Yak Design

Designed in the late sixties and produced through to 1973, the Yak clearly was aimed at the Moke market, now deserted by BL since production of the Moke ended.  Unable to create a sheet steel monocoque as per the orginal Moke, Grantura Used their knowledge of the TVR performance cars (which they made for TVR) and created a tubular steel spaceframe and topped it with a moulded body shell, then more moulding for thre windscreen and the tailgate.  Using Mini Mk1 mechanicals (and hence the twin bolt subframe).  As the car was a longer wheelbase it used some Van\Estate parts on the rear end; Fuel tank, exhaust and handbrake cable.

Unlike many Mini Kit Cars since, the rear subframe was retained in its entirety.  Mnay other Mini Kits use a beam doing away with the rusty and heavy subframe.

The tubular chassis is very well designed using steel 1inch tubing, creating two side rails, with triangulating diagonals and cross braces under the passenger compartment.  the rear end rises up over the subframe and has three tubes supporting the rear seat base and load bay.  At the very rear space is made for the Van\Estate fuel tank and also a mouting for a tow hook.

The structure of the chassis ends pretty much at the front tower moutnings for the subframe, small fabricated boxes mount the subframe towers and  threaded bars locate the dampers.  There are two small frame rails that extend forward to locate the front panel near the headlights.  With no frame structure supporting the front lower subframe mounts, provision was made for braces from the upper tower mounts to reinforce the front mounts.  The cross brace between the tower mounts supports the engine mounting but not the Pedal box and master cylinders.  these appear to mount to the less than strucutural windscreen moundling, as does the steerign column mount. These are missing off my Yak so its not clear what the windscreen moulding is reinforced by. The screen is a curved mini item and not the flat version used on the moke, This along with the different shape of the front panel are the main visual differences to the Moke.

On my chassis there are lap belt mountings, but there was not a fully strucutural roll cage.  Press photos of the orginal car show there were tubular metal hoops, but these look like they were for the hood and not the belts.

The main body tub moulding (which all the bodywork that I have), is a one piece fibreglass moulding.  It forms the front panel, wings, passenger\boot area and rear wings.  This was supplemented by the large windscreen\dash moulding and a tailgate moulding.  The load area is quite large and makes the car appear much larger than it is.  To the sides of th eload area there are two moulded suports for spare 10inch wheel\tyres.  The frotn seats are standard mini items with a cross member moulde dinto the passenger area to bolt the front seat hinges to.  While the rear seat is as simple as a padded based and a backrest.