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Nelson Racing Scimitar
Some History
(some fact, some guesswork, but always open to being corrected).
Some facts first.
ORE 239F was first registered in Staffordshire in May 1968. The DVLA records only go back to 1977 and an enquiry to Staffordshire CC to get hold of the 1968-1977 history drew a blank as they no longer have the records.
The elusive GT?
Some speculation (some fact based). Is this the "missing" Coupe registered ORE 239H from the Reliant publicity shot "The elusive GT"?
Well, there never was a GT registered ORE 239 with the "H" suffix. I found the original photo of this same publicity shot in my pile of document that came with my car (which is interesting in itself). It is certainly not clear that the suffix is actually "H" when looking at the original photo (unlike this photo which is out on the web).
As ORE 239F was registered in Staffordshire it could well be a Reliant Company press car? Unless anyone has some Reliant Company records then this just remains "interesting", is all that can be said....
Picture of ORE 239F in a line-up of other Reliants at the Reliant factory (late 60s I would guess) This lends some evidence to the fact that this was a publicity car of some sort by Reliant. Thanks to Dave Poole for the image.
The Coupe has certainly had a "colourful" life with a number of colour changes as listed in the table.
There is visible evidence of Ford Le Mans Green (see lovely Mk1 Escort example above) and what looks like Manhattan Blue (in each headlight recess), as well as Black.
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