Harrington - Sabra... a connection?

[AlpineIan]

Maybe I'm going way out on the limb here, but I was researching Leston steering wheels after Bernd posted his question in the HLM Steering Wheel thread and stumbled accross this web site http://www.sabra.be

It appears these cars share the same Leston steering wheels as the Harrington. I soon realized that these cars were fiberglass and stumbled accross this picture of a coupe! Strong Harrington influence... don't you think? I wonder if there was a connection... maybe Harrington helped with the moulds or design? Anyone with any knowledge of this? Also lookes like Pippin Red to me.

 

[puff4]

I used to own Sabra #20049, a red convertible - the last one made with the early radiator/header tank setup. Sabras sports cars were, in fact, English "Reliant Sabre" cars, just assembled in Israel. They had a Ford 1500 engine with a variety of carbs (SU and single down-draught were most popular - mine had the latter). They were, as you noted, all fiberglass, except the floor which was plywood. Apart from them both being of English origin, I know of no other connection between Reliant and Harringtons.

Of course, during the sixties, many coupe's looked like that - check out the contemporary Aston Martins, Peerless / Warwick GT, Gilbern GT or AC Greyhound for example... they're similar, too.

Peerless GT

Peerless GT/2

AC Greyhound

Gilbern GT

 

[64beam]

Hi,

I don't know whether Harrington influenced the shape of other cars at that particular period of time, but many of the cars around that time had the 'hatchback' styling so I suppose you make your mind up. If you look at other cars like the Ferrari, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Triumph, etc all had similar styling on various models. The same can be said today as well for the likes of Jaguar, Aston Martin and Maserati to name a few. Interesting topic.

Regards, Robin.

 

[AlpineIan]

Yah... I honestly don't expect there to be a connection, but the Sabra GT I have pictured with the rear facing vent has a very similar look to the Series 'C' or 'D' Harrington Alpine... just found that to be interesting and you never know. Especially since they are both using the same steering wheel that was adopted by Harrington LTD to be their logo.

I really had not looked closely at the Sabra GT before and found it to be quite an attractive little car. Looks like they are pretty rare too.

 

[puff4]

Yeah, they didn't make many GT's - most were dropheads like mine. The cars were made of rather thick glass and the interior was really plain - the dash was just more-of-the-same fiberglass, painted black - but despite the thickness, the Ford 1600 was plenty perky to make it move out nicely - surprising, really, given the incredibly unsophisticated exhaust header! It also had a very unusual front suspension - forward-pointing J-shaped swing arms, connected to a coil-over shocker - unbelievably simple design, but not the best handling. Overall, I liked the car, but one thing always annoyed me - the dash was designed to sweep around into the doors, and as such, when you opened the door there was this pointy bit of door fiberglass that intruded into the door opening space, and I invariably hit my elbow on it getting out... I was perpetually bruised.

Mine was more maroon colored, but this was the model I had:

And that annoyingly pointless 'point'....

 

[puff4]

I also used to own a Swallow Doretti, and similarly, someone decided to try that out as a coupe as well... however only one ever was made, and that was not by the factory proper. Folks in the UK just seemed to love coupe's - must be the weather.

You can really see the Elite beginnings in that tail, can't you?

 

[napa 1]

A lot of the Harrington Alpine/Le Mans litterature credits it with really being the first "hatchback" from which others followed. Was it really one of the first cars to addopt a hatchback into the design?

Very cool information and photos Puff