Sommaire pour December 2015 de Classics World

Undertaking a complex restoration project at home is never a straightforward task. I’ve battled my way through this technically challenging process twice in the past and fully appreciate what’s involved to bring a down-at-heel car back to life. So I take my hat off to Michael Harcourt, the owner of the pre-war baby Austin featured in this issue, as he managed to completely rebuild this little beauty from what was essentially a derelict non-runner that had to be trailered home. The restoration of this vintage survivor makes interesting reading and this talented owner is obviously a glutton for punishment as he’s now restoring a Triumph Stag and in the past has owned an enviable collection of interesting classics. I’m not a huge fan of modifying classics just for the sake…

In a concerning precedent, Vauxhall has unveiled its own ‘scrappage’ scheme, offering buyers £2000 off a new car until mid-December. The terms are similar to the government mandated programme in 2009 – the trade-in (of any marque and model) has to have a current MoT, although Vauxhall will be accepting cars of any age, which have been in the owner’s possession for at least 90 days. In 2009 it was a minimum of a year and cars had to be 10 years old or more. As government policy turns decisively against diesel vehicles, proposals have been on the table for a least a year; we reported on a programme supporting the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) backed by London Mayor Boris Johnson recently. Pre-2006 vehicles have already been factored into…

MX-5 GOES UP A GEAR Fidanza cam gears for the Mazda MX-5 1.8 DOHC engine are precision CNC machined from 6061 T6 alloy for light weight and increased durability and feature laser etched timing marks for precise tuning with 12 degrees of both advance and retard. What’s more, the outer gear teeth are bevelled for increased belt life and have a hard anodised coating for a longer service life. Stainless steel socket head studs allow for easy adjustment. The unique Fidanza (www.fidanza.com) design permits more torque to be used to secure the inner and outer gear sections without risk of stretching the aluminium threads. They’re available in red, blue anodised finishes or natural alloy. PLAYING ON THE NEGATIVES A bit of negative camber is good and Mini Spares now has…

Will Armston-Sheret Contributor Will has been collecting classic cars since before he could drive and now has quite a fleet of Morris Minors. He’s currently slowly doing up his dream car, a 1950 Morris Minor Lowlight. It seems that however optimistic you are about progress, there’s always another snag or complication somewhere along the line. Particularly at this important, yet awkward stage where most of the jobs will show when the car is finished. It’s vital not to rush here, as an hour or two saved on fitting a door could leave you staring at an unsightly gap for the next 10 years. This brings me back onto the trials and tribulations I’ve had with the driver’s side door on the Lowlight. I’m now on door number three, numbers one…

Scott Higgins Contributor Scott has always been an engineer at heart: Lego, Meccano and disassembly of anything that stays still for too long being obvious symptoms. After serving an engineering apprenticeship at Land Rover Solihull, he now works in product development. This month on planet Frog has been one of finishing off the 1275 engine. I am still waiting for a cam for the 1098cc (a supercharger-specific grind) and matching the oil pump drive has delayed it somewhat. Speaking of delays, yes the first Frog is still at the paint shop and it’s sat in a dusty corner looking sorry for itself. These things can’t be rushed I suppose and I get a good quality job from my chap at the right price, but the more lucrative insurance work must…

Rob Marshall Contributor Rob continues work on his Triumph Dolomite restoration project and admits preferring the cooler wintry weather for working on cars. His retro Volvo also received some attention, as it enters its last month of use for this year. Plummeting temperatures and lashing rain are hardly ideal conditions in which to work outdoors on a classic but because winter tends to be less demanding on my free time than the summer, I tend to be more productive with repairing and restoring my collection of old crocks. Since rebuilding the starter motor and curing a nasty oil leak on my Triumph Dolomite 1500 restoration project, I have spent rather too much time on my back recently, gazing up at the car’s boot floor while being pelted with both old…

While piloting our XJS down the M6 the other day, I decided to turn off at junction two and call into the headquarters of the David Manners Group at Oldbury to pick up a few service items. This proved a good opportunity to meet up with sales manager Simon Oughtibridge (on the right) and IT systems manager Chris Goodwin, two of the hard working guys who organise and despatch all the parts we order for our XJS as well as giving them a chance to take a well-earned look at what we’ve done so far. The David Manners Group is easy to find as its headquarters are based virtually next door to the viaduct carrying the M6 through the suburbs of Birmingham. The company was established back in the 1970s…

Coolant is the second most important thing an engine needs after oil, but it’s rarely given as much thought. It’s only when there is a problem such as overheating that we snap into action to find out what’s gone wrong. And of course at this time of year, a cooling system which isn’t quite up to scratch can also make itself felt as a heater which isn’t up to the job. Car cooling systems are quite complex, and for the purposes of keeping things simple, we’re discussing those engines with water pumps and not syphon type systems. So how does your cooling system work? It’s pretty simple, even on more modern classics. The water pump that is normally driven by the fan belt or auxiliary belt pumps coolant around the…

