The Stylus was Jeremy Phillips' development of the Fury and is a Sylva born design. The car was wider than the Fury in the cockpit area giving the occupants more room and also had larger doors making getting in and out a bit easier. It was also equipped with a boot. The body is a one-piece moulding which makes aligning the panels more easy during a build.
In the summer of 1996 Jeremy Phillips sold the production rights to Pete and Linda Powell of Specialist Sports Cars who have continually developed the car. Improvements include needle roller bearings in the rocker arms, better ball joints on the stub axles, beefed up rear axle brackets, polyurethane bushes, chassis mounted door hinges, floor mounted pedals and use of the Sierra steering column.
The car is available using either Mk II Escort front hubs and live axle or, Sierra front hubs and SSC's own De Dion rear axle. The De Dion configuration uses the Sierra diff with shortened drive shafts, located using the same leading and trailing arms used on the live axle version and a Watts linkage instead of the panhard rod. Alternatively a mix of Escort and Sierra can be used.
In 2003 SSC released the Stylus RT, a wider 'meaner' version of the standard car with flared arches. Built for race and track the new version is proving popular. The RT has a flip front bonnet providing much better access to the engine area than on the standard car. The Flip front can be retro fitted to any standard car with very little time or effort.
In May 2004 Pete sold Specialist Sports Cars to long time employee Tim Benbow, who now runs the firm under the guise of Stylus Sports Cars.
Engine installations range from bike units through to normal car engines of straight 4, V6 and V8 configurations. Car weights ranging from 400kg upwards. Typical performance with a 1.8 litre Zetec (150 bhp) is 0 to 60mph in 5.5 secs and topping out at 140 mph.