Solved - Barrett's 1001 - Lansing Bagnall (Bradshaw) Shay Sports

[barrett]

Not Sharps or Panther

[nicanary]

Please unlock.

[barrett]

okay, open to all

[Carnut]

It has a name, and was built by a proper manufacturer

Was it the prototype for the 1955 Lansing Bagnall car?
They were a maker of forklift trucks and similar commerical vehicles but it seems they fancied having a go at car-making in 1955!
Their car, pictured below, was designed by Granville Bradshaw, they were based in Basingstoke, Hampshire and the wheels look similar...
It might even be him sitting in it! It looks rather like him.

The car pictured below is the Lansing Bagnall Utility (of 1948) which seems to conflict with it being a 1955 car as described on the All-Car Index website.
But there was also another Lansing Bagnall car designed by Bagshaw called the "Shay Sports", so maybe your puzzle car is the prototype of that? That could be the cause of the confusion with the dates; the Utility dates from 1948 and the one dating from 1955 is probably the Shay Sports:

https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2013-42/solved-wendax-932-bradshaw-utility/msg280845/#msg280845

[barrett]

That's right! It's the Shay Sports, which was essentially a sports car built around the Bradshaw Utility platform by Lansing Bagnall.

There is some confusion over the dates these cars were built. The Utility was registered for the road in 1955 by a private owner, but this was way after development had stopped. As far as we know, it was built in the late 1940s but not registered for some time after that. We used to own this car and it does seem to pre-date the 1955 registration by some time. Certainly it was several years before the other famous fwd, transverse, gearbox-in-sump British family car...

The Shay Sports was a development of the Utility, but as somebody pointed out the body is a Microplas Toledo so this can only have been finished as a complete car in 1954/55. I'm not sure if it was ever registered, and it almost certainly no longer survives.

Well done!