Tornado TS40

My name is Chris Meredith. I built the very first Tornado TS40 in 1990. This car was featured in Which Kit Magazine, and was driven by the editor, Peter Philby. It also was featured in Kit Car Magazine and was given 4 full pages plus the front cover under the heading "Is This the Best GT40 in England?" It also was test driven by the then editor, Ewan Scott.

There were a few problems with the build because it was the very first that Tornado had ever done. There were no chassis problems at all.The after sales service and back up were second to none including regular visits to my home by Andrew Sheldon.

I know you could say that it was in his best interests for this car to be done to perfection, but I do not see it that way.

My car was pretty good and because of it, I had 8 other GT40s at my home to either part build, finish off, or just fit the body.

These were Tornado and GTDs and I even had a Dax one owned by John Tojeiro.

I met Robert Logan when he bought his kit from Tornado. It would appear to me that he bought the kit and shipped it to Oz, or built it in England and then shipped it out, and set up in business after copying a lot of the parts, for example the body and chassis . I can't think why, there must be thousands of GT40s lying in Australian junkyards.

In the past 13 years, I can honestly say that I have only ever heard of one Tornado chassis that had a problem. It was with the front top shock mount, and the car was put right by Tornado. There has never been a Tornado chassis that has malfunctioned in any other way. This problem was many years ago.

I still keep in touch with Andrew Sheldon, and was there only the other day and have thoroughly inspected the current chassis and it is only very slightly different to mine of 13 years ago. It is obviously better. He really does have a 40 week waitng list and the quality of all parts is excellent.No GT40 is cheap to build. It is not that kind of car.What I can tell you is that you will not find a better kit for the money anywhere in the world, and even for a lot more money, spent with someone else. Robert Logans cars can not be any better. They have just been altered, possibly for copyright reasons. This just makes them look slightly diferent in certain places.It does not make them better.

I've had enough for one night now, so I will finish by saying that if all the GT40 manufacturers in the world were only one mile from where I live, If I were to buy another one, it would have to be a Tornado one.

You can email me about anything to do with your TS40

[email protected]

 

[Gordon Levy]

I have been watching this thread for a while and as most of you who know me I generally don't involve myself in threads like this.
For those that don't know my background. I have been a profressional car builder and racer all my life. I have been fortunate enough to drive and build some of the fastest cars that have ever been produced. I have driven Trans'Am, Can-Am, GTP, as well as American Iron extreme and hold many track records in Cobra's. I do have a shop full of professional race engineers and craftsman that have been doing this a very long time.
I have also seen and or driven most every Gt-40 replica on the market. I was attracted to The RF because of the race bread design of the chassis as well as the quality of the work produced by Robert and his crew. What bothers me is some of the statements made by a couple of individuals on this thread.
Andy, I don't know what problem you have with Robert and I really don't care. Take it off line.
Chris, It is very apparent that Andy probably put you up to posting as this is your first post. As I understand it your car is very nice and being Tornado's first car was used for a lot of R&D. Please enjoy your car and have fun, but making statements that the RF is just a copy of the Tornado without ever seeing one of understanding the car you are making statements about, just puts you in a bad light.
Every car out there is different and has a position in this market. It is best if the potential customer looks at all of them and chooses what car is going to be best for them.

 

[Andy Sheldon]

Gordon

Any problems I have with Robert are not your concern.
I will not let Robert hide behind the forum which is what you are requesting. If I did that what would be the point of the Forum.
Also I did not ' put chris up to posting' as you worded it and I resent the accustation.
Those may be the tactics Robert and yourself use but I do not.

Andy

 

Gordon, I have now found the offending letter from Robert Logan about Tornado, dated 19th of April,2002. You did miss the important words in paragraph six of my posting, which read "It appears to me"
I did not say outright in one sentence that Robert had copied the Tornado car. It was an assumption based on the facts that I knew.

1 Robert Logan does not sell GT40 kits.
2 Robert Logan buys a GT40 kit from Tornado Sportscars
3 Robert Logan builds GT40 out of kit and takes it to Australia.
4 Robert Logan sets up in business selling GT40s.

I was wrong to say he copied the Tornado body and chassis,for example.

In actual fact, by his own admission in his letter of the 19th of April 2002, he built his own car by using the best bits of a GTD car, a Tornado car, a KVA car, which he bought, ( I wish I could afford to buy three all at once ) and by looking over an ERA.

Also, I would not say that my car was used by Tornado for R&D. I only bought a basic body/chassis plus fuel tanks, windows,wheels and tyres, and a few odd bits. I got my own Ford 302, gearbox, leather seats,did my own wiring by making up a loom, got my own headlamps and other lights,discs,calipers etc etc, and painted it myself in Ford Radiant Red, which is an English colour.

Anrew Sheldon may have liked some of the things I did, and may have copied me. I really don't care.

Also, contrary to what you may think, I can 100% assure you that Andrew did not put me up to my first posting and knew nothing about it for a couple of days.Although for reasons known only to him, he did get rather annoyed at your reply.

I live in this country so let me tell you about what I saw in the early days of GT40s. A friend of mine bought a KVA off Ken Atwell after seeing mine part built. After a year, he sold it deciding it was too out of shape, for want of a better way of putting it.

GTD were the champions of the business.I have been to their premises when they were in Dorset. Very professional. Very clean and tidy. Very helpful. Very expensive, compared to KVA or Tornado. The GTD owners were all in a little clique of their own all around the country.To their minds, they had bought GTD cars over KVA cars as there was nothing else to choose from.They made the right decision at that time. So when Tornado brought theirs out, a lot of them were very anti Tornado. Nothing could be better than their GTD cars. Andrew Sheldon had to fight against all this and it took a long time but eventally some GTD owners with unfinished cars realised that they could buy some parts for their cars at a lot less money than GTD prices. GTD eventually realised this and thats when the gossip started. Thats when the bullshit about other companies products began. Everyone started slagging off their competitors.

It seems to me that nothing has changed in all this time.

I will say this though. Tornado has outlived KVA and GTD and will be around long after a lot of the others have gone as well, or until Andrew retires while still young to the south of France.

Chris Meredith.

 

[Mike Inglis]

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what planet you come from.

 

[Bill D]

Gee, I didn't mean to start such a firestorm /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

Bill D

 

Don't worry Bill. You're one of the good guys.

Chris Meredith

 

Dear Mr Carrot,

Everything that I said is true. You sound like a GTD owner, even if you are not.

Lets look at the facts.

GTD products were so good that I've lost count of the times that they have gone bust.

On the other hand, Tornado products are so poor that they have a 40 week waiting list for kits, have been making them continually for nearly 14 years, have never gone bust, and trust me, never will.

If you put 55 hubbel (or however it's spelt)telescopes end to end, you would still not see the planet that you came from. Look at facts only.

PS. I have nothing personal against you.

Chris Meredith

 

THE PLANET ZOG

 

[Ron Earp]

Why Chris, did you decide to bring this back up to the top? Topic is closed, enough mud slinging.