Solved: 245. of All. - 1971 Sokol Coupé

[Allemano]

What's the name of this car? One point for the one who's first!

[Allemano]

to the next level..

[neilshouse]

I's called the Sokol built in England in the early 70s by Stanislaw Tatar using a VW floorplan and a 1600cc Toyota Engine. It was owned recently by Sir John Whitmore.

[Allemano]

Yes  .... though I hoped this would last longer.. 
(Sokol = Slavic word for falcon or hawk)

BTW: it's not built in England...

[neilshouse]

BTW: it's not built in England...

You are right, I think it was built in Rhodesia.

EDIT: it was mostly built in Rhodesia, imported to England in 1977 where it was completed and registered in 1978.

[Allemano]

Correct, the point was yours anyway!

[Allemano]

"This unique motor car was the subject of two half-page articles written by the vendor, Sir John Whitmore, in The Daily Telegraph's Motoring Section earlier this year (7th January and 4th February). Readers were asked for information about this unusual vehicle, with a considerable divergence of opinion being expressed about its origins. In the second article, Sir John revealed that the car was a 1,600cc Sokol built in 1971 and first registered in the UK in 1978. The car was correctly identified by two readers, one of whom, Martin Collins, knew constructor Stanislaw Tatar, not only as its owner and builder but as his neighbour in Orpington, Kent. Stanislaw Tatar was a Pole who fought for the Allies in WW2 before retiring to Scotland where he worked as a panel beater and built his first car from scratch. Nine years later he settled in what was then Rhodesia and went into the truck-building business. He conceived this car in 1970 and began its construction using a Volkswagen floorpan, which was extensively modified. The bodywork, made at his truck works in Rhodesia, was all rolled steel except for the aluminium-alloy bonnet. When Tatar moved to Kent with his family in 1977 he brought the almost-completed car with him. Initially the car's only headlamps were those set into the front grille. However, these failed the construction and use regulations and the pop-up lamps, positioned between the bumper and the front-hinged bonnet, were installed , enabling the car to be registered in 1978. For this formality Tatar called it a "Sokol", the Slavic word for Falcon. Somewhat later, he replaced the 1,600cc Volkswagen engine with a 2.0-litre Toyota twin-cam unit that required twin side radiators, further concealing the Sokol's VW origins. Roman, his youngest son, had been responsible for the original sketches while in his early teens and later, as an electronic genius, for the addition of extraordinarily advanced electronics, with instrument display features built into the steering-wheel boss and a mysterious keypad behind the flip-down front number plate, all of which worked in the mid-1980s. Sadly Roman died in 1994, at the age of 33, and Tatar and his wife moved back to Poland, leaving the Sokol here with his older son, John. Having his own electrical business in Sussex to run, John was unable to spare the time and energy needed to complete all the detail and maintain the car, so he rented storage space for it in a barn used by Triumph specialist David Guilding. Another Motoring reader, Stuart Fordham, wrote to tell me he had came across it because he was a Triumph enthusiast and had used the same storage facility. He said they pushed it around in the barn a couple of times, but otherwise it never moved. So there it lay for years, deteriorating slowly before finally ending up on the rural roadside where I saw it with a "for sale" sticker in the window, bought it and took it home. So what happens next? The car is certainly not a runner and it requires a totally new interior. Apart from that, it is very solid, and probably rather heavy. It is rust- and dent-free, the vinyl roof is sound and all the other components are there. With new wheels, rechromed exterior trim, a new interior and a respray, it could be made to look quite good, insofar as its weird styling will allow. Mechanically, its condition is uncertain and it would need to be completely stripped. With its powerful engine hanging way out at the back, it might handle like a dog, or at least like an old Tatra, Skoda, VW Beetle or Porsche, but its appearance will always attract curiosity. The real problems lurk behind the dashboard. Is there a patient electronics genius among our readers who would be interested in taking on the challenge of restoring this amazing feature? If not, the car will have to be rewired normally with conventional instrumentation. Who else among our readers would be interested in furthering the restoration or, indeed, finding it a home? It is surely too unique and too weird to die in obscurity. It deserves better."

[Wendax]

Some more pictures from a recent online auction:

[Arthur Dent]

What  the heck is going on with that steering wheel? 

[Otto Puzzell]

Before the airbag, there was the less-effective iron pillow.

[Paul Jaray]

 

[727]

To quote Allemano above, the center of the steering wheel  must have accomodated the mysterious 'instrument display features built into the steering-wheel boss'.

Anyway, fascinating car.