For sale: British car company, never used

(Credit: MMI)

The thrill of owning a fine sports car is probing its limits. The driver holds himself a hopeful hostage to his own reflexes and the dependability of his engineers. That thrill, multiplied by thousands, is doubtless what it’s like to own a sports car company. And if that’s the kind of excitement you seek, you may be in luck.

Project Avocet is a ready-to-roll sports car programme looking for a discerning buyer. The current owner, UK-based MM Industries, counts among the project’s assets complete manufacturing designs, intellectual property including R&D work, several manufacturing moulds and five running prototypes. They are sexy vehicles, thanks to the artistry of Mike Reeves of the yacht design firm Claydon Reeves, and your purchase price includes concept designs for the continuing evolution of the line.

The car itself is of the hyperlight, stripped-down variety, where sub-5-second zero-to-60mph acceleration times are achieved by minimising the latter half of the power-to-weight ratio. It’s a bathtub suspended in an aluminium honeycomb frame – roofless and doorless to save weight, a trick learned from the short-lived Strathcarron Sports Cars marque, whose motorcycle-powered mini-supercar technology was purchased by MM (the initials of its founder and managing director, Martin Miles).

Project Avocet (Credit: MMI)

The Avocet eschews a Triumph motorbike engine for a Ford car engine, using a 2-litre four-cylinder unit that delivers 225 horsepower – more than enough to move a car that weighs only three-quarters of a ton. This is no kit car, but is in fact a clean-sheet design, engineered by people whose CVs reflect stints at Reynard, Caterham and Lotus. Although pricing will be decided by the new owner, suggested retail for a street-ready Avocet is about £30,000 ($46,900), putting it right up against some rather formidable foes, including the Lotus Elise and the Ariel Atom.

So why is it for sale? The short story is that the global recession reduced demand for this class of car, and MM Industries spent its money bringing the project to maturity rather than ramping up for production. Now, as prudent investors, they’d like to sell. Naturally, the buyer can take or leave the expertise of MMI’s managers and engineers, alter manufacturing technologies or implement new ones, and name the car after something other than an almost extinct British shorebird.

Perhaps, a year or two hence, we may watch as the world’s motoring press spews praise for Britain’s newest sports car sensation, the [your name] roadster. Good luck.