There is something impossibly exotic about a V12 engine and until recent times, anywhere outside of Italy it was almost an alien species. The first recorded use of a V12 engine was not aero but marine and made by the Putney Motor Works in London in 1904. Still in the UK, Sunbeam first adopted the configuration to be used for racing in 1913. Packard was almost certainly the first to use a V12 in a production car in 1916 but soon Daimler, Hispano-Suiza, Cadillac and Lincoln were among a number of manufacturers to follow. But from the ’50s on Italy made it their own, used by Ferrari with Lamborghini catching up in 1963. Jaguar entered the scene in 1971 but the roots went further back. Jaguar officially withdrew from motor…

Of all my cars, this has to be my favourite,” comments a reflective Michael Harcourt while we watch snapper Gez arranging his photographic lights which dwarf the tiny Seven. With a V12 Jaguar XJS convertible in the garage and a Stag under restoration, it might seem an odd comment, especially when conversation reveals Michael’s previous form to include an S1 E-Type roadster and a Corniche. The Seven has that effect though: originally conceived as budget transport for the masses, made cheaply and designed to last only a few years, some 290,000 were eventually produced and the cars have survived in huge numbers around the world. It’s the simplicity of the Seven which appeals, with neat design touches all round which kept production costs down and enabled Austin to offer a…

Richardson Eric Contributor With a passion for historic motorsport Eric is as comfortable behind the wheel competing in a car as he is behind the lens photographing one. Brought up with rallying in the 1970’s he’s a huge fan of rally cars of the period and has competed in numerous historic road rallies as both as driver and a navigator. I can finally say the Austin A40 is ready to hit the road again. The cooling system conundrum I mentioned last month where the outlet from the new radiator’s header tank was in the wrong position has been solved at last. Last month’s diary showed how the new radiator was temporarily mounted in the A40 courtesy of a pair of plastic 3D-printed brackets and how the upper inlet pipe was…

Ivan Ostroff Contributor Believing classics should be out and driven whatever the weather, Ivan is sticking two fingers up at the onset of autumn and is still using his topless Gentry regularly. Although in the evenings it now has to be one of the XJ40’s. The lid of my recently acquired XJ40’s centre console glove box had a recess where the original telephone receiver lived when the car was new and it was ruddy uncomfortable on the elbow. I had a spare lid in black leather that complements the interior, as the top of the dash is also black. The hinge was attached with three screws but the centre screw was obscured and inaccessible. Rather than strip half the console away, I drilled a hole to access the screw out…

Mike Taylor Contributor Mike’s Stag Rescue has been a long-term feature in CM for the last few years and the project is now finally nearing completion. After a period of poor weather it was back to painting the Stag. Both the doors and tonneau frame were set up in preparation for final painting. All three items have been blasted, repaired and prepared for painting earlier in the restoration. The inside of the doors had also been top coated in Carmine Red, so just the outer skin required finishing. A long board was used to wet sand the outer skin surfaces and the area was then given an additional coat of primer filler, then sprayed with a black guide coat before being given a final sand with 1200 grade paper on…

Last month saw us getting the Discovery up in the air and, er, discovering that although we had a remarkably sound example to work with, the offside rear tyre was streaked with oil which had spattered on to the inner wheelarch. On closer inspection this had the distinctive whiff of transmission oil to it, especially noticeable with a warm engine thanks to the heat from the exhaust silencer behind that wheel. Expert opinion pointed to a failing hub seal on that corner, a common Land Rover issue and most likely a result of the Discovery having sat idle for a few months before being pressed into service for some longer trips soon after we acquired it. It’s actually a very simple task and well within the scope of the DIYer…

FEATURES • Up to 1000CCA max load • 0-16-Volt Range • 0.9kg Weight SILVERLINE BATTERY TESTER The design of lead acid car batteries hasn’t really changed for the last 50 years or so, which is more than can be said for the cars we drive. Nowadays there’s all sorts of electrical gubbins that rely on your battery and charging system working effectively – and I’m not just taking about your iPhone charger either. Most specialists recommend you replace your battery every four years or so but there aren't many people who do this as a matter of course. Most of us just wait until the car won’t start and get the next bus to Halfords, usually being mighty annoyed at ourselves for not having properly checked the thing in the…

