The Connaught: A British Sports Car Revival

In this exclusive interview, we sit down with Mike, the driving force behind the revival of the Connaught sports car brand. With a rich history dating back to the 1950s, the Connaught has always been known for its innovative designs and cutting-edge technology. In recent years, the company has been working tirelessly to bring this iconic brand back to life.

One of the key challenges in reviving the Connaught was creating an engine that would meet modern emissions standards while still delivering a thrilling driving experience. To overcome this hurdle, Mike's team turned to hybrid technology and a unique narrow-angle cylinder arrangement. "We wanted to create an engine that could come to a standstill in top gear and then wind up quickly when the throttle is pressed," explains Mike. "To achieve this, we needed multiple cylinders, which led us to experiment with different firing orders and camshaft profiles."

The result of this experimentation was a 10-cylinder V10 engine, which has been carefully calibrated to deliver exceptional performance while minimizing emissions. With its advanced hybrid system and narrow-angle cylinder arrangement, the Connaught's new engine is set to leave a lasting impression on driving enthusiasts.

As we prepare for the dynamic debut of the Connaught, Mike reveals that significant investment has been secured to bring this project to fruition. "There's no reason why we shouldn't finish off the first batch of cars and get them ready for launch," he says with confidence. With its sleek design and innovative technology, the Connaught is poised to become a flagship model for the brand.

But what about the future? Mike hints that new developments are already underway, promising an exciting new chapter in the Connaught's history. "I can tell you that there's one more thing we're working on, which will be revealed in a future video," he teases. With its rich heritage and cutting-edge technology, the Connaught is set to make waves in the world of sports cars.

In preparation for the Connaught's launch, Mike takes us on a tour of the company's facilities, showcasing the latest advancements in engine development and design. From advanced computer simulations to prototype testing, every aspect of the Connaught's creation has been meticulously planned and executed.

As we watch, Mike carefully prepares the Connaught for its first run, making sure every detail is in place. With a nod to the classic designs of yesteryear, the Connaught takes shape, its sleek lines and bold features hinting at a thrilling driving experience.

In a special guest appearance, Mike brings along his friend, who shares stories about the Connaught's early days. "I remember it like it was yesterday," he says with a grin. "There's something truly special about revving up that engine for the first time – it's music to my ears!"

As the Connaught roars to life, Mike takes us on a thrilling ride through its capabilities, showcasing the V10 engine's incredible power and agility. With its unique hybrid system and advanced computer controls, this is an experience unlike any other.

After our exclusive drive, we catch up with Mike to reflect on the journey so far. "We're thrilled to have secured investment and can't wait to share this project with the world," he says. With its rich heritage, cutting-edge technology, and undeniable charm, the Connaught is set to leave a lasting impression on driving enthusiasts everywhere.

In conclusion, the Connaught's revival is a testament to the power of innovation and dedication. As we look forward to the brand's dynamic debut, one thing is certain – this iconic sports car is back, and it's here to stay. With its unique blend of style, substance, and performance, the Connaught is poised to make waves in the world of driving.

Cleanliness is Key: A Word from Turtle Wax

As we prepare for the Connaught's launch, Mike brings along a special guest – Turtle Wax, a leading brand in car care and detailing products. With their expertise, they help us give the Morgan Plus Four a sparkling makeover, showcasing the full range of Turtle Wax's offerings.

From wash and wax waterless cleaners to advanced detailing sprays, Turtle Wax has got you covered for all your car care needs. Whether you're looking for an instant detail or a comprehensive wash, Turtle Wax's products are designed to deliver exceptional results.

As we get up close and personal with the Morgan Plus Four, Mike reveals his secret for keeping this classic British sports car in pristine condition – Turtle Wax! With their range of products, he keeps his own vehicle gleaming, from show-stopping finishes to effortless daily detailing.

For a closer look at Turtle Wax's full product range and special offers, be sure to check out the link provided in our video description. As Mike says, "Turtle Wax is perfect for giving your car some real TLC – they've got everything you need to keep it looking its best."

As we bid farewell to our new friend, Turtle Wax, Mike takes us back to the Connaught's humble beginnings. With a nod to the classic designs of yesteryear, he invites us to join him on this thrilling journey into the future.

