Richard Oakes: The King of the Kit Car
Richard Oakes was the quiet, unassuming, and ridiculously talented king of the kit car, a man who, from a series of sheds and small workshops, designed futuristic dream cars for ordinary people with a toolbox and a lot of patience. He was the master of automotive alchemy, a man who could take the greasy mechanicals of a VW Beetle or a Mini and transform them into a head-turning slice of affordable exotica.
Oakes learned his trade in the trenches of the 1960s British kit car scene, working at a specialist firm called Davrian. He got his hands dirty, learning the dark arts of fibreglass and lightweight spaceframe chassis. This was a proper, hands-on education in how to make a car that was fast, light, and, most importantly, cheap.
The Nova: A Spaceship for the Suburbs
His big moment arrived in the early 1970s when he designed the Nova. The Nova was a spectacular, futuristic wedge that looked like it had just driven off the set of a science fiction film. It had a dramatic, lift-up canopy roof and gullwing doors, and it was designed to be built on the floorpan of an air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle. It was a masterstroke. For the price of a second-hand family saloon and a few months of grazed knuckles in your garage, you could have a car that looked like a Lamborghini. It was an instant sensation, and thousands were sold all over the world. The Nova defined the look of the 70s kit car and cemented Oakes's reputation as a designer of real genius.
Making the Mini Magical
In the 1980s, he turned his attention to another automotive icon: the Mini. For a company called Midas, he created a series of small, sophisticated sports cars. The Midas was not a crude bodyshell screwed to an old chassis. Oakes designed an advanced, bonded-fibreglass monocoque, a single, strong, and lightweight shell that gave the car incredible rigidity. Owners would then fit the engine and suspension from a donor Mini. The result was a go-kart-like Mini Cooper in a sleek, rust-proof, and futuristic body. It was a brilliant piece of engineering.
The GTM Masterpiece
By the 1990s, Oakes had joined another respected kit car firm, GTM. Here, he designed what many consider to be his masterpiece: the GTM Libra. The Libra was a stunning, mid-engined sports car that looked like a proper, factory-built supercar. It had a sophisticated aluminium spaceframe chassis and a beautiful, swooping composite body. And yet, it was designed to be powered by the engine and gearbox from a humble Rover Metro. It was a car that offered the looks and the handling of a junior supercar, but with the running costs of a shopping cart. It was a critical and commercial success, and remains one of the most desirable kit cars ever made.
A Legacy of Accessible Dreams
Richard Oakes is a design hero who never worked for the big, glamorous manufacturers. His heart was always in the independent, slightly anarchic world of the British kit car industry. He is a hands-on, approachable genius, a man who can be found quietly chatting to owners at car shows, more interested in how they built their car than in his own fame. He is a designer who understands that the dream of owning a sports car is not just for the super-rich.
His legacy is not in priceless collectors pieces, but in the thousands of Novas, Midasas, and Libras that have been lovingly, and sometimes badly, built in garages and sheds all over the world. He is the man who took the humble and the everyday and turned it into something truly special. He is the unsung king of the people's supercar.