On a Triumph basis
You may think you have a creation from MG, AC or Triumph in front of you, but this roadster does not come from any of those three brands. Triumph did have something to do with it. This is the extremely rare Swallow Doretti.
AutoWeek forum member XBXG may already have the rarest catch of the year. He posted these two photos of a Swallow Doretti on our forum and according to our information there are only three Doretti’s on Dutch license plates. That is actually a remarkably high number, because the total is according to Below the Radar 276 built. And Swallow had the American market in mind with the Doretti.
But what is it actually? For starters, this is the only model ever from this manufacturer. Parent company Tube Investments, a British conglomerate that had not previously ventured into car production, had once acquired the Swallow Coachbuilding Company, started by Jaguar founder William Lyons, and decided to start building cars itself under the name Swallow. The Swallow Doretti, released by TI in 1954, was the first, and later turned out to have been the last.
The Doretti was basically a Triumph TR2, which had grown somewhat in both width and length and had been given its own carriage. It had the same 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine as the Triumph, but was slightly slower due to its higher weight. At that time you could still make a good impression in terms of speed, because on paper the Doretti had to be able to reach at least 160 km/h.
All in all, it turned out not to be a bad first attempt, but it was also the last. William Lyons (here we have it again), among others, was reportedly not happy with the fact that the TI Group, also a parts supplier to Jaguar, became a direct competitor in the automotive industry. Lyons is said to have threatened to stop purchasing parts from TI and that would have contributed to the quick end of Swallow. As a result, the Swallow Doretti grew into a very rare car, for which prices are sometimes asking for hundreds of thousands of euros. A nice example like this one imported in 1998 could easily go in that direction in terms of value. The current owner acquired it a year ago and it appears that the Doretti is simply used for pleasure rides when the weather is good.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl