We have been making Clubman
style cars for over 50 years starting in England with Mud Pluggers, then
750cc clubmans with which we competed against Colin Chapman’s Lotuses.
In 1952 the Nota team won the 6 hour endurance race at Silverstone in
England against Aston Martin, Healey, Jaguar, Lotus and many others with
our clubman style cars. Then in 1955 Guy Buckingham set up in Australia
and almost immediately started building Clubman cars. Since that time
Nota have won 7 Clubman championships as well as building over 100
clubmans with all manner of engines including various Toyotas since the
early 70’s to the current crop of V tech Toyotas and Hondas including
the S2000. Now we are about to release a totally new clubman, one which
looks just like our current road going car but, instead of the engine
being in the front, it uses a range of transverse 4 cylinder engines [available from virtually every manufacturer], which we are
mounting mid-engined behind the driver and ahead of the rear wheels. The new Nota Clubman utilizes our existing front engine chassis to the rear seat bulkhead, which we have modified to take the transverse engine gearbox units. Aside from the availability of engines there are a lot of other benefits in designing the new Nota this way:
The new Nota Clubman utilizes all of our front engined panelling including the nose, front and rear guards, alloy side cladding and bonnet. The only body panel we’ve modified is the rear spare wheel carrying panel, this we’ve let 80mm into to allow for the engine. Even the spare wheel is mounted in the same manner. In doing these modifications we’ve also retained the same wheelbase so the car still looks the same until the engine cover is open. Looking closer the main difference other than the engines position is we have moved the seats forward by 60mm, not that much considering the benefits we get. In road trim and with a suitable engine, the Sportsman conforms to all current and foreseeable Australian Design Regulations. See what the press says about the Sportsman.
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The Nota Sportsman's specifications are open to individual tailoring to meet your requirements, be it for road, track, or a combination of both.
NOTE : For the traditionalists we still make our front engined Nota Clubmans as well.