Lancaster Insurance, the headline sponsor of this month’s Classic Motor Show will be displaying its own very special restoration project on its stand at Birmingham’s NEC in a bid to generate vital funds for a major cancer charity. The 'as found' car lining up alongside the six iconic classics making up Lancaster’s ‘She’s a Beauty’ display will be a one family-owned 1969 Morris Mini Super Deluxe sourced through the Classic Mini Finder site (www.classicminifinder.co.uk), a new online service for enthusiasts looking to buy a classic Mini. After the show the Mini will be undergoing an extensive but sympathetic bare-metal restoration in which it’s planned to hopefully retain as much (preferably all) of the original car as possible. All the restoration work required to bring this little gem back to its…

I’d recently lost my Alfa GTV6,” explains Rodney Payne ruefully when asked how this white MGB GT first came into his life. The Alfa in question was similar in spirit to the MGB since it had also been treated to a few choice modifications which its maker could so easily have added during its production life. In the case of the Alfa this involved a 24-valve V6 from the 164, plus an Alfa 75 transaxle, Harvey-Bailey suspension and other refinements – an approach mirrored in the MGB with its supercharged engine, five-speed transmission and modernised suspension. The B had been owned by an enthusiastic Elan owner, who had acquired the MGB for his wife before discovering that she really wasn’t that keen on ’70s BL sports cars. Prior to that…

TIME 14 years, from 2001 till 2015. COST Total expenditure to date £7,000. Sunderland born Neil Hall was posted to Gibraltar in 1977 with the RAF for several years as an airport crash fireman. After being demobbed in 1980, he went back to Gib to visit the many friends he’d made whilst in the RAF and ended up staying, eventually getting a job once again at the airport as a fireman. Yup, basically the civilian equivalent of his old job. One day in April 2000, Neil spotted a BMW 2002L Automatic in a scrapyard in Algeciras. The car was without any number plates, but complete and right-hand drive so clearly ex-UK and probably one of many English cars similarly abandoned when the owner returned home. It was parked very closely…

Gez Hughes Contributor Gez longs for the simpler life, so his fleet consists of cars that can be run on pennies and fixed with a spoon. A lifelong fascination with motors built in the heyday of the British motor industry means there’s always something that needs fixing. Restoring any car back to a roadworthy condition is a huge task. It’s also very easy to get disillusioned and lose interest at any point. But this month I was reminded of just how good it feels when after months, or sometimes years, of toiling away at a never-ending list of jobs, your project ceases to be a project and magically transforms into a usable form of transport again. I’d kept the NSU on axle stands while I finished the last few bits…

Morgan Martyn -Jones Contributor My interest in classics began after I was asked to take part in a classic car feature, back in the late 1980s, with my Sunbeam Stiletto, the very same car that David currently owns! Apart from Imps, I’m rather fond of ‘Big’ Healeys, early 911s, Renault Gordinis and Alpines, older Volvos, Triumph 2.5s, Lotus Cortinas, historic kit cars and specials ...I could go on! During the past few months I have been presenting a series of ‘proposals’ to my wife; trying to convince her that what we really needed in our lives, now that the children have left home, was another classic car! Well, to my surprise I succeeded in winning her around – just. However, we’ve been married for 34 years and I knew from…

The mystery of the Jaguar’s disappearing brake fluid mentioned at the end of last month’s Project XJS looks like it was down to an air lock in the ABS accumulator. I couldn’t find any leaks in the braking system and since topping up the reservoir the fluid level has remained constant for well over 1000 miles. The brake pedal never felt soft, even when the fluid was low, and the system has since been checked out professionally, so let’s hope that’s the end of that worrying problem. Continuing to drive our XJS with the headlining hanging around my ears wasn’t an option, so I ripped out the old lining before removing the backing board and ordered a new lining kit from David Manners (www.davidmanners.co.uk). Removing the headlining turned out to…

The world was a very different place when the covers first came off the Rover P6 back in 1963. Rover was still an independent company and throughout the '50s it had built up an enviable reputation as a manufacturer of conservative-styled cars aimed at conservative minded buyers. By the end of the decade the ever-popular P4 and P5 range were starting to look rather dated and a new breed of middle management buyers now wanted to drive stylish, sub-3.0-litre cars incorporating modern automotive design as well as new technology. Although its cars looked dated, Rover was a very forward-looking company and the technically advanced design for what would become the P6 was considered cutting edge and extremely radical for the time. Instead of using a steel monocoque, the new Rover…

The world may have seized on the DeLorean DMC-12 this month to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its screen appearance in Back to the Future, but there was another equally edgy-looking car which was celebrating a birthday rather more quietly in 2015 too. The car in question is the TR7 which had the unfortunate distinction of being the last in the line of TR-badged cars which had begun in 1950. The TR7 also has the distinction of being the least-valued of the TRs and endured a surprisingly troubled production history, but to provoke controversy it’s in many ways the best-driving of them all. The TR story began some 25 years before the TR7 ever saw the light of day, when the lavish TR-X show car was unveiled at that year’s…