Nota

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about an Australian automobile manufacturer. There are also articles on the 19th century Hungarian song style nóta and the ballot choice None of the above (NOTA).

Nota is an automobile manufacturer in Australia. The company was founded by Guy Buckingham in 1952. He was an aircraft engineer and used his expertise to build triangulated spaceframed sportscars. Possibly Australia's first space-framed cars. In 1958 the company built a series of all-enveloping aluminium streamlined sports cars. First called "Streamliners", and later called "Mazengarbs". Up to 1960 eleven of those were made. In the late 1950s the company produced Formula Junior cars. In 1963 the company started with Mini powered sports cars. In 1964 they started production of the Nota Sapphire. In 1965 they started with Formula Vee cars. In the 1960s the company started with their "Sportsman", a Lotus 7 lookalike. In 1968 came the Nota Fang, their most successful model with over 100 being made. In 1973 Nota started with their Marauder range of cars. At first they used the same mechanicals as the Nota Fang, but in 1974 the Nota Levanti front engine twin cam was released. In 1975 the supply of Leyland 1275 GT engines started to ran out so Nota contacted FIAT and both Marauders and Fangs were made with the 2-litre twin cam FIAT/Lancia engine.

In the late 1970s Nota had started on 4WD 351 V8 mid-engined Marauders, but in the 1980s Ford stopped export of the 351 engine to Australia. After a trip to England Chris Buckingham assembled a design team to design a Fang with Fl 3 litre V6 quad cam engine as well as a fully enclosed, similarly specified Chimera. For 2003 Nota developed the Nota Le Mans, powered by either a Suzuki GTi 1300 cc or 1100 cc motor cycle engine. For road use it could also use a Toyota 1800 cc VVTi 6-speed or the 3-litre V6 quad cam.