Lot 503: 1971 Marcos 3-Litre Coupe

Launched in 1960, the curiously styled yet innovative Marcos GT was the first product of the Jem Marsh and Frank Costin partnership. With its frog-eyed front end, four-piece windscreen and notch-back rear window, the gullwing-doored Marcos was no oil painting, yet beneath its glassfibre skin was a plywood composite chassis, the latter's monocoque construction representing advanced thinking for a competition car at a time when steel tubing was the norm in Formula 1! Ford four-cylinder engines of various capacities were used, and the gearbox likewise was sourced from Dagenham. The Volvo 1800 engine was used for the GT�s successor, which was the first Marcos to feature the classic Dennis Adams-styled body, before the marque returned to Ford power with the outwardly similar 1500 and 1600 models. Despite its theoretical advantages, the plywood chassis was expensive to produce and was replaced by a steel spaceframe on the 3-Litre. Introduced in 1970, the latter used the Ford Essex V6 or Volvo 164 inline six engines, while there was also a (much rarer) 2.5-litre Triumph-powered variant.
One of 250 Volvo-powered 3-Litre models made, this example was first registered in Derbyshire and then owned in Edinburgh. Its owner there kept the Marcos for around five years and then emigrated, leaving it covered up in storage where it has remained since circa 1980. Sold strictly as viewed and offered without reserve, the car comes with Swansea V5 and represents a wonderful opportunity to revive a classic early Marcos that can only become increasingly collectible.