Some cars are easy to track down, others aren't quite so. The Saga fits in with the latter and has proved to be quite a - erm - Saga - to find. So far with no result.
The Mini based creature was built in 1964 by Brian Diss, who’d just left sports car manufacturer Elva. Diss told me back in 2009: “When I left them, I decided to build this on my own and finished it as a prototype. My job at Elva was making the moulds and that was also what I wanted to do with this car. It was meant to have a hatchback in the production version.” Diss based his Saga on a tubular steel frame chassis with a double marine ply floor. It used an 850cc engine from a written-off Mini with new subframes at both the front and the rear. He made the body from aluminum. Diss married to a French girl not long after and took the car with him to France, where he opened a garage in Avignon. "I sprayed it a dark red, an Opel Monza colour, and used it to go on a holiday to southern France. We must have done 20,000 miles in it.” Diss, his family and the Saga came back to England after two years, now setting up a company repairing accident cars for insurance companies. The prototype was sold in 1970 or 1971 and was last seen in the mid-1990s (click!). Where is it now?
These unique pictures were given to me by Brian Diss.
The Saga when it was in France, repainted Opel Monza red
Picture Jeroen Booij archive
Diss thinks he drive some 20,000 miles with it while in France
Picture Jeroen Booij archive
The registration '470 LP 80' is from the departement of Somme
Picture Jeroen Booij archive
The car was re-imported to the UK later and re-registered 'GAP 65C'
Picture Jeroen Booij archive
Anyone remembers it in France? And where is it now..?
Picture Jeroen Booij archive
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