TMC Costin

The TMC Costin was a lightweight sports car built from 1983 to 1987 at the Thompson Motor Company in Wexford, Republic of Ireland. The company consisted of brothers Val and Peter Thompson, with a further two brothers (Sean and Anthony) filling background roles.[1]

It was designed by the aerodynamicist and Marcos founder Frank Costin and was intended to be an Irish-made rival to Lotus Seven-inspired cars as manufactured by companies such as Caterham and Westfield. Costin had previous associations with Lotus and Maserati for race-car chassis designs. The cars were very successful in racing, but just 39 cars were built before TMC went bankrupt in 1987. In a visit in late 1986 by a Swedish motoring writer, TMC claimed to have built about 100 but that most had been sold to Canada.[1] Another source claims an overall production of 26.[2] The New York times reported that fewer than 40 were made.[3]

The TMC Costin was available with a 1.6-litre Ford Crossflow engine in three states of tune, Cosworth BDA or BDR for the more powerful versions. The models were called GTA, GTB, and GTC, and offered 84 or 110 or 130 hp (63 or 82 or 97 kW).[1] The rear axle comes from a Ford Capri, while the front suspension is of TMC's own design. The front windscreen was a bespoke unit, made by Pilkington for TMC.[4]

The chassis rights were later sold to the American Daniel Panoz, founder of Panoz Auto Development, which built the Panoz Roadster which is based on the Costin.[5] Panoz had previously worked for TMC, and after acquiring the chassis, and with two former TMC engineers, they built bespoke Roadsters by modifying the Costin chassis to take the Ford 5-litre V8 engine.