Maximum Mini: Reptune GT

Showing posts with label Reptune GT. Show all posts

Monday, 10 June 2019

Remembering the Reptune GT (2)

After last week's article describing the amazing similarities between the Reptune GT and the Ogle SX1000 (click here), I have now found out more about a surviving GT plus the moulds of the car. And it's not very good news I am afraid.

I'd seen pictures of this particular survivor in a pretty bad state years ago, but the owner made himself known only recently. And to my great surprise it turned out that the same man had the moulds also: Mark Law of Ontario, Canada. I contacted the Prophets once more, and they wrote: "Good evening Jeroen, actually Louie does not have the molds. Mark Law actually has the ones that he was discussing with you. We have a shell of a car and a bunch of engine parts, interior etc."

Okay. It turned out that they were for sale, also, but interest was very low. Meanwhile, Mark started stripping the car only to find out the project would become too costly. He wrote: "I'm stripping it down and then store the Reptune parts with the moulds in case I win the lottery or somebody wants to buy 'm, I guess. It's very sad but just not economical to save it. Too much time out in the rain all the steel under the glass had weakened the structure."

Reptune GT survivor was in a bad state, although it seemed savable to me

Picture Mark Law

Mark did plan to restore it and cut off roof and pillars with the idea to make a new body...

Picture Mark Law

...but "Too much time out in the rain all the steel under the glass had weakened the structure".

Chassis clearly shows Mini base - very similar to that of the Ogle SX1000

Picture Mark Law

I'm not sure I'd want to know what happened to these bits after they were cut off...

Picture Mark Law

Although damaged also, the moulding is there, too. Here the roof

Picture Mark Law via Joost van Dien

"A restoration will only happen in case I win the lottery or somebody wants to buy 'm"

Picture Mark Law via Joost van Dien

Front end. It would be good when somebody took care of it and restored the car after all

Picture Mark Law via Joost van Dien

Thursday, 30 May 2019

Remembering the Reptune GT (1)

Some interesting news has found its way to me regarding the Reptune GT, the Mini based sports car made in the Canada of the mid-1960s by the late Dennis Prophet (more here). First, a message came in from Joy Prophet. She wrote: "Good day Jeroen, My name is Joy Prophet and I am married to Louis Prophet, Dennis's youngest son. We just got to see the lovely article you wrote about dad. Thank you for that. But I would like to talk to you about an article you wrote about Stirling Moss's Ogle SX 1000 Mini (this one here). We may be able to shed some light on the history of this car. Feel free to call me or Louis to discuss. Sincerely, Joy Prophet."

And so I called Joy first and then Louis to hear what he had to tell. He said: "Ah, the Ogle SX1000. Dennis bought that car from Stirling Moss. This must have been in the early 1960s. Dad had bought this car and had brought it over to Canada. He ended up using that to build a plug for the Reptune GT, which you will be able to recognize in it. But they also stripped it of its interior and I still have the upholstery. I don't know where the mould for the GT ended up. But the Ogle got sold to Bob Dogson and I remember he was in this big building when we dropped it off. He had crates full of Lotuses of which he didn't even know what colours they were. It was in Burlington. I still have a shell of a Reptune GT that's never been built up as I have the upholstery of the Stirling Moss car."

Well, that was an interesting phone call!
I never knew the Reptune GT actually had ties that were that close to the Ogle SX1000, but now that I have looked better I feel stupid never to have made the connection before. Even the kink in the rear side window is there. I have looked up some pictures of both models from the same angles to show below. Have a look yourself. It would also be interesting to find out more about the history of the Moss Ogle, since it appears to have made its way from the UK to Canada while it's in Japan now (click here), although without its original interior or so it seems. Meanwhile, the moulds of the Reptune GT have been unearthed also, but that's for the next time!

Take a good look at the Reptune GT (left) and the Ogle SX1000 (right) and see the similarities

Pictures Jeroen Booij

Front and rear of the Reptune GT have been heavily modified but the Ogle was used to plug a mould

Pictures Jeroen Booij

Different front end doesn't give away the Ogle breeding easily. This Ogle was used to plug a mould

Pictures Jeroen Booij

Wednesday, 31 October 2018

Dennis Prophet died at 87

Sadly, I am far behind on obituaries sometimes. And Rachel Nelson prompted me about one I should not have missed yesterday. I wrote about a Canadian Reptune Gullwing (here) when she contacted me to tell that Reptune's instigator Dennis Prophet had passed away almost a year ago. This happened on 29 November 2017 when Dennis died at the age of 87 in his native Keswick, Canada.

British-born Prophet worked for BMC's Competitions Department before coming to Canada in 1963 and setting up the Canadian branch of BMC's tuning division there. He became responsible for the import of the Austin-Healey 3000 also and its racing activities but soon started his own business in Scarborough, Ontario: Reputation Tuning Services, or Reptune. He became a BMC and Alfa-Romeo dealer and set up import lines for the Broadspeed cars and the Ogle SX1000. He was a regular visitor of the Sebring race track with all these cars in the weekend and sold them on Mondays.

But in 1967 Prophet also launched his first Mini based car to his own design: the Reptune GT, which looked not unlike an Ogle SX1000. On the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal, Reptune had a spectacular stand with seven GT bodies hanging at various heights simulating a motoring manufacturer’s production line. Eventually 34 GTs were sold before Prophet came up with a simpler and cheaper new model: the Reptune Gullwing, of which he sold another 32. Prophet kept the Gullwing prototype, the moulds plus one production car until last year when they were sold (click here).

When I first contacted Dennis about his cars in 2010 or 2011 he was ever so enthusiastic about Maximum Mini and telephoned me regularly when he'd found new historic images, which were then scanned and sent over by a friend. With the passing of Dennis Prophet, the original Canadian chapter of Mini tuning and Mini based cars is now sadly closed.