Reliant Fox – Cult Classic, not Best Seller

Ah the Reliant Fox. Sometimes the idea is all you need. Like the Mazda MX-5 for example. Other times you need quite a lot more. Like the Scimitar SS1.

Two cars from two different manufacturers, both driven by the same idea: a small, inexpensive sports car in the Midget, Spitfire and MGB tradition. One was executed with precision for guaranteed success by a vast, generously-resourced conglomerate whilst the other was cobbled together using masking tape by enthusiasts in Tamworth and wasn’t a winner by any measure of the word ‘success.’ And it’s that dichotomy that encapsulates the Reliant story. Here was a firm not short on ideas, but rather short on how best to develop them. And money.

All of this is a precursor to what we’re here to really talk about: the Reliant Fox. If the idea of a Reliant Robin-derived commercial pickup is new to you, that may have something to do with the fact that less than 1,000 sneaked their way out of the factory between 1983 and 1990.

Surprisingly for a company that seemed to thrive on blue-sky ideas – a sporting estate car anyone? – the concept for the Fox didn’t originate in Tamworth. For its genesis we have to travel around the world to the rather warmer and perhaps more inviting environs of Greece and the HQ of local car maker Mebea.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Mebea was a major manufacturer of cars, bikes, trucks and agricultural equipment. It also built Reliant three-wheelers like the Robin and TW9 under licence. In the mid-1970s, along with several of its competitors, Mebea chose to capitalise on a loophole in Greece’s passenger vehicle tax laws and began producing a ‘passenger utility’ vehicle – a sort of car with commercial potential – that would do exactly that.

The Kitten – a four-wheeled three-wheeler…

The firm identified Reliant’s Kitten as a good base for the new car. The Kitten, for those not forensically familiar with Reliant’s complicated model range, was the four-wheeled version of the Robin – a sort of Robin with stabilisers if you will. To get the ball rolling, Mebea naturally turned to John Crosthwaite. He was a former race car designer and engineer and the all-round Reliant chassis supremo who had helped develop the Scimitar GTE. And, perhaps less illustriously for some, engineered the Kitten. Reliant was also drawn in to help fast-track the new car’s type approval process.

The fibreglass styling was heavily influenced by the Fiore 127 Gypsy. It was not unattractive, albeit a bit utilitarian and uninspiring, and since it was based on the Kitten but somewhat more macho, they called it the Fox. Beneath the bodywork it was ‘all Kitten’ which meant the fire-breathing – no, not really – 848cc from a Mini driving the front wheels.

The Fox made quite a lot of sense in Greece where small, light and nimble commercial pickups were perfectly suited to the narrow, rugged lanes and streets of the country’s rural communities. As a more stable alternative to Reliant’s TW9 three-wheeled pickup up it found its market. Local buyers needed wheels to transport produce and, provided the purchase price was right, they weren’t too fussed about niceties like refinement.

There was even a Mini Moke-style version with chopped bodywork and distant echoes of Fiat’s 500 Jolly. Around 3,000 of all variants were built between 1979 and 1983, when a change in Greece’s car tax rules made its single USP somewhat less unique.

For a company very much focused on grasping at any idea, as long as it was a new one, it’s perhaps not surprising that Reliant had spotted the UK ‘potential’ of the Fox. It was displayed at the 1980 Motor Show, but apparently forgotten until 1982 when it was displayed again. At this point, it coincided with the end of Greek production and a desire by Reliant to shore up declining UK vehicle production. Reliant thought it could fill a gap in the market for a new Mini Moke that was also a light pickup. It feels surprising now that such behemoths as Ford, Vauxhall and perhaps even Land Rover hadn’t chanced upon this commercial gold mine. But they hadn’t, and Reliant did.

The firm was so convinced by this exciting opportunity that it ploughed £500,000 into re-engineering the Fox for UK customers. Much of this work involved strengthening the chassis and improving the steering and so to kick-start this scintillating new era in Reliant sales, the firm built 100 Foxes in special champagne metallic. Each one was despatched to 100 specially selected dealers, their sales teams no doubt literally quivering with excitement.

Journalists ‘lucky’ enough to test early production Foxes were less enthusiastic, although they may also have been quivering. That would likely have been due to the car’s skittish ride and noisy cabin. Undersized and over-priced the Fox didn’t seem like a sure-fire winner, but with sales beginning in May 1983, customers could buy the Fox as a straight pick-up or with a choice of cab or hard top that transformed it into a small estate. The initial cars used the ‘potent’ 50bhp 848cc A-Series engine. From 1984 this was switched to the HTE motor with a lowlier 37.5bhp.

It’s not entirely clear who the customer base was for this most distinctive of small commercial pickups. The market in Greece, as we’ve seen, was clear. But Britain had rather fewer rough roads and isolated rural communities and rather more demand for big vans capable of big jobs. Yet there were buyers. Figures are hazy but somewhere between 600 and 1,000 Foxes slinked out of the Tamworth works between 1983 and 1990. Around 100 of those found homes as the basis of camper vans, equipped with clip-on bodies.

Today there are about 50 road-registered Foxes in the UK and about four times that on SORN. There’s a joke here somewhere about Foxes, winter hibernation and extinction but, as you can see, we haven’t stooped to make it. But you can.

The Fox was a good idea from over there, which became a less obviously good one when brought over here. But we celebrate it as a cult classic because it was the inspired work of a plucky, innovative manufacturer – even if, as it turned out, it wasn’t actually their idea. Who cares though, because the Fox makes a great modern classic, particularly if you have an allotment several miles from your home or need a camper van that can’t really go up hills.

The Fox was a plucky and daring idea that only Reliant could really have ever executed. It makes an interesting and unusual talking point at any classic car show. And we’re all for classic conversation starters.