A Ford clay modeller started building an Australian supercar on weekends in 1998, and named it after a gold miner he had read about.
- Country
-
Australia - Active
- 1998
- Founded by
- Matt Thomas
A supercar built on weekends
Joss began the way a lot of big dreams do: on weekends. In 1998 Matt Thomas, then a clay modeller at Ford Australia, started working on an Australian supercar in his spare time.
He had the background for it. GoAuto described him in 2004 as a 33-year-old designer from Warragul, Victoria, with an industrial design degree from RMIT and design work behind him for the Stewart Formula One team and a long list of carmakers, from Aston Martin to Volvo. He paid for the project himself, and the car was developed and built in Melbourne.
A miner’s name, not an animal’s
Plenty of fast cars are named after bulls, snakes or big cats. Thomas wanted none of that. He told GoAuto in 2004 that he didn’t want an animal name, and that Joss came from a miner he had read about in a book on gold mining. He liked it because it was short and sharp.
The badge itself is harder to pin down. Joss never published an explanation of its logo, and the company’s own website is no longer online, so we can’t tell you what the emblem was meant to say. Rather than guess, we’ll leave it there.
Two prototypes and a long wait
Joss never made it to a showroom. What it left behind is a short line of prototypes and a lot of motor show headlines.
The Joss story, show by show
- 2004: JT1. The first Joss, a test car with a mid-mounted V8, revealed at the Melbourne Motor Show.
- 2011: The comeback. After about seven quiet years, Joss returned to the Melbourne show with a test mule and a finished clay mock-up of the final design.
- 2014: JP1 track car. A development of the JT1 with a 5.0-litre all-alloy V8, which Thomas tried to fund through Kickstarter as a first run of five track cars.
The money never quite arrived. According to WhichCar, a major investment deal collapsed soon after it was announced, and Thomas later sold the project to a buyer who moved it interstate. The car was never sold to the public. For another Australian sports car name with a far longer run, see Elfin.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the name Joss come from?
Founder Matt Thomas told GoAuto that he took it from a miner he had read about in a book on gold mining. He didn’t want an animal name and liked that Joss was short and sharp.
Who created the Joss supercar?
Matt Thomas, an Australian designer and former Ford Australia clay modeller who had also worked for the Stewart Formula One team. He started the project in 1998.
Did the Joss JP1 ever go on sale?
No. The JT1 prototype was shown in 2004 and the JP1 was developed from it, but funding fell through and the car was never sold to the public.
From the gold fields to the motor show
- Founded
- 1998
- Founder
- Matt Thomas
- Country
- Australia
- Headquarters
- Melbourne, Australia
- Known for
- The JT1 and JP1 Australian supercar prototypes
- Status
- Defunct
