Cars that use the same parts

Developing a new car is a seriously expensive business. The amount of resources that must be poured into research and development, production, testing, marketing and all the other essential stages of car production can test even the largest car makers. When it comes to smaller, more specialist marques, meanwhile, the cost of building a whole new car from the ground up is often simply too much to shoulder alone.

Small wonder, then, that the history of car production is peppered with examples of cars borrowing parts from other cars. From the supercar that lifted its wing mirrors from a much-loved '90s coupé, to the Rover heating controls that later turned up on a frankly fearsome hypercar, there have been some weird and wonderful tales of shared car parts.

Here are a few of our favourite parts-sharing classics. And don't worry, whether your classic is the donor car or the recipient, they're all equally deserving of classic auto insurance.

Lotus Esprit / Morris Marina: door handles

This is a famous one: the wonderfully angular, futuristic Lotus Esprit shared its door handles with the humble Morris Marina (and a few other British cars besides).

In fact, the connection isn’t as incongruous as you might think. Lotus has always been an exciting, adventurous car marque, but it's rarely been awash with money. The Morris Marina door handles are simply one of the more famous examples of part-sharing, which have also included the first-generation Elise using headlamps from the Renault 4!

But back to those door handles. Styled by Harris Mann, the British Leyland designer who also brought the Austin Allegro and Triumph TR7 into being, the Marina's handles were simple and efficient, and pleasingly flush with the rest of the side panel. After the Morris, they found use in both the Allegro and TR7 and, in the late 1970s, all of Lotus' beautiful wedges – the Esprit, Eclat and Elite. They also found their way into the Range Rover when the latter went five-door in 1981.

Aston Martin DBS / Hillman Hunter: rear lights

Aston Martin shares some characteristics with Lotus: a proud, sporting British marque with impeccable credentials (and a few James Bond connections), but not always oodles of cash.

One of the Warwickshire marque's most handsome cars was the DBS grand tourer, built from 1967 to 1972 – a fine rival for the likes of the Jaguar E-Type, Jensen Interceptor, Alfa Romeo Montreal and Citroen SM.

Unlike its DB6 predecessor, the DBS was a proper GT, with four full-size seats and some serious road presence. Almost everything about it was sophisticated and luxurious. However, eagle-eyed observers will have noticed that the rear lights bore a strong resemblance to those on the workaday Hillman Hunter saloon. No matter, as it turns out they suit the DBS rather well.

Whether it's a Hillman Hunter or an Aston Martin DBS you're proud to own, make sure you have classic car insurance to protect your vintage motor.

Jaguar XJ 220 / Citroen CX: wing mirrors

The best-known thing about Jaguar's incredible early-1990s supercar may well be the fact that, for a few months during 1992 and 1993, it was the fastest production car in the world. Yes, in 1993 the XJ 220 hit the truly white-knuckle speed of 217mph during track tests. An awesome machine, and something of which Jaguar can be rightly very proud.

And yet, as so often with these world-conquering supercars, savings had to be made to allow the project to go ahead in the first place. In this case, that meant the XJ 220 borrowing the mirrors from Citroen's CX exec saloon.

And why borrow the mirrors from a big French barge, in particular? Well, the CX's were – usefully – separate from, rather than integrated into the door, unlike those on many other cars. That made them easily adaptable to other vehicles. And the XJ 220 wasn't the only upmarket sports car of its era to borrow the CX's looking glasses: they also found their way onto the Lotus Esprit V8, Aston Martin Virage and TVR Griffith.

Incidentally, the XJ 220 also borrowed its rear lights from the Rover 200. Take another look at the rear end of the Jag and it's striking how well the Rover's lights work.

Pagani Zonda / Rover 45: HVAC controls

Now, this is quite an amusing one. The Pagani Zonda emerged, roaring and snarling, into the world in 1999, bearing incredible power and agility. Its six- and seven-litre engines were sourced from Mercedes – usually fitted into much larger cars such as the latter's S-Class luxury saloons, these engines gave ferocious power when crammed into the lightweight Zonda.

