CompleteCar

Shamrock to take centre stage

Shamrock to take centre stage

Published on February 5, 2013

Here is a question that will separate the car anoraks from the pack: name an Irish sports car.

If you answered De Lorean you are a member of the pack - without getting into politics the DMC De Lorean was built in west Belfast and funded by a substantial loan from the UK government. The gull-winged car was as Irish (and as doomed) as the Titanic.

To our mind that leaves two cars that can legitimately lay claim to be being Irish sports cars - the TMC Costin and the even rarer Shamrock.

The Shamrock was the brainchild of William Curtis, a wealthy Irish American industrialist, who, while on holidays in Ireland with his Galway-born wife, was shocked by the level of unemployment here. Naturally the production of a luxury sports car primarily for export to the American market would alleviate this!

Encompassing the fin-tail styling and wrap around windscreen so beloved by 1950's America the Shamrock was a mixed bag of innovation and impracticality. The 17-foot long behemoth utilised the latest fibreglass technology to keep the weight of its body shell down while the chassis and coil suspension were considered one of the best in use at the time.

On the flip side however you had a lacklustre 1.5-litre Austin engine under the long bonnet that offered a paltry 51hp and a design that meant, to change the rear tyre, you had to drop the axle to gain access to the wheel.

Despite these issues Curtis stated that he would build 10,000 Shamrocks a year with suggestions of 600 orders placed for the car from California alone. However, like many Irish car manufacturing efforts, financial troubles beset the project and it was finally scrapped in the early sixties. The plant was closed and the unfinished fibreglass bodies and other parts where reportedly dumped into the local Lough Muckno.

Exact figures of completed cars are hard to come by but it is generally accepted that 10 cars were produced with seven of these still with us today - four in Ireland and three in the USA.

It is one of these four Irish cars that will be the centrepiece of the inaugural RIAC National Classic Car Show that takes place on the weekend of February 9.

"The Shamrock is a leading example of our ties to car assembly and our efforts to manufacture our own marques in Ireland," said Event Manager of the Classic Car Show, Bob Montgomery, "and it is a privilege that we will have the only running Shamrock left in Ireland as a feature on the Irish Vintage Scene Magazine Stand at the show."