XRF 976H
SE5, 4 speed manual, MAG alloy wheels.
Silver body, black interior.
‘Princess Anne had one of those’
The standing joke with Scimitars is the reference to Princess Anne and the fact she had one. Most car people, Scimitar fans or not seem to know this nugget of information, it would seem that the Princess didn’t just own one, she is regularly referenced as owning eight over a 54 year driving history, starting the the SE5 model her parents gifted her as a joint 20th birthday and Christmas gift and ending with her Middlebridge Scimitar which is now at a car museum.
A loaned Scimitar and a special order
So we’re writing this as we believe that we have the first Scimitar that Princess Anne drove, the car that came before the first owned Royal Blue SE5. Given the reference photos and information we have looked at, we are certain that the Reliant ‘Press Car’ XRF 976H, is in fact the first Scimitar the Princess drove and it is also the car featured in an iconic photo of it leaving the gates of Buckingham Palace. In our view, this makes XRF 976H a significant car in the history of the marque and the perfect response to the statement of ‘Princess Anne had one’, we can say ‘this is the first Scimitar she drove and the one that started it all’.
XRF 976H was believed to be a ‘lost’ car, the body had been separated from the chassis for restoration, during which time the storage and business supporting the restoration folded. The rolling chassis without engine was sold on to be a donor for a ‘Formosa’ project. The car was removed from the SE5 register.
Photographic evidence
A picture says a thousand words, trouble is not all the pictures show what is needed to reference the car. What we found was a lot of circumstantial evidence and then some solid facts that join it all up. The icing on the cake was one photo that would seemingly confirm the connections beyond any reasonable doubt.
XRF 976H is one of five pool cars that were used to promote the Reliant Scimitar in the press. Each of the cars is well documented and they had sequential number plates. Each car was unique, either in colour or other spec. XRF 976H is the only press car shown to be silver in colour with the M.A.G GT alloy wheels (known generally as the ‘Princess Anne’ alloys, essentially down to this car and the one she ordered).
XRF 976H had wing mirrors right up front mounted on the front half of the wings. It was the only press car to have these. For the car that Princess Anne specced, she also had the same wing mirrors mounted in the same position. A significant difference is that the loan car XRF 976H has a drivers door wing mirror as well, the commissioned birthday car does not. It had just the front mounted mirrors and no door mirror. There is also an addition of a horse on the bonnet.
There is some confusion over these two cars as in black and white photos, they do look very similar – however they are not the same car, you can see the different in tone between the silver car and the deeper blue of the commissioned car.
A review of the details
Here is a transcript that helps to support some of the above, this is taken from the December 1970 edition of ‘Reliant Review’, which was a Reliant produced bi-monthly paper. The iconic photograph is backed up with the detail in the text.
Some thoughts are that for a press car, there is suspiciously little coverage of XRF 976H in the media, one article is referenced and that would support that is was in private use as a loan car to the Princess.
The overlap of the two cars around the November time, also align with when the factory special would have been delivered, which other than colour and a few details, would look much the same in black and white photos.
Another point to mention is that in later life and photos, XRF 976H had lost the front mounted wing mirrors, and also has the higher SE5a front end – so not the Princess’s car… however there are pictures of the car being part restored and it looks to be clear that the car received a new front end at some point, thus providing the updated snout and removal of the wing mounted mirrors. We understand that this is most likely done at some point in the 80’s or 90’s, however there would be some logic if this was done at the factory as there are a series of ‘new for 71’ options including the MAG wheels that appear in Reliant Review and the car in the photographs could very easily be XRF 976H.
Wheels in motion
So why are we so interested in the story behind this car? Well we acquired the rolling chassis from the Formosa project that never happened, this was purely by chance as we didn’t know the history of the car until the vendor mentioned in passing it was owned by Princess Anne and the rest of the car was lost in a fire. Neither of those claims were quite right, but close enough to pique our interest. Using the excellent resources of Dave Poole’s Scimitar website and threads on the car from the owners club website, we spent some time hunting everything we could find to match up the reference points to confirm the XRF 976H is the car pictured leaving Buckingham Palace. We believe it is.
The Princess has been approached for comment, we’ll keep you posted if we hear anything back.