Pagani's supercar also had some extraordinary, eye-catching styling, both inside and out. It all looked so cutting-edge and futuristic, in fact, that few drivers will have noted that the heating, ventilation and air conditioning controls had been lifted from the far less premium Rover 45 small saloon. Did the Rover's HVAC controls look slightly out of place in this six-figure supercar? Possibly – but to be honest, there were so many other extraordinary details to feast your eyes on that we doubt too many owners were bothered.

Aston Martin DB7 / Mazda 323 – rear lights

Another Aston Martin in our list – but this one comes from a different era, and has a slightly different story to tell.

The DB7 was, after all, the first product of Aston Martin's Ford years. Yes: the Blue Oval acquired Aston in 1989, bringing a huge injection of cash into the prestigious but cash-strapped sports car marque. The first major project to see the benefit of this new-found wealth was the DB7, a worthy successor (albeit after a quarter of a century) to the DB6 of the late 1960s.

However, it turned out that large injections of cash weren’t the only thing that Ford brought to the table. The car giant had also invested in Mazda, which meant that all sorts of parts from the reliable Japanese marque were also available to Aston's designers. Interestingly, the latter chose to lift the rear lights from Mazda's dependable 323 hatchback for use on their new DB7.

Transplanting something from a small family hatch to a big, beautiful grand tourer might seem a curious step, but we see their logic – the 323's rear lights are actually quite elegant, with an attractive wraparound look that also worked well on the big Aston.

You'd be forgiven for missing the duplication, too, as Aston Martin did a fairly neat job of hiding the Mazda lights under some plastic cowling, lending the DB7's lights a more sporty, purposeful look.

Mercedes SLR McLaren / Mercedes Sprinter: indicator switches

Fittingly for a marque that delivered the first production automobile, Mercedes have a hugely diverse range of cars, trucks and vans these days. Two near-opposite ends of the spectrum are occupied by the awesome SLR McLaren supercar and the functional Sprinter commercial van. Splendidly, however, the rocket-fuelled hypercar and the big panel van both use the same indicator switches. Yes, the workmanlike Sprinter donated its plastic column stalks to the SLR when the latter appeared on the market in 2003.

That may seem a comical mismatch, but it was an understandable decision by Mercedes. Technologically advanced and superb to drive, the SLR McLaren was an expensive car to make, and some savings had to be found. And let's face it, an indicator switch is one part of the car where you are not going to demand the last word in walnut-finished luxury.

TVR Griffith / Vauxhall Cavalier MkIII: rear lights

British sports car manufacturer TVR had a good 1990s. Perhaps most obviously, they gave us the Griffith, their front-engined, rear-wheel drive, V8 pocket rocket. A proper, fire-breathing roadster, the Griffith quickly won a loyal following among 90s speed-seekers.

TVR being a small outfit without the economies of scale to build a brand new car from the ground up, quite a few parts were sourced from other companies. So you got a 240bhp, 4.0-litre Rover V8 engine, a five-speed Rover gearbox and electrics borrowed from the Range Rover. As well as being sensationally powerful – the 4.0-litre engine was later joined by a 5.0-litre, capable of up to 340bhp – the Griffith also looked brilliant. Indeed, in its clean, simple lines, it echoed classic '60s British roadsters like the Lotus Elan.

This was a car that looked good from every angle – including from behind, where only the most observant would notice that the rear headlamps were taken from the MkIII Vauxhall Cavalier and turned upside down!

If you want a slice of the Griffith action these days, you're probably looking at around £15,000 for a serviceable car, while any in good condition will be selling for £20,000 and upwards. Keep your 'Griff' well maintained, and protect it with classic vehicle insurance, and you've got a vintage British supercar on your hands.

Volvo 760 / Alpina A310: engines

This was an interesting pairing, with a large executive Volvo saloon sharing a powerplant with a wedgy, futuristic French sports coupé.

