Inhaltsverzeichnis für July 2024 in Classics World

It is easy to get so immersed in the classic scene that we forget the cars we treasure today as toys were once people's everyday transport. Some of the great stories we've been sent recently for the Postbag pages have reminded me of this, stories of cars in the 1950s-1970s that were crammed with people and luggage before being taken on holiday to some surprisingly far-flung places. Of course, people's expectations were different back then. Many families did without a heater in their car and used the infamous tartan rug to keep their legs warm, electric windows were only for the jet set, threespeed gearboxes were not unheard of and servicing schedules could be brutal with nipples needing to be greased as frequently as every 1000 miles or so. None…

Most people of a certain age have owned many cars in their lifetimes. My wife and I are no exceptions – we have had 47 automobiles between us, some good, some bad, some ugly, but there are always a couple that you never forget. This is the story of one such car of ours. In the distant past (1994 to be precise), my youngest daughter was learning to drive. We had decided not to interfere and to let the driving school do its stuff rather than give her the benefit of our experiences. She had several lessons over the next nine months and passed her test at the second attempt. Then the dilemma arose. My wife was driving a newish Peugeot 205 GTi and I was driving an old Citroën…

Hello, greetings from sunny Western Australia. I was wondering if you could please help me? I have just finished restoring my Saab 900i (non-turbo convertible 1992 model) and was wondering if you know whether there was a parts catalogue/CD made for this model of car. I have made general enquiries over here, but so far I have been unsuccessful. It would be of great benefit to me if, when ordering parts from overseas, I had a part number to use as a reference. Would you know anyone who might be able to help me with this problem? I have been a subscriber to your magazine since day one and so look forward to receiving my magazine in the mail. Incidentally, I have always had a boot rack on all of…

Like many people who love classic cars, I am also drawn to other forms of classic transport, whether that be for land, sea or air. As such, I would happily tour a museum that contained nothing but trucks, yet having paid my £10 admission, the first vista that confronts me gives an idea of the variety that is on offer at this one. On the left is a 1952 Morris Cowley ice cream van, custom built by Winnards of Wigan and powered by a 1200cc sidevalve engine – just 42bhp, but you don't want to rush a good ice cream! Alongside that is a London bus, an AEC Regent III from 1952, one of over 4600 examples delivered. Between the Morris and the bus is a Leyland prototype gas turbine…

PART 6 There are a lot of false dawns when it comes to resurrecting a classic car that's been sitting in a barn for 20 years. When we got the Jetta's engine running it felt as though we were four fifths there, but of course in reality we'd actually done about 20% of the work required to get the car legally back on the road. The engine ran roughly at first, but after 10 minutes or so the noisy hydraulic tappet gave up complaining, accepted that its hibernation was over and went silent. So we had some go. Now we needed some stop to match it. At first glance the brakes didn't look too bad – the pedal was firm and, during our shifting the car about in the workshop,…

The Morris Minor became such an institution that it is hard to credit that a replacement was scheduled even before the Minor 1000 came into existence. Back in the early 1950s, the Minor was selling well, but looking dated already with its distinctly 1940s profile and split windscreen. Following the creation of BMC in 1952, the Minor had received the somewhat weedy 803cc OHV engine from the Austin A30, together with its rather unpleasant gearbox. Performance had scarcely been improved over that of the 918cc sidevalve version. Having the smaller A30 in its range, BMC decided to prepare a new Minor design, based on the existing floorpan and running gear but offering more luggage space and a more modern appearance. An increase in weight brought the decision to use the…

FUTURE Classics FORGOTTEN HERO When it arrived in 1994 with Jaguar under Ford ownership, the X300 was seen as a heavily facelifted XJ40 and a return to a more curvy look, more a progression from the muchloved XJ6 Series 3, while at the same time as dialling in better build, reliability and greater comfort. Perhaps the real headline story of the X300 therefore was the arrival of the supercharged XJR – the first production supercharged engine that Jaguar had produced – with its lowered suspension and chic, un-Jaguar like cabin, a move by the firm to attract a new, more thrusting younger potential buyer. Indeed, from a marketing perspective the X300 was rather clever because the range was designed to cater for a wide range of age groups and tastes.…

Welcome to our latest project for 2024! This time we've chosen one of the unsung heroes of the fast Ford scene to use as our base, the Focus ST170. The ST170 may live in the shadow of its turbocharged RS-badged brother, but that makes it one of the most overlooked and underrated sporty hatches around. And with prices at rock bottom, now is the perfect time to get in on the action. Only, be warned that time is running out. The fact the ST170 doesn't command RS premium prices, coupled with the fantastic, high-revving, 170bhp 2.0-litre Zetec found under the bonnet that's the ideal upgrade for many a classic Ford project, means that more and more ST170s are being scrapped and pulled apart for their engines. Between 2002 and 2005…

