The Reliant Rebel is a small four-wheeled economy car that was produced by Reliant between the year 1964 and 1974. It was designed by Reliant to be a market test to push Reliant into other parts of the market instead of just 3-wheelers.
It was marketed as the smart alternative, because it had a rust-free glass-fibre body, a robust chassis and frugal fuel economy. Many models were produced from 600cc, 700cc, and 750cc with saloon, estate and van variants. It was considered a niche rival to the Austin Mini and Hillman Imp.
Development
The Rebel was the brainchild of Reliant Managing Director Ray Wiggin and was developed after the death of T.L. Williams, the founder of Reliant.
Wiggin believed in the future people would be driving small four-wheeled cars in a new car segment as the Austin Mini launch had been so successful and the UK microcar/three-wheeler segment would die off, such as Reliant's Regal, so Reliant engineers, after working on the development of the four-wheeled Sabra Carmel with Autocars of Haifa, Israel decided to modify the then-current Regal 3/25 to create a four-wheel vehicle.
They built a rolling chassis using a cut and welded Regal 3/25 chassis and drove it around the Two Gates factory to see if it would work. It was however felt that Reliant's 598cc engine wouldn't pull the weight of a finished car; consequently, Reliant engineers wanted to keep the 600 engine but tuned it by skimmed the cylinder head and fitted larger valves to give better torque to cope with the car's extra weight.
The Rebel would get its front suspension from the Triumph Herald, brakes from the Triumph Courier van and the steering box from the Standard 10.
Reliant asked Ogle Design to design the Rebel, with the idea that it should look completely different from the Regal, but should save production costs by retaining some of the Regal's parts such as its doors, windscreen and dashboard. The resulting car was 138 ins.(3505 mm) in length, 58 ins. (1473 mm) in width, with a wheelbase of 89 ins. (2261 mm). The kerb weight of the Rebel depending on the model was between 1185 lbs. and 1327 lbs. (539 kg to 603 kg). The Rebel made its public debut at the Earls Court Motor Show in 1964.
Not many Rebel 700 Vans were produced as production was in development for the 750, many more 750 vans were produced.
750
The next evolution of the Rebel was the 750 model, introduced in October 1972.
The car was launched with a 598cc engine producing 28 horsepower, this was 4 more horsepower than standard 600cc from the regal 3/25, this was done as the car felt sluggish with its extra weight.
After the introduction of the 70 mph speed limit on British motorways the new speed limit was seen as a target, any vehicle with a top speed lower than 70 mph was seen to be slow, with this Reliant increased the engine size to 701cc and 31 hp, the new engine was then used in both the Rebel and the Regal. The larger engine gave the Rebel a top speed of 70 mph and would later be fitted into the Regal three-wheeler becoming the regal 3/30.
By 1972 reliant fitted the 750cc engine to the rebel, this was to test the new engine before the launch of the new reliant robin the next year, the same was done with the bond bug 750. At the 1972 Motor Show Reliant launched the reliant 750, with 35 hp it gave the Rebel 750 a top speed of 80 mph
As above most of the reasoning behind the low production numbers was Reliant didn't give the Rebel its own production line until 1971, before this if a batch of Rebels needed to be produced then Reliant had to stop production of its popular Regal 3/25, something which Reliant didn't want to do very often.
Rebel 1600 GT prototype
During the Rebel's production run, Reliant was experimenting with a more sporting variant to complement the Scimitar GT and forthcoming Scimitar GTE. Whereas the existing Rebel was powered by 598-748cc engines with 25-35 hp, the Rebel 1600 GT prototype codenamed FW6 had been fitted with the 80 hp and 92 ft-lb (Net) / 91 hp and 102 ft-lb (SAE) 1599cc Ford Crossflow engine from the mk2 Ford Cortina 1600E. Reliant had a relationship with Ford using their engines in Reliant sports cars with Reliant building Ford's fibreglass truck cabs in return. The Rebel 1600 GT was a working road legal prototype and had it been given the go-ahead would have been launched in around 1968, but was never put into production as Reliant Management found out the Rebel 1600 GT could not only out perform the bigger Scimitar models (around the factory as Engineers had been racing them), but also reputedly featured a power-to-weight ratio of 204 bhp per ton which would have exceeded that of many modern sportscars.