Sommaire pour March 2017 de Classics World

A one-off 1972 diesel MGB GT recently appeared for sale on Carandclassic.co.uk – thought to have been built by the firm’s experimental workshop. Featured in the November 2015 issue of MG Enthusiast, current owners Dave and Rupert Besley had decided to move the car on. Powered by a 1.8-litre B Series diesel engine, debate rages as to whether or not the car is a genuine factory prototype. Previous attempts to trace this MGB’s previous history with the DVLA drew a blank – although the MG Car Club (MGCC) has been aware of the car for at least the past 25 years. Heavy oil B Series 1.8-litre engines appeared in boats and the Sherpa commercial vehicle but never in a British specification passenger car; while commonplace now, diesel coupés were unheard…

It’ll soon be possible to buy a new track-only Aston Martin DB4 GT from the firm’s historic home of Newport Pagnell. Twenty-five DB4 GTs, all built to racing Lightweight specification, will pick up from where the original cars left off in 1963; new cars will take the next available Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) in the DB4 GT production logs. Known in the trade as ‘continuations’, building the new cars falls under the remit of in-house marque restoration division Aston Martin Works in Newport Pagnell. “The DB4 GT [Lightweight] Continuation is a fusion of classic design and contemporary methods,” explained Aston Martin commercial director Paul Spires. Aston Martin Works hasn’t built a car since 2007; back then, it was responsible for the Vanquish S. Following an extensive refit, Newport Pagnell will…

Keeping your classics running well through the winter months can be a challenge, especially if the weather is filthy, which usually means wet and salty roads. I always try and start the cars on a regular basis and get them up to temperature, but it’s even better if you have a bright, dry(ish) day, and you can get out on the road. It was real treat this month to get both the NSU and the Landcrab out on the road and enjoy a bit of winter sunshine. I know the darker months are a good excuse for locking yourself away in the garage and getting stuck into those bigger jobs, but nothing beats driving your cars. And you know you won’t be facing a whole load of inactivity-related problems come…

“As it was all coming together I chanced upon the fact that the 4.6 would shred my gearbox and diff” When I took out the badly running V8 from the Rover P6 3500 I looked at the cost of overhauling and upgrading and decided it would be cheaper to swap it for a later fuel-injected Range Rover motor. A bit of online research showed I could go up to a 4.6 for only a couple of hundred pounds. Double the power and better economy... why wouldn’t you? So I bought a mid ’90s GEMS 4.6 online, apparently in good working order with lower miles than the P6 for just £325 delivered. All I’d need to do is swap the SD1 viscous fan front plate from the P6 engine, and some…

Our cheap-as-chips all-wheel drive Jaguar continues to eat up the miles and just before booking the car into Ridgewood Service Station in Cromford to get proprietor Chris Geadly and his team to fit a new propshaft centre bearing fitted, the Jaguar’s digital odometer flashed over to read 122,000 miles. We’ve covered just over 4000 miles in our V6-powered £325 bargain since adding it to Classics Monthly’s fleet last August and although the large majority of these miles have been trouble-free, we’ve had a couple of odd noises that required investigating. The first turned out to be a sticking rear brake pad and we cured this problem by fitting a new set of discs and pads. The other noise was much harder to trace, as it was an odd whine that…

Suspension related ball joints are often fitted where movement between a hub/upright and a suspension arm is required, such as on the end of an upper or lower suspension arm. They are also used in other areas of suspension, such as for anti-roll bar drop links and tie rods. When a ball joint becomes worn, there may be a knocking noise from the suspension when the vehicle is being driven. Play can sometimes be detected if you waggle a raised road wheel, which can lead to an MoT test failure. Often the solution is to renew the ball joint, which in some cases, isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. Some ball joints are secured with rivets, which need to be drilled or ground off. Others are a pressed fit,…

The ride quality, handling and stability of a car can be adversely affected if factors such as the alignment and angles of the road wheels are incorrect. So it’s worthwhile knowing what’s involved in setting up your car’s suspension geometry, even if you intend to hand the job over to a specialist. A good starting point for ensuring your car’s suspension geometry is correct is to check the tyre pressures regularly and have the wheel alignment (tracking) checked at least once a year. Tyre pressures are important because they not only affect the grip under cornering, accelerating and braking, but also the ride height (useful if you can alter the ride height), which in turn can make a mess of other suspension settings. Having the wheel alignment checked at regular…

