The Microdot is a concept design by William Towns for a small, economical town car. The car was first shown in 1976 and was an evolution of his 1972 Minissima car. The Microdot was a petrol/electric hybrid vehicle, designed to carry three people side-by-side on short city journeys. In 1979 William Towns collaborated with prototype vehicle builders at Mallalieu Engineering, Wooton, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, with a view to limited production, where the Microdot prototype, built by William Towns on a cut-down Austin-Mini chassis, was given opening doors and a 6-inch (150 mm) longer nose, to accommodate the aluminium Reliant car engine, one of the smallest and lightest UK car engines then available. Designers from film special-effects studios in London, who had created the original "Star Wars" spaceship interiors, created "alive" interior cockpit designs and motor industry experts from Lucas and Ever-Ready advised on batteries, power-trains and instruments. Relying on 8-Track-Stereo tape recordings by celebrities, it was planned that a Microdot would "talk" to its owner. The engineers had a target of 100 MPG and a high top speed for motorway cruising. Under the prototype label of "Matrix" a business plan, to sell several hundred "Chelsea" Microdots a year, was put by the company's CEO Noel Hodson to POSSFUND, the venture-capital arm of the Post Office Pension Fund, then one of the largest funds in the world, managed by Ralph Quartano. Sadly, the 1980 - 1987 recession (under PM Margaret Thatcher) arrived and stopped this visionary hybrid-drive project. Mallalieu Engineering was best known for making Bentley Specials, the Barchetta and Oxford, designed by engineer Derry Mallalieu, based on the Mark 6 Bentley. A complete history of the Mallalieu company, compiled by engineer and academic Philip Hornby, will be published early in 2008.
