Bramble Motors (often shortened to simply Bramble) is a car company located close to the Yorkshire town of Middlesbrough.
Established in 1947 by Robert ‘Bob’ Chamberlain, a demobilised member of the British Army’s Royal Engineers, with assistance from childhood friend Samuel ‘Sparks’ Moore, Bramble Motors has built up a reputation for the unusual, and their reliance on steel has propped the local economy up considerably.
This is an example of their work - the 1977 Bramble Peak in it’s ‘sporty’ Scarfell trim. Using a 1.7 litre transverse I4 powering the front wheels, known by its purring idling sound as the kitten, the Peak Scarfell had an unusual futuristic design, and still looked modern into the mid '80s.
With a light body and high revving engine producing 99hp, the Scarfell was a surprisingly nippy vehicle, and it quickly found a home among both boy racers (if they could afford the £6800 asking price) and legitimate racers, although it quickly lost popularity with the latter due to the more powerful, if slightly heavier, Talbolt Sunbeam.
The Peak Scarfell was incredibly successful regardless, but had one drawback from it’s light weight - it was horrifically unsafe. While it had all the standard safety equipment for the '70s, a small body and a tendancy to oversteer it’s short wheelbase meant it only just got accepted into sale into Europe and the USA. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), the car is regarded as a classic in it’s time, and regularly gets compared to other hot hatches of the era, despite it’s lack of fuel injection, using a carburettor until the end of it’s production in 1983.
