Archived · Classic Cars · 1 min read
Davrian
Londoner Adrian Evans was a structural engineer, who designed and constructed his first Davrian in 1965/1966 for competition use. He used an Imp engine…
This date is the archive capture date; the original publication date was unavailable.
Historical article recovered from a Wayback capture dated 2011-01-09.
Londoner Adrian Evans was a structural engineer, who designed and constructed his first Davrian in 1965/1966 for competition use. He used an Imp engine as he had one readilly available — having just written off his Imp against a brick wall. He made up a prototype body from plywood and fibreglass and put the running gear of his late Imp in it. Two more plywood prototypes followed. Subsequent cars, based on these prototypes, had a fibreglass construction. Like the Lotus Elite and the Rochdale Olympic, it was designed with an all-glassfibre construction, even the chassis. The concept consisted of a highly contoured interior moulding to a very comprehensive one piece undertray. The shell (sills, numerous bulkheads) were filled with poly-urethane foam to provide additional rigidity. Imp suspension components were used front and rear, although some later cars featured Davrian made swinging and trailing arms. The majority of the cars were rear-engined, powered by variants of the Imp engine mated to an Imp transaxle. However the design of the Mk7 and Mk8 cars allowed use of a variety of engine and gearbox combinations.
