William Towns

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William (Bill) Towns (died 1994) was a British car designer.

Towns began his training as a designer at Rootes in 1954, where he was mainly involved in the styling of seats and door handles. Later he was also involved with the styling of their Hillman Hunter. He moved to Rover in 1963 and worked there for David Bache and designed the body of the Rover-BRM gas turbine Le Mans car. In 1966 he left Rover to join Aston Martin as a seat designer, eventually becoming the force behind the Aston Martin Lagonda^[1].

He left Aston Martin after the Lagonda for more remunerative industrial design work in 1977, but also designed the succesful Hustler kit-car, as well as the Reliant SS2 and proposed relaunch of the Railton.

Towns died from cancer in 1994.

Up until July 2005 his own cars were on display at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon, UK^[2].

[edit] Some of his cars

• 1964 Rover-BRM gas turbine car (with David Bache)
• 1967 Aston Martin DBS
• 1972 Minissima
• 1976 Microdot
• 1976 Aston Martin Lagonda
• 1978 Hustler
• 1980 Aston Martin Bulldog
• 1988 Reliant SS2
• 1989 Railton Fairmile and Claremont

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Feature: Aston Martin Lagonda. Channel 4 (2006-03-09).
2. ^ Honest John's Agony column: Home Towns. The Daily Telegraph (2005-06-18).