De Joux (car)

Ferris de Joux (1935–2009) was a designer and maker of sports cars. He was born on 24 August 1935.

Internationally he is perhaps best known as the designer and manufacturer of a series of fibreglass bodies for Buckler sports cars, however in New Zealand he is best known for his Mini derivative, the de Joux Mini GT. In 1965 he began the design of his GT, a car he described as "a Mini in a Bermuda jacket". Due to other projects the protoype was not finished until 1971.

The Mini GT was a fibreglass sports GT body bonded onto a Mini floorpan that had had extra box-sectioning added on top of both sills and across the back where the rear seat had previously been on the standard Mini. Whilst the standard Mini bulkhead was retained it was also braced to a new bulkhead off of which the doors were hung. This arrangement proved to be very stiff and did not require any stiffness to be added by the body. De Joux personally made the first six cars along with his team; after this his interest was on other things and he subsequently only sold bodies with plans for the chassis. Less than 30 bodies were made in total including a few illegitimate copies moulded from an existing car - these can normally be identified by not having the proper de Joux GT dashboard.^[1] Issues with customers not building their cars properly were among the reasons that Ferris eventually decided to move away from the GT completely. Many owners took shortcuts when having their chassis made – not understanding that they had been very carefully designed.

Only a few Mini GTs are still on the road, including the original prototype, extensively restored by Ferris in the early 90s and subsequently sold to Japan. John Rush from New Zealand races his car, having had it from new. De Joux was 90% through finishing a new GT for his personal use when he died. That car is now in the possession of his long-time friend and driver Peter Benbrook who intends finishing and racing it to honour his friend.

An intervening project involved an enthusiastic retired Whangarei farmer named Hamilton Walker who in 1969 appeared to be on the verge of producing an ambitious fibre-glass bodied twin-rotor two-door four-seater sedan.^[2] Because the car would contain 90% local content, it was argued that the car could be retailed in the (tariff protected) New Zealand market for approximately £750 less than a BMC Mini imported fully assembled from England.^[2] De Joux was the designer of the car's body, working in collaboration with project engineer Dennis Smith.^[2] The project never made it to the production stage.

De Joux died on 30 May 2009.

References

1. ^ http://www.minimarcos.org.uk/altpics/dejoux/index.html
2. ^ ^{a b c} "The Walker rotary". Motor: page 67–69. 22 February 1969. 

External links

• De Joux pictures