Heron Plastics
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In 1960 Heron Plastics of Greenwich, London was well established as a manufacturer of GRP bodyshells for
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specials. One of these was used as the basis for the original Diva GT in 1961. By this time, Heron also built their own coupe, the Europa, although they did not debut it until the 1962 Racing Car Show. The car had a steel backbone
chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...
with outriggers fore and aft to support the running gear. Wishbones and coil spring independent suspension provided good handling, it was claimed. The front brakes were discs while drums served at the rear. The GRP body was bonded to this chassis and plywood floorpan. The engine was a Ford straight-four OHV unit with a choice of 997 cc or 1500 cc capacity. With the larger engine, a 0 to time of 8.5 seconds was boasted with a top speed of . The Europa was sold in fully trimmed
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form at £580 or in partly constructed form at £730. Only 12 examples were produced before the Europa was shelved for financial reasons in 1964.
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was based on the Europa.


References

* Specialist Sports Cars by Peter J Filby (1974) Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of England Kit car manufacturers Transport in the Royal Borough of Greenwich Motor vehicle manufacturers based in London 1960s in England {{motorvehicle-company-stub