MY FIRST CAR ON THE ROAD Andrew is still in a nostalgic mood, but this is a classic car magazine, so why not? I got my first ever legal car in 1984. I would turn 17 in the November and thoughts turned to finding a suitable first car. Minis were the main target, but there were others – a tidy 1976 Alfasud was rejected by Everett Snr due to insurance, but there was a Mk3 Cortina going for £20. A dark blue 1300L two-door from 1972, it was missing its engine and gearbox but the body was OK and engines were peanuts to buy, so I'm not sure why that didn't come to fruition. A 1968 Mini 1000 Mk2 could have been a contender, but like most Minis of that…

NEWS NOT JUST ANY CAR WWW.CARCOVERS.INFO ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW NOT JUST ANY COVER A stylish relic from the roaring Twenties forms the centrepiece of a new display at the Lakeland Motor Museum paying tribute to the famous children's stories of Swallows and Amazons creator Arthur Ransome. The 1928 Trojan car is the same age and type as the one once owned by the famous author when he lived in the Lake District and which helped to inspire the vehicle Rattletrap in his book Pigeon Post, the 6th of 12 books in the Swallows and Amazons series. The display shows the Trojan Three Door Tourer disguised as Rattletrap and loaded with camping gear, prospectors’ equipment and topped with a pigeon basket! The new display came about through a partnership…

A very impressive array of classics and customs in Hayes, West London this month provided a feast for the appetite of enthusiasts, all whilst fundraising for Nishkam SWAT, a charity with which I am involved and which supports the homeless and underprivileged. 1980s icons – including several German giants – delighted visitors sharing the passion on Saturday 11th May, all while making deep donations to the charity. The level of dedication and commitment to prepare and present the cars was notable, including a recently restored orange (1981) Fiat 131 belonging to charity founder Randeep Singh Lall. The charity relies on around 800 committed volunteers throughout the week for outreach services in dozens of locations, including other countries. This is all taking the Sikh faith teaching and practice of ‘Langar’ to…

Further to my father's immediate postwar motoring experiences in the May issue, my own motoring experiences started so embarrassingly that it has taken 65+ years to be brave (or daft) enough to share them. Picture the scene – pop music, Beatlemania, mini-skirts and the beginnings of free love had descended upon the nation's youth and this bespectacled, pimply teenager purchased not a fashionable Mini, but a grey Isetta bubble car. It gets worse, because it was the LHD four-wheel version, so the lower rate of motorbike road tax didn't apply, and the blue/white BMW badge was no compensation for the £70 error of my ways. Unsurprisingly no free love came my way, the only female to ever grace the front bench seat was my mum and it broke down a…

READERS' CARS JAGUAR MKIV Denis lives in an area of the capital now covered by the ULEZ zone. As his steed is over 40 years old, it is however exempt from the charge of £12.50 per day. Nevertheless, I wonder what it is like jostling with the daily London traffic and the attendant risks, as he has to every time the car goes out? It turns out that Denis takes it all in his stride, and assures me that the car is more than capable of keeping up even in its original form, though his does have a couple of sensible upgrades. The car was rightly feted in the day, as its six-cylinder engine made it one of the fastest and most desirable production cars then available. That day was…

ROAD TEST MGB GT I have had three MGBs over the years, all of them GTs. I did many thousands of miles behind their wheels, and thoroughly enjoyed every one. However, it came as something of a surprise to realise that the last of those was several years ago. A lot has happened over the intervening period, both to me and to the road network, so I was very keen to see whether the model still ticked all my boxes. The car I tested will be familiar to many of you as the project car we featured last year. This is currently owned by my workshop buddy, Alan Denne, and in keeping with some other former project cars recently, we thought it made perfect sense to add a bookend to…

PART 8 Back in January we introduced our 1965 Traveller, a basically sound older restoration which had been out of use for several years and which had deteriorated somewhat through storage. Since then we've sorted the woodwork and front doors, and also done a fair bit to improve the interior. Now, though, we've reached the final part. This episode is mainly concerned with finishing the interior, along with painting the wheels and setting the valve clearances. The latter is a job that will be very familiar indeed to older readers. However, because overhead valve engines were pretty much all superseded by overhead cams from the mid-1970s onwards, there are now probably more motorists around who haven't owned an OHV car, and setting OHV clearances stopped being a skill which tech-savvy…

BUYING GUIDE Sleek styling aside, talk of the Datsun 240Z being a ‘baby E-type’ is probably stretching things a bit, but there's no doubt the arrival of the 240Z rather upset the established sports car market. The early-1970s offered a good choice of coupés in the UK – the likes of the MGB GT and Ford Capri being obvious ones – but the Japanese contender offered a tempting blend of performance, handling ability, comfort and reliability. The 2.4-litre straight-six engine ensured it was no slouch, its 150bhp delivering 125mph and 0-60mph in 8.0 seconds. While the 260Z that arrived in 1974 provided more torque, its longer stroke meant it wasn't quite as revvy as the earlier car. That said, either model provides plenty of entertainment today, so you won't be…