The Volvo 760 represented a move upmarket for the Swedish company. Where its predecessor, the big, bulletproof 240, was simply a standard family car (albeit a famously safe one), the 760 was pitched into the market sector then occupied by the BMW 5-series and Mercedes E-class. Electric windows, traction control, air conditioning: this was one seriously well-equipped '80s saloon.

The 760 was also equipped with a 2.8-litre V6 engine – nicknamed the PRV V6, because it was a co-production between Peugeot, Renault and Volvo. Another beneficiary of that potent V6 was the A310 from Renault's sports car subsidiary, Alpine. The A310 had originally been conceived, like its A110 predecessor, with a four-cylinder engine. However, an increase in weight from the old car to the new soon revealed that four cylinders weren't going to haul the A310 around at speeds that drivers would demand.

So, to give it that crucial extra pep, the A310 got the same engine as the big Volvo. In its highest state of tune, the PRV V6 allowed the A310 to reach a top speed of 137mph. A bit more speed than was demanded by those safety-conscious Volvo drivers, we'd imagine…
So, a speed demon and a safe, comfortable executive express. Two very different cars – but both equally worthy candidates for classic car insurance.

Lotus Exige 2 / Toyota Celica: engines

The Yaris, the Corolla, the Avensis… as the new millennium dawned, Toyota had a range of vehicles which, while incredibly reliable and easy to own and drive, perhaps weren't the last word in excitement. Seeking to add a bit more pizzazz into their lineup, the Japanese marque approached their compatriots Yamaha, asking them to build a free-revving engine for their Celica sports car. Result: the Toyota 2ZZ-GE, a 1.8-litre four-cylinder that could muster up 180hp without batting an eyelid.

This excellent engine caught the eye of Lotus, who wanted it in the second generation of their Exige sports car. The first-generation Exige had come with a Rover engine: good enough, but when its successor got the Toyota powerplant it moved the game on significantly. Lotus used some of their own considerable engineering expertise to tweak the already hard-working Toyota engine, pushing power up to 190hp. In the case of the supercharged S variant, this power output went up to an impressive 243hp, which was capable of propelling this tiny sports car around at frankly monstrous speeds.

Rover 75 V8 / Koenigsegg CC8S: engines

When Rover introduced a V8 into the statesmanlike 75 saloon back in 2004, it was the company's first eight-cylinder car since the last V8 versions of the Rover SD1 had rolled off the production line way back in 1986.

Apart from the near-two decades that divided them, there was another key difference between these two high-powered flagship Rovers. The SD1 was supplied with Rover's own V8 (the legendary engine that also found its way into the Range Rover, among others). The 75, meanwhile, got a similarly long-serving V8 engine – but this one was from Ford.

The 4.6-litre Ford 'Modular' V8 had done service in various big, luxurious American Fords and Lincolns, such as the Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Marquis and Lincoln Town Car. As its name suggests, the Ford V8 had the great virtue of being endlessly tuneable, and thus able to supply a wide range of power outputs. In the case of the 75 V8, this was a pretty awesome 256bhp.

Around the same time, Swedish designer Christian von Koenigsegg was at work on a hypercar – and needed a decent powerplant to tuck under the bonnet. After approaching both Audi and Subaru, Koenigsegg's next stop was Ford, and their famously adaptable 'Modular' V8 engine. The difference from the Rover was that, this time, the power plant was accompanied by two superchargers. This allowed for an eye-watering 655hp, a 0-60 sprint time of 3.5 seconds, and a top speed of 240mph.

The Rover 75 is actually one of the commoner cars for which we're proud to provide classic vehicle insurance.

McLaren F1 / VW Corrado: wing mirrors

This is a particularly nice pairing. After all, the nifty and hugely engaging Corrado is one of our favourite sporting coupes from the 1990s, and so it's a fitting honour to such a great car that part of it should turn up on one of the most hallowed supercars of all time.

Beautifully engineered and blisteringly fast, the McLaren F1 broke a string of world records during the 1990s – and it is still, to this day, the fastest non-turbocharged car ever built. Just 106 F1s were built, making it as exclusive as it is revered.

