Leading Edge Sports Car Company was a British car company based in Dereham, Norfolk established in June 2002. The company was dissolved in September 2005. It outsourced the manufacture of its cars to fellow Dereham company Breckland Technologies.
Leading Edge was established in 2002 by Paul Mickleburgh to market its first new car, the 190 and 240 RT in Europe and the US. The car was a lightly updated version of the Tommykaira ZZ, a popular car in Japan, but made in Norfolk, and it suffered from the Japanese recession and the company became bankrupt. The receivers sold the tooling and inventory to neighbouring Breckland Technology Ltd, run by ex-Lotus engineer Mark Easton, who continued to manufacture the cars and sold them on to Leading Edge to distribute from the summer of July 2002 at a price of around £26,500. [1]
The car featured a mid-mounted Nissan 2.0 L twin cam engine (1998cc), producing 180 bhp (134 kW; 182 PS) at 6900 rpm and torque of 142 lb⋅ft (193 N⋅m) at 4900 rpm. Top speed was claimed to reach 140 mph (230 km/h) and accelerate 0-60 mph in 4.8 seconds. Its open-top body was glassfibre, with an extruded aluminium central tub topped and tailed by tubular metal subframes and weighed only 763 kg (1,682 lb).
The 240 RT was also launched in 2002 as a high-powered version of the previous Tommy Kaira ZZ. The 240 shared the same Nissan 2.0 L engined as the 190 RT, but with a higher output of 240 bhp (179 kW; 243 PS), producing an acceleration time of 4.4 seconds to 60mph. [2] With the addition of a hard top roof in 2004, the weight increased to 809kg. [3]
The Lotus Elise is a two-seat, rear-wheel drive, mid-engined roadster conceived in early 1994 and released in September 1996 by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars. The Elise has a fibreglass body shell atop its bonded extruded aluminium chassis that provides a rigid platform for the suspension, while keeping weight and production costs to a minimum. It is capable of speeds up to 240 km/h (150 mph). The Elise was named after Elisa Artioli, the granddaughter of Romano Artioli who was chairman of Lotus and Bugatti at the time of the car's launch.
Caterham Cars is a British manufacturer of specialist lightweight sports cars established in Caterham, England, with their headquarters in Dartford, England. Their current model, the Caterham 7, originally launched in 1973, is a direct evolution of the Series 3 Lotus Seven designed by Colin Chapman. In the 1990s the company made the Caterham 21, a two-seater soft top alternative to the MGF and Lotus Elise,. A track-only car, the SP/300.R, a joint project with Lola was released for customer testing in 2010 and was scheduled for release in 2013. On 27 April 2011, Team Lotus owner Tony Fernandes announced that he had purchased Caterham. On 2 April 2021, news was leaked that Caterham Cars was acquired outright on 31 March 2021 by VT Holdings, Japanese importer for the Caterham Seven since 2009. As well as being a Caterham importer, VT also imports Lotus cars and Royal Enfield motorcycles into Japan.
The Lotus 340R is a limited edition sports car manufactured by Lotus Cars in 2000 at their Hethel factory.
The Caterham 7 is a super-lightweight sports car produced by Caterham Cars in the United Kingdom. It is based on the Lotus Seven, a lightweight sports car sold in kit and factory-built form by Lotus Cars, from 1957 to 1972.
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Tommykaira (トミーカイラ), originally founded as Tomita Yume Koujou (トミタ夢工場タ株式会社), is a Japanese car tuning and manufacturing company founded in 1986 and headquartered in Minami-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The company was named after its two founders, Yoshikazu Tomita and Kikuo Kaira. Its parent company was founded in 1968 as Tomita Auto Inc. (トミタオート株式会社). Several of its Tommykaira's custom cars have appeared in the Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport racing simulation video game series.
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The Breckland Beira is a sports car launched in June 2008 at the London Motorexpo, developed by the British company Breckland Technologies based in Dereham, Norfolk. Breckland Technologies was founded in 2000 specialising in manufacturing low volume specialist sports cars such as the Leading Edge 240 RT and Mosler MT900. The company became insolvent soon after the announcement of the new Beira, and was dissolved in July 2009.
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The Tommykaira ZZ is a mid-engined sports car manufactured by tuning company Tommykaira (トミーカイラ) in Japan. The car was conceived in late 1991, developed from 1992, unveiled in 1995 and manufactured from 1996 to 2000 in its first generation, and from 2014 to 2021 in its second.
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