The Connaught is back, and it's better than ever.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ensix months ago we posted a video on the drive tribe channel about a long-lost british v10 sports car called the connot type d now that video gained so much traction that my dms were inundated with people saying that we had to rediscover that car and after some serious detective work i found it we are at the hq of bethan davidson international an engineering company that makes a whole host of experimental vehicles from three wheelers to supercars to ambulances and it just so happens that they now own the conor name and have our car and here it is the connote type d it's been hidden from all eyes since 2004 but we've found it first impressions it's a lot smaller than i thought the press pictures i guess kind of got the proportions a bit wrong it's more like a squatter wider mazda mx-5 hardtop the pictures made it look more sort of tvr size but no much smaller than that everything in here is predictably very 2004 we've got these funky dials with the connot badging got these nice comfortable sport seats and this mix of leather and i guess stainless steel and then there's this huge transmission tunnel in the middle with the gear shift right beside your knee and that is because the engine is designed to be quite far back in the car front mid engine and speaking of that engine this is what makes the connot so special this tiny narrow angle v10 engine is only 22.5 degrees between the banks of cylinders which means they all fit under one cylinder head essentially making it a vr 10 engine this is only two liters of displacement if you think of most v10 engines they're normally around about five liters so this thing is minuscule but before we start up let's chat to the man behind this engine and that car tim bishop used to work for jaguar land rover back in the day but decided to go it alone and start up his own business bringing back the connot name from the racing team of the 1950s he was an engine specialist at jlr hence the talent shown in designing and building this tiny v10 so tim you were the man behind this project but what happened from 2004 until now well basically we ran out of money uh the i think we were rather too far advanced the hybrid system was regarded as a joke in a car to do a seriously lightweight car was something that just passed the major manufacturers by and it also passed the investors by and then there were various attempts to sell the company and to cut a very long story short everything that could be salvaged ended up in a store that i built and it there it sat and this is the show car are there other chassis sitting around in places yes indeed there's three chassis assembled another 20 i think disassembled i think 20 engines and speaking of the engine let's take a look at this block over here so first question why v10 the v10 came from the need to be hybrid because we wanted to have brilliant fuel economy we wanted to be ahead of everybody else the only hybrid available was the prius which was pretty hideous and we wanted to do something special so we needed multiple cylinders because a petrol engine is least efficient when it's idling so we didn't want it to idle so the plan with the hybrid system and the double torque from the hybrid system you could come to a standstill in top gear and then when you press the throttle without touching the clutch or anything it would just wind up and drive away from the traffic lights in in top gear and so you could go from zero to theoretically 140 mile an hour and to do that you need multiple cylinders how did you come up with this narrowing angle is this just pure mathematics that leads to this well i'm not the first i mean lancia were the pioneers of all sorts of narrow angles and they changed by each engine derivative they had changed by two and a half degrees or five degrees or strange things and volkswagen of course also came up with a narrow angle v6 and it just happens to work out that 22.5 degrees is a good compromise for any number of cylinders so four cylinders up to 10 actually up to 12 works quite well in 22 and a half degrees and we've got a running engine that we'll get to later and it's an incredibly unique car design what would you like to happen with the connot brand going forward well there's a bit of investment in it now so there's no reason why we shouldn't finish off the the first batch of cars and bring them into the future because to be fair it's 15 years ago since it was all done so things have moved on and we can simplify the engine management and change this and change that and come up with a whole new range of stuff uh you need to talk to film really for the range of stuff because it's out of my hands now but i'm very chuffed to actually be running the things and developing the things again perfect well tim it's been great to speak to you and yeah good luck with this project thank you it's uh yeah exciting times this shoot wouldn't have been possible without the sponsors of today's video turtle wax they provide a whole load of cleaning and detailing products whether you just want to give your car an instant detail or whether you've got time of the weekend for a fully fledged wash now i wanted to give the connaught some fellow british sports car support so i brought along this lovely morgan plus four and to make it gleam even on this pretty nasty winter's day i use turtle wax's wash and wax waterless cleaner give the car a spray give it the once over and it comes out really nice i use this on my car when i turn up to our vents as well just in case people recognize the drivetry mondeo st this stuff is great for a quick clean but if you've got time of the weekend and you want to give your car some real tlc their hybrid solutions products are absolutely perfect for it so if you would like some of this for your car and to also check out the other products that turtle wax provides there's a link in the description below now let's go start up that engine tim good luck here we go how's that and that's that now when you revved a bit more there that was a bit of v10 that sort of note was bang on a 10 cylinder it's amazing to come from something this small compared to say a 5 liter from lamborghini or something yeah well it'll it'll rev a lot higher than that but it's all brand new inside so i don't want to don't want to rev its pants off yet is that exactly how you remember it back in the day absolutely yes there's a bit of setting up to do because you can get the idle down to really slow but since we sort of rather hurriedly put the top end together and the reason we had to cut it off early is because there's no cooling system there's no coolant on this stand no and also i would want to look at it look at the calibration on the computer but since the computer isn't working because it's been so long since it's run the computer's now dead and gone so we've got to kick that all off again well we need more v10s in the world so i wish you all the luck in the world thank you thank you what a moment it was to hear that engine starting up and hear those morsels of v10 sounds coming from it and it looks like connot has got the investment it now needs to be what it was always meant to be this car that engine should make for an awesome combination and don't you worry the dynamic debut of this thing will be on our youtube channel there is one more thing that i want to show you guys in future that this company is making it's just through this door and it will be in a future video it is like nothing i have ever seen before i've been