MARQUES & MODELS THE FIAT 124 SALOON FAMILY In Italy, an elaborate cinema advertising campaign with the 124 being dropped from a helicopter lent excitement to a car aimed at the bourgeoisie. On a more practical level, power was from an 1197cc OHV unit, the company's first four-cylinder engine with a five-bearing crankshaft. The specification included all-round disc brakes and a synchromesh four-speed gearbox. Oscar Montabone designed the attractively cuboid bodywork; middle-class Italian motorists tended to prefer a low-key appearance. The 124 became the European Car of the Year 1967, and the price in the UK was £782. The editor of Motor Sport rhapsodised: ‘Whereas the Fiat makes me want to drive along the Autostrada del Sol to Florence and Naples, the Cortina 1200 I associate with seaside excursions to…

FUTURE Classics BUYING GUIDE Believe it or not, it's well over two decades since the first E85 Z4 hit these shores. And thanks to its edgy ‘flame surface’ styling, it still looks good. The slightly toned down second generation E89 with its retractable hardtop followed in 2009 and shares its predecessor's Peter Pan-like resistance to age, putting both cars firmly on the future classic collector's radar. The first Z4 was built at BMW's Spartanburg plant Stateside and was aimed squarely at the higher end of the open-top market, taking on the gauntlet from its predecessor, the Z3, when it came to battling Porsche's Boxster. There were just two engine options at launch; the M54 straight-six in 2.5-litre or 3.0-litre guise, mated to a five- and six-speed manual ‘box respectively, although…

READERS' CARS TRIUMPH VITESSES We first met father and son Dave and Ben Samways at a local classic car show. They were there with this wonderful pair of Triumphs, Dave with the estate and Ben in the convertible. And while it was inevitably the convertible that grabbed our attention first (was there ever a more attractive family-sized convertible than a Herald or a Vitesse?), the estate was far and away the rarer of the two. And that's not just because estate cars tend to live a hard life and survival rates are generally low, but because Triumph never listed a Vitesse estate among their many offerings. Of course, the Meccano-like nature of a Vitesse's construction makes it relatively easy to create one of your own, but Dave's car has a…

An electric polisher can help to restore faded paintwork, remove light scratches and make it easy to apply polish and wax, but which one should you choose, and can the wrong tool in the wrong hands result in unsightly swirl marks? There's certainly a skill to using a polisher, so it's not simply a case of buying one and expecting it to transform your classic's paintwork. We've tested nine different polishers on a variety of vehicles and surfaces where there's everything from fresh paint that needs buffing to paint defects and sunlight damage. Our table provides a brief overview of them, but there's a lot more to consider than price, weight, speed settings, motor type and whether the polisher is battery- or mains-powered. Noise and vibration were a major concern…

Alec Issigonis design sketch Issigonis was a talented artist who could sketch his ideas easily in great detail, though he relied on others to turn them into engineering blueprints. This early sketch is recognisably Mini, although it is far from the finished article that we know and love. The rear corners are very different for one thing, and the front end styling does not quite give us a cheeky chappy face, but you would never mistake it for anything other than a Mini. One interesting detail on this sketch is the positioning of the fuel tank in the engine bay just ahead of the front bulkhead, with a note to say that this would be stressed. Knowing how little room there was in a Mini engine bay even with the…

The first Historics sale of 2024 at Ascot Racecourse attracted an impressive 185 lots and included a vast number of modern classics – including a 1988 MG Metro which sold for an incredibly strong £7966. Our favourites here included the totally original early Boxster which sold for the same price as a dull nearly new Dacia and the showroom condition Jaguar V8 limo with just 10,000 miles on the clock which looked fabulous value at a touch over £18k. Especially as it would have cost its first owner well over £50,000. 2012 MINI Cooper S – £14,560 Rarity can sometimes count for a lot when it comes to value, which explains why this otherwise pretty boring looking black R56 MINI had collectors tripping over themselves when it came up for…

Alfa Romeo Giulia (2016-present) Meant as a credible alternative to Audi, BMW and Jaguar's top-drawer offerings, Alfa made a pretty good fist of things with its Giulia. It arrived here in late 2016, five years after the firm's last saloon (the 159), with a choice of a 197bhp 2.0-litre petrol engine or 2.2-litre JTDm-2 four-cylinder diesel, the latter being available in either 148bhp or 177bhp guise. Oh, and there was also the range-topping 2.9-litre V6 Quadrifoglio with a monstrous 503bhp on tap. That was the real firecracker. The 276bhp Veloce arrived in 2017, followed by the Veloce Ti in 2018 which inherited lots of features from the Quadrifoglio, including its stunning 19in alloys and high-end heated leather/ Alcantara sports seats and carbon trim. As you might have hoped, Alfa whipped…