Fairthorpe Rockette - 1963 to 1967 - As Zeta but with Triumph Vitesse engine. Very few made.
• Fairthorpe TX-GT - 1967 to 1976 - 2 seat coupe with Triumph 2 litre 6 cylinder engine.
• Fairthorpe TX-S and TX-SS - Similar to the TX-GT but with a wider variety of engine and transmission packages, all Triumph.