Wendy Wools Specials

[RamblinStu]

I noticed buried in the British Saloon/Touring Car Championships thread, Aysedasi, made mention of the Wendy Wools series.

I have very fond memories of these at Snetterton in the mid eighties. In particular a Reliant Kitten, has any body got any information about this series or indeed the Kitten, or is my memory playing tricks?

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by RamblinStu

I noticed buried in the British Saloon/Touring Car Championships thread, Aysedasi, made mention of the Wendy Wools series.

I have very fond memories of these at Snetterton in the mid eighties. In particular a Reliant Kitten, has any body got any information about this series or indeed the Kitten, or is my memory playing tricks?

No Stu your memory is NOT playing tricks. There was a Reliant Kitten special saloon which in many people's opinion was the purrfect car for the job!

The vehicle ended up in the British Hillclimb Championship running in the Hillclimb Leaders. It eventually disappeared from the hills after a particularly violent engine blow up at Prescott.

[col rooney]

Was the reliant kitten not driven by ginger marshal i know he raced 1 back then which he told me at brands last year he still has

[davyboy]

Speaking of the Wendy Wools Series... wasn't there a cheesy TV-series drama based around it called Driving Ambition with a female driver racing one of the enormous fronted minis... and I genuinely did not intend a pun there

[Nordic]

Kitten

The kitten was a great little car, there are also a few other pictures that could jog some memories form the Wendy Wools and modSports races of the early 80's

Index

I remember the series, I think it was called Driving Ambition.

[Peter Mallett]

Yep Ginger Marshall raced the Kitten.

Peter Baldwin was the "lady driver" in Driving Ambition. And if I'm not mistaken the Tony Davies Firenza featured too.

[davyboy]

An interesting follow up to that, the actual lady who played driver 'Donna Hewitt', Rosemary Martin, sadly died in 1998... and before anyone starts, I'm not that bad of an Alan Partridge... I just got it off the web.

[275 GTB-4]

Does anyone know if the Driving Ambition series is available on DVD etc??

[davyboy]

I doubt it very much. It was done by the BBC and there may be a way of getting back-archive stuff from them... apparently us UK licence-fee payers have funded the digitization of a lot of their content... maybe that material's amongst what they've digitized ? Check out the BBC site.

[275 GTB-4]

Originally Posted by davyboy

I doubt it very much. It was done by the BBC and there may be a way of getting back-archive stuff from them... apparently us UK licence-fee payers have funded the digitization of a lot of their content... maybe that material's amongst what they've digitized ? Check out the BBC site.

Thanks...our equivalent of the BBC (the ABC) has set up a marketing arm and speciality shops for just that purpose....they seem to be very successful.

[RTH]

Originally Posted by 275 GTB-4

Does anyone know if the Driving Ambition series is available on DVD etc??

It was a 13 part BBC series in 1983 I was involved in providing some of the background cars for filming at the old dissused Handley Page Aerodrome between Radlett and St Albans in June '83........you would not believe the money that was wasted ! The whole series went out again on one of the sky channels about13 years ago.......trust me you really would not want to spend money on buying it even if it did ever escape on DVD, the storyline and dialogue I thought let the actors and producer down.

[275 GTB-4]

RT....I luved it!!..we saw the series out here in the Antipodes and would be interested in getting it on DVD if it is available (Blush) :-)

[driftwood]

The reliant kitten was not the hillclimb car from Ginger Marshall and i beleive he still has that car
the engine was his own block casting with Imp cyl head as he had run the Imp engine in the Mini Traveller Space frame car he had used prior to the Kitten
His 1st mini traveller was steel shell car with mini engine
John Meredith had a mini Traveller space frame hillclimb car built by Marshall

Driving Ambition was crap and yes Davies and Baldwin where the main star cars/ drivers for the series

Mini /Imp engined combos
there where a few running I think Lawrence tune did the 1st set up in the mid 70`s in steel shells and some where 850 cc class cars and the rest where 1 litres
Later we had the space frame minis trying the Imp 1 litre engine

Peter Day had the half a BDA motor in his mini then built the Fiat 500 space frame car and fitted the 2 cyl bda into that running as an 850 cc class car

there where a few differnt special saloon series in the 70`s but Wendy wools was the 80`s series with many space frame Imps and minis a few odd cars like Fiat 850/1000 cc fast backs Suzuki 100SC came out plus the Skoda hart of tony dickenson based on lola 290 chassis and a few escorts and the odd Capri
Donington GT series was running and the BRSCC brought out the Modified saloon car series to cater for the steel floor pan glass fibre cars that had once been "special saloons" from the 70`s and a lot of this has been covered in other threads

what we need is some fotos or links posted

My brother has our box of fotos we took of the cars as we where activily racing in the series back then but he has moved twice and needs to find them before i cut off his thngies !!

[Jeremy Jackson]

There was a metallic green Rover-engined Relaint Kitten in the Wendy Wools championship in 1987, raced by either Nigel or Neil Walker (haven't got the programme to hand, sorry!)

[Tim Wilkinson]

The 1994 Lynton Trailers Sports / Saloons final results has Brian Scholey second in class A in a Reliant Kitten. The class was won by Tony Sugden in the Skoda.

So how many Kittens were there?

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by driftwood

Peter Day had the half a BDA motor in his mini then built the Fiat 500 space frame car and fitted the 2 cyl bda into that running as an 850 cc class car

what we need is some fotos or links posted

My brother has our box of fotos we took of the cars as we where activily racing in the series back then but he has moved twice and needs to find them before i cut off his thngies !!

Gadzooks! Did this 1/2 BDA Fiat run the Fiat transaxel? Please find photos!

I remember seeing some of the Driving Ambition series on one of our US Cable networks maybe 15 years ago. It was dumb and campy, but it did have race cars so it had some redeeming values...

robert

[Mad Dog]

I remember the Wendy Wools days with great affection.
I was involved in the Driving ambition program and it was great fun to be in.The Wendy wools championship had a huge following and was also televised.
I still run my 1300cc BDH Cosworth Metro that I started to campaign in the early 80s it must be one of the only special saloons still being competitivly used in circuit racing today.We need a revival championship to be launched as I know of a lot of these cars that are still in peoples garages.

[rcarr]

Mad Dog, I am still wanting to create a register for these cars, I need some assistance to try and get it off the ground. I have about 10 or 12 people interested so far. My car is -as we speak- being stripped down to the bare metal and about to be rebuilt. I need to sell my XR2 race car to free up some funds too!

My Dad said we had recordings of Driving ambition somewhere in the house, I am too young to remember it on TV but remember my parents talking about it.