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For British kitcar industry the National Kit Car Show in Stoneleigh Park is definitely one of the most important events of the season. Established in 1983 it attracts dozens of leading manufacturers, queues of enthusiasts as well as it is a venue for premieres of many private projects. Some of them become new hits of the kitcar scene while others are seen only once and forgotten forever.
One such project happened to be the Shado Sorrento which debuted at Stoneleigh Show in 1990. It was a design by chap named Steve McClure from Workington, Cumbria. A huge, brutal garage-built automobile was unlike anything else that people had seen. A creation of an engineering draughtsman by trade. A real whacky man, I mean. Being a true example of a non-conformist, Mr McClure firstly tried associate himself with motorcycles or trikes, to be precise. While everybody else made tricycles with a single wheel at the front, he put it at the back!
Adventures with motorcycles did not last long as Mr McClure found four wheels to be more attractive. He chose the Nova kitcar for his next experiments. As it was usually a VW Beetle-based automobile, it did not satisfy him. Steve replaced power unit to Ford 1600GT and changed doors to normal ones on front hinges. After that, Cumbrian engineer was captivated by a mid-engined Matra Bagheera. It was this car that gave an inspiration for Steve McClure's next big (in terms of dimensions too!) project.
Shado Sorrento was born as a "design exercise to try and alleviate many of the shortcomings of the mid-engined two-seater sports/GT car with individual style, high performance, good maintenance accessibility and ample luggage capacity". Believe it nor not, but the car was also intended to be an easy assembly at home too!
Steve McClure's car, actually, was an absolutely unique, startling, incomparable beast. Sitting on a chassis with a gigantic 3048 cm (120 in) wheelbase and measuring 1980 cm (78 in) in width the Shado Sorento was powered by a 300hp Jaguar V12 engine. The whole construction was a central steel an aluminum sheet monocoque with a 40x40 mm 16 gauge steel multi-tube rear subframe.
Talking about the styling of this exotica, it is clearly inspired by such cars like Lamborghini Countach (Venom replica was Steve McClure's last project before the Sorento) or Cizeta or Diablo. Its bodywork is combined of GRP front, rear wings and inner boot while front bonnet panel, engine cover, roof panels, rear boot panel and doors are made of steel frames with aluminum cladding. A front end was rather well looking, but it was subject to rework. A side profile, as you see, is a complete mix-up of separate elements. A cockpit looks to be kicked way too far ahead. From the outside it also looks like a claustrophobe's nightmare. Notice, the place of door handles. Yes, they're misplaced for one and only reason. The doors of the Shado Sorrento open up and backwards (like McLaren F1, if you imagine, just opposite. By the way, W Motors Lykan took the same fancy idea!). One may need a separate automobile to drive from the passenger seats to the taillights of the Sorento. This is how long the third part of the car is! Yes, the third part, because the car looks like glued of three large blocks, doesn't it? That's what you get when you want to place a 5.3-liter V12 longitudinally and to combine it with a normal luggage compartment. The place in front, you may ask? That's for Jaguar radiator and a little hot air. Nothing else. Despite all, the Shado Sorento had nearly ideal weight distribution of 49/51%. The Jaguar power was transmitted to the rear wheels (295 mm) through a three-speed Borg Warner automatic gearbox.
In its prototype form in the second half of 1990, the Shado Sorento was a work in progress with main changes intended for too wide front end and too long wheelbase. It was planned to shorten the car by 10 inches (25 cm)! Nobody knows how this would have changed its dynamics and visibility from the cockpit. Mr Steve McClure saw the possibility to offer kits as early as the spring of year 1991 for 8000 GBP or to sell the prototype for 10000 to have funds for further development. Whichever happened, the Shado Sorrento remained a one-of-a-kind example of a non-conformist super kitcar. Unfortunately the UK is not widely known for cars today due to the decline of British car manufacturing. It is probably better known for its world famous fish and chips or the origin of the classic beef wellington recipe.
