Few would have believed that when a small engineering company started producing three wheeled vans in 1935, it would go on to make a sports car that would be emulated in one form or another by almost every other car manufacturer around the world. The Reliant Engineering Company (Tamworth) Ltd. (as it was originally called) is so well known for its three-wheeled vehicles that many are surprised to learn that the company also produced ground breaking sports cars as well.
It was the demand for a competitive four-wheeled vehicle in Israel that persuaded Reliant to add an extra wheel and before long they had developed the Sabra Sports for the Israeli market. Seeing a potential in the home market, Reliant introduced the Sabre sports car which was quickly followed by a more powerful Sabre Six and an executive type sports car , the Scimitar GT. This itself led on to perhaps Reliant’s most famous sports car of all, the Scimitar GTE.
The Scimitar GTE was something the world had never seen before, an automobile that was both a sports car and an estate rolled into one. With its unique rising waistline it broke all the standards for sports car design combining the performance of a sports car with the utility of a family estate car. It soon became a phenomenon in its own right and an instant hit with celebrities and Royals alike.
The changing economic tide of the 1980s brought a new smaller sports car with the Scimitar SS1 which itself went through various development stages resulting in the SST, Sabre and Scimitar Sabre until production finally ceased in 1995. This book details all Reliant sports cars from the Sabra to the last Scimitar Sabre and in addition also covers many sports car projects like the Scimitar SE7, SE82 as well as unrealised plans for a new Scimitar in the late 1990s.
