You are absolutely right. They were building this car at the same time as when all the new regulaltions were coming out. One of the most frustrating things for them is that they were told the original Mini brakes were not good enough despite them being fitted to a much lighter car. They modified the design to take honda discs and callipers. It definately stopped then.

One of the main things that killed it off in the end was sudden influx of Japanese imports. It was Japanese imports that put many small volume car producers out of business in that era. Up to that point their were a lot of uniqueluy designed New Zealand Cars. Once the dust had settled all that were left were Lotus 7, MG TD, Cobra and a few other replicas.

Almac tried to be original in the early 90s, with the Almac Sabre but by that time they could not compete with cheap Japanese pocket rockets and production stopped after only 15 or so cars had been made. That aside the Saker is still in production and the Murtya is the newest original car trying to get into this market and maybe will be ok. Bothe the Saker and the Murtaya are based on Subaru running gear.

I went for a ride in a RD Wasp a couple of years ago and it still is a brilliant fun little car.

The Murtaya.

Name: P Harlow- Murtaya_0682.jpg Views: 3110 Size: 132.6 KB