Earlier this year (2026) I was looking at my F/B page and amongst the myriad car related posts I came across one from the esteemed ‘Total Kit Car’ magazine.
My eye was caught by a photograph of a very attractive sports coupe. On reading the article I discovered that it was of a very rare Fraser GT; as I read on, I discovered that I knew more about this car’s background than I could have imagined. Here is the story –
The Fraser GT Background
The following commentary has been sourced from – The Killeen Cars by R.J. Allan (2005-14) which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.(http://tardis.dl.ac.uk/Mercia/killeen_book).
The ultimate Imp based car must surely be the Fraser GT, also known as the Killeen Monocoque. It was designed by Tom Killeen** and directly followed on from the previous sports car designs, the K4 and K7. It combined in one car all the essentials of monocoque car construction, following some 13 years of successful racing of the original K1, with highly developed suspension and aerodynamic body styling. Many of Killeen’s innovative ideas were patented during that period.
The K9 was powered for testing by an 1150cc Imp unit which benefitted from tuning experience gained during Alan Fraser’s long racing career. The very definite aim in producing this car was to have a GT prototype of up to 2 litres capacity, complying with the Group 6 and Le Mans regulations of 1967-8. It is thought that Killeen may have become associated with Fraser following the Rootes’ Asp sports car development. Killeen, at the time in 1962, worked as a consultant for Jensen Motors (Ed. ?? see note below), who were chosen by Rootes to build the Asp as they had worked on the Tiger before. The project was eventually turned over to Fraser but no further development took place.
EDITOR’S NOTE – I worked in the Jensen Motors D.O. in 1959 – 61 and 1965 – 67. I was aware of Tom Killeen at Jensen, in the 1950s, early 60s he had an office at Jensen’s Carters Green HQ/Factory. He may possibly have produced design work for the Jensen brothers in his early days at the company but there is no evidence of any of that work being incorporated into Jensen cars. Any role that he may have had in the Rootes Asp design is pure speculation. Here is a snippet from the Jensen Museum website that sums up my memories of Tom Killeen –
“Tom Killeen – Service Manager
Born in Erdington, Birmingham on 9th May 1904, Thomas Edmund Killeen was always known at the Jensen factory as TEK. During W.W.II, Killeen was with the RAF, and apparently stationed in Malta. He was involved in the repair and maintenance of Spitfires. It is possible that Killeen had joined Jensen Motors before the war. We know his profession was given as Foreman, Automobile Engineers in 1939, but we are not told if that was working at Jensen Motors. We do know he was working at Jensen Motors post-war from around 1947, and may have started at Jensen Motors after being de-mobbed from the RAF. By 1955, he was working as the Service Manager, first at Carter’s Green, and then at Kelvin Way.
During his time at Jensen Motors, he was also designing his own cars, the aptly named ‘K’ series. It seems that although this was Killeen’s own independent venture, the Jensen brothers were happy for him to give over time to it while working at the factory. He retired around 1967, at which time David Millard took over as Service Manager. Killeen continued to focus on the building of various ‘K’ series cars long into his retirement. He died on 16th March 1991.”
The Fraser GT car was announced at the Racing Car show in 1966 with the stated aim to compete in Group 6 race events. It was in direct competition with the Costin-Nathan unveiled at the same show.
The 1967 Le Mans 24 hour race was held on 10-11th June 1967 and the 1968 race on 28-29th September, the June date in 1968 being cancelled owing to strikes in France. The Fraser GT was to be run with backing from the Rootes Group, manufacturers of the Hillman Imp, who had a works rally team but no racing team, so always looked to Alan Fraser to represent them at international racing events. A special requirement was that the car should have exceptional cornering ability, even at the expense of maximum speed. It was considered that the two most successful innovations in post-war racing cars were firstly the extremely rigid and light monocoque construction, as patented by Tom Killeen in 1952, when he was also an engineer with Jensen and aircraft designer; secondly ultra-low profile tyres. Whilst stressed monocoque principles were established by 1966 and even used in production cars such as the Imp, no car so far had achieved the potential of the low profile tyres.
