TVR has been promising it will make a comeback for several years now, but while British sports car fans continue to hold their breath for that, another forgotten name from the history books has been resurrected. Marcos has returned and it’s got big things already in the works.
In case you’re not familiar with Marcos, the company was founded in 1959 – a couple of years after Lotus was born. The founders were Jem Marsh and Frank Costin, who combined their surnames to form the brand’s name. Its first creation was the Marcos Xylon: a very unconventional-looking two-seat sports car that earned the nickname ‘Ugly Duckling’.
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It was designed to go racing, rather than win beauty pageants, with Formula One champion Jackie Stewart and five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell at the wheel. The car’s name means ‘wood’ in Greek, because the chassis was actually made from timber, Marcos going further down the arboreal route than Morgan, which only uses wood for the body frame of its cars.
After that in 1963, the Marcos GT arrived with an elegant design reminiscent of the Jaguar E-Type and other now-iconic sports cars. While it initially got a Volvo four-cylinder engine, a 3.0-litre Ford V6 would eventually be fitted under the extremely long bonnet.