mike and don't forget to subscribe to drivetribe yousix months ago we posted a video on the drive tribe channel about a long-lost british v10 sports car called the connot type d now that video gained so much traction that my dms were inundated with people saying that we had to rediscover that car and after some serious detective work i found it we are at the hq of bethan davidson international an engineering company that makes a whole host of experimental vehicles from three wheelers to supercars to ambulances and it just so happens that they now own the conor name and have our car and here it is the connote type d it's been hidden from all eyes since 2004 but we've found it first impressions it's a lot smaller than i thought the press pictures i guess kind of got the proportions a bit wrong it's more like a squatter wider mazda mx-5 hardtop the pictures made it look more sort of tvr size but no much smaller than that everything in here is predictably very 2004 we've got these funky dials with the connot badging got these nice comfortable sport seats and this mix of leather and i guess stainless steel and then there's this huge transmission tunnel in the middle with the gear shift right beside your knee and that is because the engine is designed to be quite far back in the car front mid engine and speaking of that engine this is what makes the connot so special this tiny narrow angle v10 engine is only 22.5 degrees between the banks of cylinders which means they all fit under one cylinder head essentially making it a vr 10 engine this is only two liters of displacement if you think of most v10 engines they're normally around about five liters so this thing is minuscule but before we start up let's chat to the man behind this engine and that car tim bishop used to work for jaguar land rover back in the day but decided to go it alone and start up his own business bringing back the connot name from the racing team of the 1950s he was an engine specialist at jlr hence the talent shown in designing and building this tiny v10 so tim you were the man behind this project but what happened from 2004 until now well basically we ran out of money uh the i think we were rather too far advanced the hybrid system was regarded as a joke in a car to do a seriously lightweight car was something that just passed the major manufacturers by and it also passed the investors by and then there were various attempts to sell the company and to cut a very long story short everything that could be salvaged ended up in a store that i built and it there it sat and this is the show car are there other chassis sitting around in places yes indeed there's three chassis assembled another 20 i think disassembled i think 20 engines and speaking of the engine let's take a look at this block over here so first question why v10 the v10 came from the need to be hybrid because we wanted to have brilliant fuel economy we wanted to be ahead of everybody else the only hybrid available was the prius which was pretty hideous and we wanted to do something special so we needed multiple cylinders because a petrol engine is least efficient when it's idling so we didn't want it to idle so the plan with the hybrid system and the double torque from the hybrid system you could come to a standstill in top gear and then when you press the throttle without touching the clutch or anything it would just wind up and drive away from the traffic lights in in top gear and so you could go from zero to theoretically 140 mile an hour and to do that you need multiple cylinders how did you come up with this narrowing angle is this just pure mathematics that leads to this well i'm not the first i mean lancia were the pioneers of all sorts of narrow angles and they changed by each engine derivative they had changed by two and a half degrees or five degrees or strange things and volkswagen of course also came up with a narrow angle v6 and it just happens to work out that 22.5 degrees is a good compromise for any number of cylinders so four cylinders up to 10 actually up to 12 works quite well in 22 and a half degrees and we've got a running engine that we'll get to later and it's an incredibly unique car design what would you like to happen with the connot brand going forward well there's a bit of investment in it now so there's no reason why we shouldn't finish off the the first batch of cars and bring them into the future because to be fair it's 15 years ago since it was all done so things have moved on and we can simplify the engine management and change this and change that and come up with a whole new range of stuff uh you need to talk to film really for the range of stuff because it's out of my hands now but i'm very chuffed to actually be running the things and developing the things again perfect well tim it's been great to speak to you and yeah good luck with this project thank you it's uh yeah exciting times this shoot wouldn't have been possible without the sponsors of today's video turtle wax they provide a whole load of cleaning and detailing products whether you just want to give your car an instant detail or whether you've got time of the weekend for a fully fledged wash now i wanted to give the connaught some fellow british sports car support so i brought along this lovely morgan plus four and to make it gleam even on this pretty nasty winter's day i use turtle wax's wash and wax waterless cleaner give the car a spray give it the once over and it comes out really nice i use this on my car when i turn up to our vents as well just in case people recognize the drivetry mondeo st this stuff is great for a quick clean but if you've got time of the weekend and you want to give your car some real tlc their hybrid solutions products are absolutely perfect for it so if you would like some of this for your car and to also check out the other products that turtle wax provides there's a link in the description below now let's go start up that engine tim good luck here we go how's that and that's that now when you revved a bit more there that was a bit of v10 that sort of note was bang on a 10 cylinder it's amazing to come from something this small compared to say a 5 liter from lamborghini or something yeah well it'll it'll rev a lot higher than that but it's all brand new inside so i don't want to don't want to rev its pants off yet is that exactly how you remember it back in the day absolutely yes there's a bit of setting up to do because you can get the idle down to really slow but since we sort of rather hurriedly put the top end together and the reason we had to cut it off early is because there's no cooling system there's no coolant on this stand no and also i would want to look at it look at the calibration on the computer but since the computer isn't working because it's been so long since it's run the computer's now dead and gone so we've got to kick that all off again well we need more v10s in the world so i wish you all the luck in the world thank you thank you what a moment it was to hear that engine starting up and hear those morsels of v10 sounds coming from it and it looks like connot has got the investment it now needs to be what it was always meant to be this car that engine should make for an awesome combination and don't you worry the dynamic debut of this thing will be on our youtube channel there is one more thing that i want to show you guys in future that this company is making it's just through this door and it will be in a future video it is like nothing i have ever seen before i've been mike and don't forget to subscribe to drivetribe you\n"