The Macintosh M1

Macintosh M1
The Macintosh M1 was designed and built by Owen Macintosh in 1988. It used a complete Mini front subframe(with rubber suspension)/engine/gearbox installed in the rear. Front suspension used Mini front uprights but swapped from side to side to put the steering rack in front of the hubs. The bottom tie rods run rearwards from the hubs, Mini top & bottom wishbones were used with coil over dampers attached to the top wishbones.
Macintosh M1 mini based kit car
M1
M1 engine (mini a-series)
Tragically, Owen was killed shortly after the car was completed. These images were published in Kitcars International - April 1990.
For a period, around 2001, an Austin Metro based version was marketed by Macintosh Design. However I can no longer find a link to this company (2007)


e-mail received September 2023 “Thank you for publishing an excellent brief on the Macintosh M1. I believe that 2 chassis were made, and three bodies.
Here is a bit more of the story.
Gordon Allin and Jonathan Tubb, bought the remaining assets and designed an M2, which was a similar concept but fabricated from adhesive kit-bonded sheet metal. They experienced personal issues and also found insurance of this type of construction difficult.
I bought the assets from them, and in 1999 designed an M3 being a conventional welded space frame chassis with a mid-engined layout using the MG Metro hardware I inherited from Gordon and Jonathan. One chassis was made under my direction by Mark Haslam of Stroud (in our out-of-work-hours time), who went to much trouble making the jigs for it.
Then my personal circumstances changed, and the kit car market changed considerably, and I shelved the project and wound up the company.
I have attached a couple of pictures of the part-built M3. Regards Colin Oberlin-Harris”

M3-1
M3-2