At the end of the 19th century Longbridge was scarcely a place at all. The area was gently rolling farmland between the outer fringes of Birmingham to the north and the Lickey Hills to the south. What would become the factory site was bounded by dusty lanes – Lowhill Lane to the south, Groveley Lane to the east and Lickey Road, which spurred off the main road between Birmingham and Bristol, to the west. The eastern edge of the site was mostly formed by the Midland Railway’s main line from Birmingham to Gloucester, which a branch of the Great Western Railway joined from Halesowen just north of the site. The River Rea flowed across the area. This bucolic scene was changed by the arrival of Messrs White & Pike, a…

MODIFYING MY MINI For this enthusiast, owning a Mini was just the start. Budgetary restrictions meant that I couldn’t afford a Cooper version, or even to mildly tune its 850 engine, but that didn’t mean that you couldn’t make it go faster... Obviously performance was going to be improved dramatically when you fitted a Paddy Hopkirk throttle pedal extension, allowing you to instantly become a heel and toe ‘expert’, slick downchanges were then possible, keeping the knackered old A-series engine in its peak rev range… Speed increased further with the ‘bucket’ seat covers. I couldn’t afford the authentic classic racing bucket seats, so these vinyl covers with padded edges and sides obviously would have to do. The interior’s ‘racy’ look was also improved when I decided to get one of…

Work proceeds apace on Aston Martin’s new Welsh home – a factory which will make the firm’s new DBX off-roader a production reality in two years’ time. Aston signed off for the St Athan site on Wednesday, December 14, getting the green light when Aston Martin president and CEO Dr Andy Palmer met Welsh first minister, Rt Hon Carwyn Jones AM to finalise the sale of the land. Dr Palmer commented: “Since taking the decision to build our first off-roader in Wales we have been impressed with the commitment and approach from both the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Welsh government in making this project work. We continue to work with the Welsh government in areas like recruitment to ensure we are able to meet our project timescales,” he…

BUILD YOUR OWN DELOREAN Eaglemoss Collections, the UK’s leading publisher of partworks and collections, has launched a new and exciting collectors’ magazine series. Build the Back to the Future DeLorean gives readers the opportunity, week-by-week, to piece together a beautiful 1:8 scale replica of the iconic car from the Back to the Future movies, the DeLorean DMC-12. It comes packed with details and an extremely accurate representation of the original car, including a working interior and exterior lights, the iconic gullwing doors and a careful replica of the time machine components on the back. Eaglemoss’s DMC-12 DeLorean model can be purchased in kit form with manuals from the website, or in all good newsagents. For more information, visit www.build-the-delorean.com NEW CLASSIC CAR LUBRICATION From vintage Bentleys to post-war…

When it comes to classic cars, and his much-loved MGA’s in particular, Mark Tossell, an ‘MG man’ of long-standing, is an utter perfectionist. No expense is spared, and no stone unturned. But don’t run away with the impression that he’s a ‘cheque book restorer’ or that someone else is doing the hard work for him. Far from it. Mark is a grafter who works hard to accrue the revenue needed to fund his MGA passion. What’s more, he can wield a spanner with the best of them. And, in so doing, Mark’s not only become intimate with the cars he’s restored over the decades, he’s turned them into some of the very best of the breed. The car you see here, FSK 444, is, quite literally, a shining example. It’s…

“I was astonished by the quantity of muck and put this down to a horrible mix of engine oil, fuel and fine metal particles” Another month has zipped by on planet Healey and I am quite enjoying the variety in pulling the Healey 3000 together while finishing off the supercharged Frog. Last month’s diary left off having lifted the top off the Frogeye’s supercharger for a peek into a muck filled piece of precision engineering and wondering what to do next. Considering a professional rebuild is thorough and very expensive but as I’m not after full performance I decided to delve deeper on my own. Following some stripdown instructions found online I went ahead and undid the rotor lock nut and withdrew the vane assembly. I was a bit astonished…

“Meanwhile on the Lowlight, I’ve had the engine and gearbox in and out again” I had hoped that putting new brushes in Lily’s alternator would stop the battery going flat. However after 100 or so miles the problem manifested itself again and the starter wouldn’t turn the engine over, meaning the alternator was no longer charging. Luckily I had the starting handle in the boot, so was able to get the car going and rushed home before it got dark. I whipped the old alternator off the car and unwilling to try to fix it again as I was going out that night, I pinched the brand new one off dad’s MGB (with a replacement to be bought, I promise!). That fixed the problem and Lily’s battery has been reliably…

I recently had a visit from a fellow TSOAQ committee member to see if we could improve the slow running on his Triumph Spitfire. Since acquiring and completing the car he has experienced a number of fuel related problems most of which have now been resolved, however the slow speed running is still an issue. The engine operates well whilst driving at normal speed, however as soon as you try to crawl along in first gear it copies our local marsupial and starts to ‘kangaroo’ down the road. I thought that the most likely reason would be carbs not balanced or that individual butterfly opening was not synchronised so I offered to have a look. We checked all the obvious things first, including throttle opening and float levels, which were…

