Tornado

Tornado Cars LTD were formed by Bill Woodhouse and Anthony Bullen, who after a lot of development introduced their Typhoon to the world in August 1958. Unlike most of the other specials available at the time the Tornado was available complete with its own ladder chassis to take the Ford E93A running gear favoured by the specials builders.

Typhoon chassis

Initially the Typhoon was available as a 2+2 with hard top with a wheelbase of 8`0 but by 1960 was available with 7`2in, 7`6in, 7`10in, 8ft and 8`4in wheelbases.

Typhoon 2+2 with early hardtop


Two photos of John Martins very nice 2+2

From September 1959 a revised hardtop was available replacing the screen from the rear of a Hillman Minx with that from the front of an MGA fhc.

Typhoon 2 seater with late type hardtop

1960 was a busy year for Tornado with the introduction of the Ford 105E powered Tempest and the TR2 powered Thunderbolt.

 The Tempest Competition with Talisman to the rear

Rear of Tempest competition chassis

For each new model the chassis was extensively developed and in the case of the Tempest a competition chassis was available, although none were sold. 

Thunderbolt

Tempest with Touring bonnet

1960 also saw the introduction of the touring bonnet and the Sportsbrake estate car. Both options were available on all three models and I suppose a Thunderbolt Sportsbrake would be the most desirable Tornado today, but sadly one was never built.

Tornado Sportsbrake

Introduced in December 1961 the Tornado Talisman was a totally new concept. New chassis, new body design and the new Cosworth tuned Ford 1340cc Classic engine.

Tornado Talisman

This was to be Tornados last new car before Bill sold the company in 1963. The last Talisman was sold a year later and after that Tornado Cars carried on as a car repair business until the mid 1980s.