From an aircraft engineer's workshop in 1959 to the world's great motorsport circuits: six decades of distinctive, lightweight British sports cars built without compromise.
Racing driver, engineer and tireless promoter, Jem Marsh co-founded Marcos in North Wales in 1959. Across six decades and several reincarnations of the company, Marsh remained the driving force behind the marque, championing its motorsport ambitions and personally racing many of the cars he built.
Aeronautical engineer behind the de Havilland Mosquito and designer of the first Formula One championship-winning monocoque chassis, Frank Costin brought aircraft thinking to car design. His brother Mike Costin co-founded Cosworth, leaving the Costin name written across decades of British motorsport.
The first Marcos. Frank Costin, fresh from his work on the de Havilland Mosquito, applied aircraft aerodynamics and laminated plywood construction to a sports car for the first time. Unconventional, lightweight and shockingly fast, it set the template for every Marcos that would follow.
Drawn by Dennis and Peter Adams, the 1800 GT became the marque's first true icon: a low-slung British coupé on a laminated plywood chassis with a featherlight fibreglass body and Volvo straight-four power. The shape would define Marcos for the next 40 years.
A fibreglass monocoque sports car powered by Mini A-series running gear, sold as a kit. Engineered for road and track, the Mini Marcos punched far above its weight, taking a class finish at the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours, the only British car to do so that year.
A one-off experimental endurance racer powered by a BRM V8. The Mantis XP was Marcos at its most ambitious: a Goodwood crowd-stopper whose silhouette would echo through everything the company built afterwards.
A bold 2+2 grand tourer with Triumph straight-six power. Only 32 were built before the original Marcos Engineering folded, making the M70 one of the rarest production Marcos models ever made.
A major modernisation of the GT formula. Marcos kept the signature fibreglass body but introduced an upgraded steel chassis, fresh suspension geometry and Rover V8 power, laying the foundation for the high-performance Marcos cars of the 1990s.
Built for GT2-class racing on the Mantara platform, the LM-series carried Marcos to Le Mans. Flared arches, race-bred aero and stripped-down interiors made them as fast on the road as they were on the circuit. The LM600 added a Chevrolet 5.7-litre LT1 V8 for road-legal supercar pace.
A street-legal version of the V8-powered Mantis Challenge racer. Lightweight, raucous and produced in very limited numbers, the Mantis road car carried the racer's DNA onto the public road.
The last production Marcos before the brand's pause. Developed under Tony Stelliga with Damian McTaggart (formerly of TVR) leading design, the TSO GT housed a 6.0-litre aluminium V8 and was tested by Richard Hammond on Top Gear. On launch it was considered a rival to the leading sports cars of its era.
The return. A mid-engined prototype supercar: lightweight, F1-derived, British designed, owned and built, and the start of the next chapter for Marcos. Set to be unveiled in Milford Haven, Wales.
Sixty-six years of British engineering history are about to be written forward. Be there for the Manticore reveal.