By April 1967 K9 still hadn’t been seen on the track. The delay had not been caused by mechanical problems, but by lack of labour and time. K9 was in fact never even tested, let alone raced. The finished car was painted in the Fraser team’s familiar blue and white colours, and thought to be powered by an 1150cc Imp unit benefitting from tuning experience gained during Alan Fraser’s long racing career. It was possibly intended to eventually provide a 2 litre V8 unit. Given the weight difference between the 1006cc Nathan (750lb dry) and K9 (1145lb dry) K9 would have had to have at least a 1500cc engine to be competitive, and would therefore have been in the 1301-1600cc prototype class competing with the Renault Alpine or in the 1601-2000cc class which the Porsche 907 dominated.
The takeover of the Rootes Group by Chrysler however prevented the proposed V8 engine from being built (although the whereabouts of one independently built are known). Whilst K9 didn’t appear at the 1967 Le Mans race, there was another Imp based entry, the Costin-Nathan GT, which however dropped out with fuel starvation and electrical faults after only 15 laps. Stakes were high, and the race in 1967 was won by a 7 litre Ford GT 40 driven by Dan Gurney and Anthony Foyt completing 388 laps – significantly better even than Le Mans cars in more recent years!
Connection Number One –
Alan Fraser, the creator of the car in question, ran a very successful racing team in the 1960s. In particular, he and the other Fraser team drivers had great success driving Hillman Imps. I knew one of the drivers, Bernard Unett, we were both Chrysler U.K./Peugeot employees. I was a member of the Mopar team that campaigned a Hillman Avenger, driven by Bernard, in the Britax Production Saloon Car Championship which Bernard first won in 1974. I remember driving him to his home in Wolvey when he was a little “shook-up” after an accident in his Avenger at Snetterton.
A painting of Bernard Unett driving an Alan Fraser Hillman Imp by J. ten Hoeve. Courtesy the Hillman Imp site.
Connection Number Two **
As mentioned above I came across Tom Killeen when I worked for Jensen Motors. My very first memory was not so much of him but his red Mk I Austin Healey (Frog/Bug Eye) Sprite that was always parked in the main drive at Jensen’s Carters Green HQ/factory. I was interested in that car for two reasons – one, because I liked the Sprite and imagined me buying one in the future, I was 16 at the time. I did eventually buy a brand new Mk.IV Sprite many years later. Two, because Tom had replaced his car’s “Frog eye” head-lamps with “pop up” ones. A design that was incorporated into K9 and other Killeen designs.
My impression of Mr. Killeen, the name I would have known him by at the time, was of a quite, “gentlemanly” personality. I gained that impression when he used to join a group of the senior draughtsman in Jensen’s Body D.O., where I worked, who had the idea of designing a “world small car”. They did this in their own time, it had nothing to do with Jensen. I think they had ambitions of getting the British Government involved, it came to naught; the leader eventually left and started his own successful car accessories business. Mr. Killeen used to join this group at lunch time, I guess to give advice on the car’s design to the group.
Connection Number Three
In his book “The Killeen Cars” Rob Allan draws a connection between the Fraser GT/K9 and the ill fated Rootes Asp design. He doesn’t produce any evidence for that connection other than Tom Killeen being at Jensen (in a non design position) at the time. It would be wonderful if some connection could be found. Several sources say that Rootes did hand the Asp prototype over to Alan Fraser and those sources agree that Fraser did not further its development. I remember seeing this prototype in the Jensen Development Department, Kelvin Way. The reason for it being there was because Rootes had approached Jensen about building 500 Asps per week and it was being appraised.
Click on this link to read more about the Asp project-
https://www.imps4ever.info/protos/asp/asp.html
Nick
CREDITS –
- R.J. Allen author of ‘The Killeen Cars
- The ‘Imp Site’ – https://www.imps4ever.info/
- The Total Kit Car Magazine
- The Coventry Transport Museum.
- The Jensen Museum
The Cover photo is of Tom Killeen’s first monocoque car – K1
This article and the photographs contained within is subject to copyright and should not be republished in part or as a whole without permission from the author.
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