Background
The co-founders of Marcos were surprisingly different characters. Jeremy “Jem” Marsh (the “Mar”) was the younger of the pair by about 10 years. He was progressive and entrepreneurial and had formerly set up the Speedex Car company that made car bodies in Luton. Frank Costin (the “Cos”) was more of an old-school engineer and aerodynamicist. Brother of Cosworth’s Mike Costin, Frank had cut his teeth working on the Mosquito fighter bomber at De Havilland. It was here that the idea that function was always the senior partner to form, was drummed into him. Frank was quoted as saying that “if we find an aircraft flies better with three rudders and five tailplanes, that’s what we use.”
Costin’s innovative use of plywood in the structure of his cars built on his expertise in wing design at De Havilland where the ubiquitous material was regularly used. His insistence on the function over form principle immediately gave rise to some successful Marcos competition cars as well as the use of common or garden domestic ply rather than industrial grade, marine ply. The basic stuff worked so why bother with anything better? The downside of Costin’s dogma, however, was plain for all to see. His cars were ugly. Three of his earliest designs were nicknamed “the Flying Splinter,” “the Ugly Duckling,” and “the Bread Van.” Say no more.
It was this fundamental pragmatism that shaped the future of the business, too. After a mere 11 Marcoses had been built Marsh and Costin had a falling out. Marsh wanted to make the cars more attractive to appeal to those that fancied a Marcos for the road. Costin found the idea flippant and unnecessary. This schism ultimately led to Costin turning his back on the Marcos venture and signing the business over to Marsh. With Costin out of the picture, Marsh commissioned Marcos employees, the Adams brothers, to design a new car. That car was the Marcos 1800 GT. Powered by the erstwhile Volvo B18 engine, this Marcos was a sleek and handsome contrivance and marked the arrival of a shape that would become synonymous with the Marcos brand for the next 30 years or so.
In common with almost all low volume, hand built British cars the Marcos GT appeared to be in a continuous game of pass-the-parcel when it came to engines. Units from Volvo, Triumph but mostly Ford came and went with dizzying regularity. In 1967, however, Ford’s new 1,600cc, inline four cylinder Crossflow engine was fitted to create the 1600 GT. The 1600 GT went on to become the firm’s most popular iteration with 192 cars produced between late 1967 and early 1969. The Ford Crossflow engine would see Marcos through to the end of production of the plywood endowed cars. A new steel chassis model arrived in 1969 and with it a new power plant in the form of the 2-litre Ford V4 engine. For absolute purists, then, the 1600 GT is often seen of the last of the true Costin inspired Marcoses.
