The original Marcos Mantis is a

sports car A sports car is a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving and racing capability. Sports cars originated in Europe in the early 1900s and are currently produced by ...

produced by the British car company

Marcos Engineering Marcos Engineering was a British sports car automaker, manufacturer. The name derives from the surnames of founders Jem ''Mar''sh and Frank ''Cos''tin. History Marcos was founded in Dolgellau, North Wales, in 1959, by Speedex cars' Jem Marsh wit ...

. It was formally introduced in 1968, although it appears that production was slow to start. Announced as being officially released for sale in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

during October 1970 as a luxurious 2+2 with a top speed of - powered by a Triumph 2.5 PI engine / transmission and built using a fiberglass body placed on a square tube chassis – with coil springs all round and live axle rear suspension with trailing links and a “A” bracket – the Mantis was expected to be priced into the English “young executive market” at a price of A$6,500. Although it was a larger car having a length of , its height of made it one of the lowest coupes on the English market at that time. No production is known to have happened in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

, though a few early models were reported to have been privately imported into that country. In February 1971, Marcos announced that the car could also be purchased in component form, at a domestic market price of £425, compared to the

recommended retail price The list price, also known as the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), or the recommended retail price (RRP), or the suggested retail price (SRP) of a product is the price at which its manufacturer notionally recommends that a retailer ...

of £3,185 for the built version. Compared to this, a V8 Rover 3500 with a UK sticker price, including sales taxes, of £2,150 at the time. 32 samples were produced, with production ending in 1971.Michael Sedgwick & Mark Gillies, A-Z of Cars 1945-1970, page 121 The Mantis /ˈmæn.tɪs/ name has been used subsequently for models bearing little obvious similarity to the original model. Introduced in 1997, the Mantis GT is a higher performance version of the Mantis. The name Mantis is taken from the

mantis Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They ha ...

insect and is intended to signify the performance of the Mantis' engine, a

supercharged In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement. The current categorisation is that a supercharger is a form of forced indu ...

4.6

litre The litre (international spelling) or liter (American English spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metre (m3 ...

V8 producing and of torque. This allows the Mantis to accelerate from in 3.7 seconds and to reach a top speed of . The car features power-assisted rack and pinion steering as well as AP Vented disc brakes with a diameter of (front) and (rear).

References

Mantis GT {{Modern-auto-stub