The car took four years to plan and, of course, many minds were brought to bear on the construction of such a technological masterpiece. A budget had to be adhered to, however, and that meant that some parts that weren't crucial to the car's all-conquering pace were borrowed from other vehicles. Indeed, alongside the VW Corrado's wing mirrors, the F1 famously adopted some tail lights from a large coach, the Dutch-built Bova Futura.

Panther De Ville / Austin Maxi: doors

The sumptuous and retro Panther De Ville famously cost more than a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow when it launched in 1974. The big luxury car was inspired by the Bugatti Royale, a late 1920s luxury car that was so exclusive that it was built in only seven examples. The De Ville, for its part, was designed as a modern luxury performance car. It just happened to look as if it had stepped straight out of the 1920s.

The car ended up not much less exclusive than its 1920s forebear: just 60 De Villes were produced between 1974 and 1985. Owners included singer Elton John and actor Oliver Reed.

We're guessing that Panther didn't tell these moneyed customers that the De Ville, opulently furnished though it may have been almost everywhere else, had sourced its doors from that 1970s British staple, the Austin Maxi (and indeed from the BMC AD017 'Landcrab' before that).

Audi TT / VW Touran – chassis

It would be hard to imagine two cars further apart on the automobile spectrum than Audi's small, quick and cheekily styled TT, and Volkswagen's sturdy, foursquare Touran people carrier. Yet the fact remains that these two cars are built on the exact same chassis.

Remember that Audi had become a fully-owned VW subsidiary back in 1966, and that the two German carmakers had been sharing platforms since the early 1970s, when the Audi 50 and first-generation VW Polo hatchbacks were built on the same chassis.

When the second iteration of the hugely popular TT appeared in 2006, it was built on the fifth generation of the VW Group's highly adaptable Group A platform. It shared that platform with the first instalment of the Touran MPV – as well as the second generation of the Seat Leon, two generations of VW Golf and various of the Group's other mid-size offerings. That makes the dainty TT and the practical Touran two (albeit unlikely) peas in a pod.

Both are also approaching the age at which they'll qualify for classic car insurance.

Triumph Acclaim / Honda Ballade: almost everything

We're almost cheating by including this pair of 1980s compact cars, as – rather than simply sharing a few mechanicals – they were essentially the same car wearing different badges. There were just enough differences, however, to mark out the Triumph Acclaim and Honda Ballade as distinct entities.

By the late 1970s, British Leyland's mid-size offerings such as the Morris Marina and Austin Maxi were looking a little tired. However, their eventual replacements – the Austin Maestro and Montego – were still a little way off, with the Maestro eventually seeing the light of day in 1983 and its Montego sibling a year later. BL needed a stopgap model, and it came in the form of the Acclaim – a front-wheel drive saloon already being made (as the Ballade) by Honda for the Japanese market. The Acclaim used a Honda engine and was manufactured in the UK under licence from the Japanese marque.

The differences? Small, but they are there. The Acclaim has, of course, the Triumph badge in the centre of its grille – worn with pride, as the last model to bear the Triumph name. It also had twin carburettors to the Ballade's one, and had its mirrors sited on the front doors, rather than halfway down the bonnet in the Japanese style of the time.

Finally, the Acclaim's interior was that little bit more luxurious than its Honda twin. A fact that, alongside that unique status as the last production Triumph, has helped the car to gain a devoted cult following. Any Acclaims still out on the road or in the garage today should be protected with some classic car insurance.

Classic car insurance from Lancaster

The cars we've discussed above represent a tiny fraction of the vast range of vehicles for which we're proud to provide classic car insurance here at Lancaster. Benefits of insuring through us include car club member discounts of up to 25% and static show and historic rally cover. We can also arrange a two-year agreed valuation.

Contact us for a classic car insurance quote today.

Policy benefits, features and discounts offered may very between insurance schemes or cover selected and are subject to underwriting criteria. Information contained within this article is accurate at the time of publishing but may be subject to change.