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Dutton Cars

automobile manufacturer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ428785
Source-derived summary

Dutton Cars, based in Worthing, Sussex, England, was a maker of kit cars between 1970 and 1989. In terms of number of kits produced, it was the largest kit-car manufacturer in the world.

The company was founded by Tim Dutton-Woolley and run from a small workshop in which a series of cars named P1 was built. In October 1971, the B-Type appeared with a more or less standard specification and based on Triumph Herald components. A move was also made to a larger factory in Tangmere, Chichester.

Products

Most Duttons depended on a ladder-frame chassis built from steel profiles, which held the various parts taken from the donor car. After originally using Triumph Herald parts, most Duttons kits used Ford Escort Mk 1 or Mk 2 components.

The B-Type eventually evolved into the Dutton Phaeton. Later versions of the Phaeton were based on Ford Escort components and were produced until 1989. These were also available as fully built-up cars, in which case they received a 1.6-litre Ford Crossflow engine with 84 hp (63 kW).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Dutton Cars” is automobile manufacturer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Dutton, Cars and automobile, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1970, 1989, 1971—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Dutton, Cars and automobile is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “automobile manufacturer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q428785. The first chronological checks are 1970, 1989 and 1971.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Dutton Cars primary sources, Dutton Cars archive and Dutton research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Dutton Cars” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.