With the benefit of hindsight, if you had to come up with the recipe for the perfect classic performance car, it might well include a rust-proof bodyshell, a gutsy engine from a major manufacturer, rear-wheel drive and plenty of space. A recipe which in fact sounds a lot like the Reliant Scimitar GTE.
In many ways the Scimitar is the perfect illustration of the ingenuity of the British motor industry during the ’60s and ’70s, with the concept of the ‘lifestyle estate’ pioneered by the little Tamworth firm going on to be a popular niche for volume makers and emulated by everyone from Volvo to Lancia. The car would famously be popular even with the royal family, which is a curious twist to the association of the Reliant brand with budget three-wheelers.
Most people will associate the Scimitar with the shooting-brake GTE, but the story began in 1964 with the coupe-shaped GT. The glassfibre body was acquired from Ogle Design and was initially built on a Reliant Sabre chassis, with power courtesy of a Ford 2.6-litre straight-six. The initial GT was called the SE4, with the subsequent SE4a and SE4b models getting the 2994cc Essex V6 motor.
The first GTE model was known as the SE5 and
