THE TEAL REGISTER

Car history

 

See end of page for date last updated

Reg No NIB1669
Car type Four seater
Colour Green
Current engine 1800 B series
Previous owners Total Headturners as at July 2023
Current owner, August 2025 Mike Bradley, Shrewsbury, via  Brightwells Auctioneers.
Orig owner Biddlecombe ?
Further info see below
  On sale again in 2023 for £29995.00

 

See below for what Brightwells had to say.

Hammer Price (inc. buyers premium) £12,880

  • Bids

18

  • Next Min. Bid

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1974 Teal Bugatti Replica 

Auction Ends: Wed 6th Aug @ 12:09 pm

  • Registration Number

NIB1669

  • Engine Size

1798cc

  • Engine Number

RKM1139E110165

  • Chassis Number

MA2S9S359269M

  • Gearbox

Manual

  • VAT Status

No VAT

  • Buyers Premium (excl. VAT)

12%, Minimum £150

  • Documents

V5C; copy older V5; one old MOT; SORN certificate; invoices; Teal brochure

  • Tax and MOT status

Tax and MOT exempt

Description

Genuine Teal-built four-seater; aluminium body; Marina running gear; just two owners since 2001; reconditioned gearbox and new clutch; recent service; very smart; very tempting!

Even in today’s market, any genuine Bugatti GP car from the 1920s is going to set you back at least £300k and perhaps up to £4m for one with a distinguished race history. 

For the many who yearn for the early Molsheim cars, a replica is the only conceivable option which is why Ian Foster, a former chassis designer for Daimler, set up Thistledown Engineering Automotive Ltd in 1983. Better known as Teal, they specialised in producing replicas of the Bugatti Type 35 with Morris Marina running gear and GRP bodies.

In 1986 a former AA patrolman called Bob Jones bought Teal from Foster and decided to step things up a gear, creating a new steel box section chassis of great strength and rigidity clothed in a hand-made aluminium body. Not to be confused with a kit car, these later Teal-built Bugatti replicas were very expensive, costing around £28,000 – almost double the average price of a new car at the time.

This Teal Bugatti four-seater is one of those later cars and has an aluminium body with wonderfully authentic wired bolts holding the body panels in place. We aren’t quite sure when it was built but according to HPI the registration number was changed from XWM 953M (presumably the Morris Marina donor car) to NIB 1669 in January 1990 so it was most likely made in 1989. 

A copy of an old V5 shows that the previous owner was a Mr V Morriss of Ashford, Kent, who acquired the car in 2001 and was to keep it for the next 23 years. Our vendor bought the car from Total Headturners of Essex in January 2024, the invoice showing that he paid £25,000 when it was showing 7,759 miles on the clock. 

Sadly our vendor then became unwell and he has added a mere 15 miles to the odometer which now shows 7,774 miles. However, a check of the MOT history online suggests that the odometer was stuck on 7,756 miles from 2011 – 2014 so the true mileage is unknown.

An invoice shows that a week after our vendor paid for the car, Total Headturners treated it to a good service, repaired the speedo and submitted it for an MOT which it passed with no advisories recorded. The invoice also states that the car had been fitted with a reconditioned gearbox and a new clutch in 2023 by PW Autos (see last photo). 

As you can see in the photos and the video, this Teal looks to be in really splendid condition throughout and we doubt that it has done many miles at all since it was built over three decades ago.

The V5C records it as a 1974 Teal Tourer so the next owner should be able to get it classed as a Historic Vehicle which will make it free-to-tax and MOT-exempt as it is over 40 years old. It is currently on SORN due to the owner’s health issues. 

Starting promptly and running well as we have moved it around on site, this is a forced sale due to illness so someone could get a real bargain at the modest guide price suggested. 

The last aluminium-bodied Teal we sold made over £45k in 2022 although to be fair it did have a Jaguar XK 4.2 engine – an upgrade the next owner of this beauty might like to consider… 

Consigned by James Dennison – 07970 309907 –  james.dennison@brightwells.com

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This fine Teal Tourer was for sale in August 2000 edition of Teal spiel. Where is she now?

July 2023 for sale at Total Headturners !!!!!

 

Last Updated on 8 months by David Brown