The Reliant Scimitar I Used To Own Is Back Up For Sale And I’d Love To See It Go To A Good Home

A good number of years ago I came to a sobering realization about a car I really loved: I wasn’t the best caretaker for that car. And this was a car that absolutely deserved a good caretaker. So I made the hard decision to sell the car to someone who could likely take better care of it than I could. And I’m glad I did! I think it was the right call. But now, interestingly, that next owner is at the point of making the same decision, so I want to try and see if I can help guide this wonderful car – a 1974 Reliant Scimitar GTE – to a good new home.

Yes, my old Reliant is up for sale again. I let it go during the pandemic back in 2020, after owning it for… damn, I guess about 15 years or so? I used to drive that thing as my daily driver, all over Los Angeles. It was my first British car, my first right-hand-drive car, my first fiberglass car, my first shooting brake, my first V6, my first Laycock de Normanville overdrive, my first car that actually could be considered quick, at least by my absurd standards. It was crucial in kickstarting my career in writing about cars. I loved that thing, and drove the hell out of it, delightedly.

It was also the first car I owned that made a shocking number of people bring up the British Royal Family and one horse-happy member of that well-to-do crew.

Once, while driving it around, a photographer noticed it and yelled at me through her car window to see if I wanted to make $100. As you likely have guessed, people yelling to me in traffic about making $100 was pretty commonplace for me, so as usual I said yes. It turned out that the $100 was for my Scimitar, which was used in a photo shoot for the musician Evan Dando of the band the Lemonheads:

I wrote about this here before, and I bring it up because it’s a fun event in the life of the car, and it’s noted prominently in the ad selling the car now.

I took the Scimitar with me when I moved from LA to North Carolina, and while I made some attempts to get it going again, including dragging David out to help me:

 

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The car isn’t in bad shape at all, really, it’s more that it’s so rare here it takes so much effort to get parts that I just didn’t have what it took to keep it going. A car like my 2CV is actually a lot easier – it’s orders of magnitude simpler, and has a much larger base of owners and parts.

But that rarity is part of what makes the Scimitar so appealing! When it is running and driving, it’s sublime. But I personally couldn’t manage it. Of course, it’s worth remembering that I’m a bit of an idiot, so factor that in.

I sold the car to my friend and incredible car collector Myron Vernis, and I have no regrets about that at all; Myron has a huge and impressive collection of cars, and the Scimitar was in good company. But Myron came to the same realization as I did – he just has too many projects already going, and realistically, he can’t get to this one. His mechanic got it running again a bit after he got the car, but he hasn’t really had the time to spend on it after that.

I do know that it has at least been stored well, and if someone has the time and inclination, I think it could be made fantastic with a bit of work. The interior is actually in great shape – the seats are all in excellent condition, the headliner is great, carpets are dusty but good, and the biggest issue is the cracked dash cover.

The fiberglass body is in good shape, too – the hood needs to be re-attached, but everything else is solid. I’m biased, of course, but I think $3,500 is a great deal for this car. I’d love to see someone from the Autopian family get it!

It does need tires, it looks like.

The Scimitar remains the Platonic ideal of a shooting brake in my mind – drives like a sports car, but has a surprising amount of room for stuff. This was the first production car with split folding rear seats! The overdrive setup was great, active on both third and fourth gears, so it was like having a six speed, with an instant turbo boost lever. You’d be in third high, for example, and could instantly kick it down to just third if you needed a burst of extra torque. It was a great highway cruiser in 4th and a half, too!

I’ve been thinking if I could buy it back ever since I heard it was for sale, but I have to be realistic: I have no room – spatially or temporally – for another project car. And I’d feel terrible if I just let it sit again. No, it deserves someone who will appreciate it. Anyone have a nice V6 or V8 they’re looking for a good home for? This could make a great project for that. I bet the Essex V6 in there could be made reliable enough, but I get the appeal of an engine swap.

Point is, I’m very much hoping someone will get this who I have some contact with, so I can appreciate this stylish old Brit’s resurrection. And maybe they’ll do all the hard work and let me take it for a spin when they’re done? A boy, like a princess, can dream, after all.