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Tolan sport fabrications
spiderman01980 - 17/10/18 at 09:51 PM

Does anyone know what happened to tolan sports.
I remember the guy made the haynes roadster chassis and sold them on ebay at the beginning, about 10 years ago.
I've seen a few article'son piston heads mentioning him in 2017.
I have searched and searched but can't seem to find him anywhere.

russbost - 18/10/18 at 07:08 AM

Never heard of Tolan, do you mean Talon? If so I believe he is a member on here & has had some medical problems, I think he was based somewhere near Maldon Essex, but can't find anything current with a quick Google

Charlie C - 18/10/18 at 07:33 AM

On the Haynes Roadster forum there is a post from Phil (Talon) saying he's stopped production.

spiderman01980 - 18/10/18 at 10:02 AM

quote:
Originally posted by russbost
Never heard of Tolan, do you mean Talon? If so I believe he is a member on here & has had some medical problems, I think he was based somewhere near Maldon Essex, but can't find anything current with a quick Google


Yeah that's the guy.
I remember a few months after I bought my chassis from aries he started doing them, and at a good price too.
Chassis are getting really expensive now.

jps - 18/10/18 at 10:25 AM

quote:
Originally posted by spiderman01980
and at a good price too.


The last post I saw from Phil - which was on the Haynes forum I think - basically said that the final straw for him had been working out the profit he was getting - and realising it was so low there was no point doing the work. And bemoaning the fact that his client base really wasn't prepared to pay prices which are more like the kind of prices he'd have to charge to make a decent living from the work...

jps - 18/10/18 at 10:27 AM

It's a shame really because I believe the chassis, wishbones and uprights I have were bought from Phil (I bought them second-hand so don't know 100% they are his work, but was told they were) and everything looks to be very well made.

russbost - 18/10/18 at 12:37 PM

Unfortunately this is very much the nature of the game & the reason there are so few kitcar manufacturers compared with a few years back.

When you have workshop expenses & overheads to cover you have to have a regular & consistent turnover just to cover the basics, as you say, no one wants to pay good money for good workmanship anymore, everyone wants it yesterday & for tuppence & when you can pick up a tidy MR2 or MX5 for peanuts it makes the whole kitcar scene look less attractive

I am in the fortunate position of being able to run mine as a hobby business & I do it because I love to see the cars out there & I get pleasure from the challenges it presents, but very glad I don't need to be making money from it .............