The Black Prince was put together by a small garage in Eastleigh. The only Gordon Keeble connection is the engines - he bought a bunch of crated Chevrolet 327 engines from the financial hulk of Gordon Keeble. The workmanship was not good. They used a Jaguar rear axle with discs. When the owner of one took it into Perrins in Southampton, where my father was service manager, he complained that the handbrake was no good. Dad leaned on the car which promptly rolled away. They checked the rear pads which were worn almost to nothing. Fitted new pads, bolted it up, and then it would not move at all. The wheels had the wrong offset and were pressing on the calipers. The Eastleigh solution had been to file the pads down. At Perrins they machined the centre out of a couple of Bedford brake drums and used them as spacers. Later all of the bushes in the rear suspension were completely shot - they'd used the originals despite doubling the power. Bedford truck bushes, with minor trimming, were used and there was no further trouble there. I remember Dad saying there were all kinds of other problems with dodgy workmanship - exhaust problems, front springs, etc.
In mid-1971 I bought the Ventora hubcaps from the original wheels for my F model Victor. Later, in late 1972, I was going to buy one of the delivery mileage 3.3 engines to go into my smokey PB Velox, but then I emigrated before that got anywhere.
There were certainly more than one made but I don't know how many in the end. There was an Autocar/Motor report or road test as well.
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