Saline Warrior
BBC Television
Andy was given a Reliant Rialto and told to make it into a drag car. Andy’s ingenuity soon turned the boxy saloon into a sleek Salt Lake style race car.
This design concept was as authentic as any English man could have done given the base vehicle, so much so that after its TV appearance on BBC 2s panic mechanic Saline Warrior was turned into a full bonneville salt lake race car by a team of French men.
The car was built in two days and during that time had a turbo technics, turbo charger fitted as well as the incredible amount of bodywork. The car raced the following day and won hands down over the other team’s efforts.
After the Show, Andy acquired Saline Warrior and repainted her to make her more authentic as a styling project gaining several magazine features in the process.
Street Machine - November 2002
After a couple of years, Andy sold Saline to a French microcar collector who said he would take her to Bonneville ??
In 2009, Triplettes de Bonneville launched 'Saline Warrior', the 'Race Car' to the unsuspecting press. Saline is only the second car from France to ever go to Bonneville and so their media presence for her was incredible.
In August 2009, the race tuned 750cc Suzuki motor cycle engined beast ran at Bonneville, the class speed record being 131 mph. Gilles took a few runs of the track to get use to the car and the salt surface and attained a speed of 124 mph before blowing the engine to pieces.
Saline is being rebuilt now and prepared for taking the world speed record for 750cc.
In 2011 the little car unofficially took the land speed record for vehicles of 750cc. The record stands at 134 MPH and Saline Warrior prepared by its French crew with Giles at the controls did one run of 140 MPH but to be official it has to do a return run and unfortunatly the engine blew-up, but undetered they are shipping it back to France to build it again ready for 2012 and taking the land speed record to another level...