Possibly one of the best known kit car companies was the Jago Jeep which was made by Geoff Jago who started his own business in 1962 and in 1969 Geoff set up a joint business with Richard Park in Quarry Lane, Chichester, the company was called "Rodding Scene". Richard ran Custom City and dealt with customised motor cycles and custom painting and Geoff continued his business of building street rods, kits and associated components.
He first made his first Model T Hot Rod, which he used to regularly drag race.
Geoff introduced one of the first kit cars of its type known as the Jago Jeep, this was in 1971 and was based on the Ford Anglia 105E mechanical parts. In 1975, a revised version was introduced that could take Ford Escort Mk1 mechanical components and followed by a version based on Mk2 Escort components within months.
Between the two, Jago Automotive introduced a further variant based on the Morris 1000, but this conversion received a lot of adverse publicity from the 'keep the Morris 1000s on the road' fraternity and never sold particularly well. There are however supposed to be several examples of this conversion still on the road today.
In 1993 they finally stopped producing cars and the company still exisits to this day, go to www.jago-developments.com.
My thanks have to go to the Jago Owners Club members for supplying the following much of the following information.
There were 30 kits made for the Morris Minor based Jago although survivors are rare it is though that one or two survive with their A series running gear still in place.
The ones shown below no longer have Morris Minor running gear in place although one has a log book showing its Minor based on a 1958 Morris Minor.
Also thanks to Jon,Mark & Andy for the information, photo's and pointing me in the right direction, if you go to Andy's website there is one at the 2001 kit car show at Newark in the last photo.

The Black one shown below was for sale recently and the paperwork show's it to be from a 1958 Morris Minor but now fitted with ford running gear. Using Morris Miinor as a search enquiryit shows,The vehicle details for NAS 974 are: Date of First Registration 04 12 1958, Year of Manufacture 1958, Cylinder Capacity 1598CC.

As can be seen from these other two others that were also originally Morris Minor based both have twin wipers whereas the black one has the later triple wipers fitted, the third photo is how its evolving into a Willis style of jeep and as can be seen it also has the folding type of windscreen.

The Morris Kilo Sport Kit Car is possibly the rarest of all as there were only 14 of the cars known to have been produced. There are at least 3 survivors known the green one which was sold recently and the white one which resides in Cornwall and is the prototype one shown in the origina sales literature. A third one has just been found in Maroon & cream and is going to be recomissioned in thhe near future.

The photo below is of a Jeffrey J4 built in 1972. Its a Lotus seven styled 70s road race car one of the original kit cars built by George Jeffrey and is one of 30 cars made between 1971-72. Morris 1000 based 1098 A series live linked rear axle inboard front suspenion. True space frame with alloy body fibre glass nose. It was in Derbyshire but has gone to a new home in N Wales.

This must be the ultimate Morris Minor Kit Car and thanks to Bob Blackman for the photo from the Dorset Steam fair a few years ago. Apart from being a true car buff Bob is also an author on what he terms, lo-fi garage engine punk, his book the Horsepower Whisperer is certainly different style of writing have a look at his site to see what I mean. http://www.anarchadia.co.uk

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