Introduction

When I first built my Sylva Fury in 1993, the internet was still in its infancy, for me anyway! I bought my kit from the respected Jeremy Philips, owner and designer of Sylva Sportscars. The Fury ticked all the right boxes for me, it had a race proven chassis (based on the Stryker) and had a good looking 60s style body. 

Having test driven Jeremy’s British racing green demonstrator I had no doubt this was the kit for me. I picked up the kit in the summer of 1993. The donor vehicle for the engine and gearbox was a Fiat Mirafiori sport. Both the engine and gearbox needed rebuilding, which I did myself. The mk2 escort axle and hubs were sourced from the scrap yard, in the days when they let you climb around the wrecks and remove the parts yourself!

The build was all done in a small steel framed, asbestos paneled garage that barely kept the rain out! Getting a rolling chassis was relatively easy but the bodywork took a lot of measuring (twice) and careful cutting to make all the panels line up. Unfortunately the twin cam engine wouldn’t fit under the standard Fury bonnet so I had to graft in a bulge which went much better than I had expected as I wanted to keep the body in the Oxford blue gel coat. 

Probably the hardest part I found was the wiring. Back then I was on a tight budget and so had taken the wiring harness out of the Fiat to have a range of color coded wires, and using a combination of the Fiat and Escort wiring diagrams managed to put it all together. The main objective was to make everything as reliable as possible and in hindsight I believe I achieved that.

Because this was also in the days before digital photography I regret that I don’t have many pictures of the build. The one below is from a track day at Castle Combe.