Friday 4 October 2019

Sabre owner looking for Sabre owners

Since it isn't clear how many Sabre Sprints and Sabre Varios were made exactly in the mid-1980s owner Ron Palgrave now plans to register as many as he can. He wrote to me: "Hi Jeroen. I am the owner of the yellow Sabre Sprint in your first Maximum Mini edition. I wonder if you have any other Sabre owners on the circulation list. I am building a register of other owners and would like them to get in touch with me. I do not think there will be many. The builder, (Steve Crabtree) works close to where I live, and I speak with him from time to time. Just now I am trying to persuade him to mould an original dashboard for me. The item that came with the car is fake wood and has been described as looking a bit like a coffin lid! I first contacted Steve some years ago and at that point he told me he had built more than 100 Sabres. Talking later with his colleague Dave Crowshaw he estimated a lower number. When I discussed this with Steve, he said “Well it felt like 100 cars !” In fact, no factory records exist."

"To date I have identified 13 other cars, though all might not still exist. It includes four cars still owned by Steve Crabtree. So I might guess that up to 30 cars might have been sold. This is closer to the number Dave Crowshaw gave me. However, I would like to continue the search, and so any clues you can provide would be appreciated."

Meanhile, I've had a look in the files and found the following registrations. Do you know of others? Ron would love to hear from you, as I do.

EVK 330K - Red Sabre Sprint
YNF 23S - Red Sabre Sprint
Q424 WNL - White Sabre Sprint
Q435 WET - White Sabre Sprint
Q518 WNL - White Sabre Vario
Q614 RNH - White Sabre Sprint
Q584 WFT - Blue Sabre Sprint
Q716 WFT - White Sabre Sprint
Q822 GRW - Yellow Sabre Spint
Q845 WFT - Yellow Sabre Sprint
Q879 WJR - White Sabre Sprint modified into six-wheeler pick-up


UPDATE 7 October 2019:
The following cars have now been added to the list, thanks to Ron, who also ads: "Hope your blog unearths some more, but I am starting to think that even my estimate of 30 produced cars might be too high"

Q585 WFT - White Sabre Sprint
Q645 WFT - no further data known
Q647 WFT - Red Sabre Sprint
Q760 DAJ - White Sabre Sprint
Q935 GRW - Cream Sabre Sprint

Rallying a Sabre Sprint in the 1980s - but how many were made / survive?
Picture Jeroen Booij archive

Advertisement for the Sabre Sprint of 1985. Do you own one?
Picture Jeroen Booij archive

3 comments:

  1. Is there a more update information about theses cars

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There's more in Maximum Mini volume 1 (the book)

      Delete
  2. My wife has just purchased a Sabre Sprint , Is there a way to contact Ron Palgrave about the list? Hers is on the list but would be nice to be in contact with another sprint owner as its needs some work.

    ReplyDelete