When I went to collect the 2500TC from the Kelsey office, I was not expecting to be bowled over by a great car in super condition. That’s partly because if we’d bought a perfect car then there would be little to write about in the magazine, but other factors also came into play in the lowering of my expectations. Not least among these is the fact that company cars which get passed from one staffer to another tend to suffer from a distinct lack of love, with any problems that can be ignored long enough for somebody else to pick up the keys and so take responsibility for them invariably getting the cold-shoulder treatment. On first sight of the big estate, I was not disappointed in my expectations. The Triumph…

One of the easiest ways to improve the performance of your classic at night is to fit better lighting: after all, that 200bhp engine build isn’t much help if you can’t see where you’re going and many classics do leave a lot to be desired in the lighting stakes. This can be down to several factors: in many ’50s cars you might be running a six-volt system which leaves you on the back foot even when it’s all working as it should. Throw in the often ageing and corroded wiring system of a 60-year-old car and the voltage drop can be proportionally massive – especially on a rear-engined car like the VW Beetle where the length of wiring from the dynamo at the rear to the lights at the front…

I used to make them,” explains Vincent Modica when I ask him how his interest in Renaut 4s came about. Aged 16, a young Vincent’s first job in 1979 aged just 16 was assembling Renaults in a factory in Wexford. Yup, that’s right: Renaults were assembled in Ireland right up until the end of production in 1984, after which the plant continued making wiring looms for later Renault models for several years. Needless to say, his first car was an R4 since the day job meant cheap spares for a car which was already pretty cheap to run in the first place. He went on to run a few more R4s, plus Renault 11s and 18s before moving through a string of other models and makes, but Vincent’s always had…

“As the wipers swept back and forth, strongly and silently, I flicked the switch off and watched as they silently parked themselves” This month looks at the two-speed wiper conversion, which you may remember was an outstanding job from a few issues ago. First job was to make up a mounting plate onto which the replacement wiper motor would have to be bolted, as the original Austin item was unsuitable. Next, I offered up the wiper motor to the plate to ensure the retaining strap would be mounted in the correct location, marking it off once I was happy. With the mounting plate drilled and refitted it was time to fit the wiper motor itself. I started by fitting the mounting strap loosely around the body of the wiper motor,…

As we explained last month, our Toledo is essentially a pretty sound example but a life living outside while being used as effectively a company pool car has meant that although it’s been well serviced and maintained mechanically, the bodywork has started to get shabby. When we started to look into the required repairs, we discovered a situation familiar to owners of countless ‘affordable’ classic cars: with the tatty areas spread all around the car, professional bodyshops would generally advise a full repaint which together with the labour involved in the rust repairs would add up to much more than the car’s value. There’s always a way out though and last month we followed one-man band Alan Denne tackling each issue in turn, fabricating repair patches with hand tools as…

Until quite recently, the Volvo P1800 was probably one of the classic car movement’s best-kept secrets and today useable examples of this largely forgotten grand tourer are generally still affordable. This is rather surprising considering the price of a brand new P1800 in the early 1960’s was only fractionally cheaper than the cost of an E-Type. Today these relatively easy to maintain Swedish glamour pusses are currently changing hands at a fraction of the cost of even a ‘barn find’ condition E-Type. Although Volvo built up an enviable reputation for producing cars capable of shrugging off tough Scandinavian winters, a P1800 will still rust badly and serious corrosion combined with poor build quality on early examples has seen off a huge number of these attractive coupés, leaving only a handful…

One of the side effects of the voluntary export restraints imposed on Japanese volume vehicle manufacturers in the ’70s led to the introduction during the following decade of several newly formed prestige marques into demanding North American market. The first of these new Far East built luxury brands arrived in 1986 when Honda introduced its Acuru marque into the US and Nissan quickly followed up a year later with the launch of the Infiniti badge as its premier brand. With Mazda also considering getting in on the act with its upmarket Amati marque and Austin Rover supporting its flagging prestige Sterling brand in the US, Toyota’s chairman Eiji Toyoda challenged his company to develop its own prestige marque to match the competition. The project to develop an upmarket range of…

Like fellow 1990s arrivals Acura and Infiniti, Lexus was launched with the aim of establishing a credible upmarket brand for the US market, to sit in a niche where parent company Toyota’s badge simply wouldn’t have sufficient kudos. The name was essentially made up, although sources inside Toyota suggest it’s a contraction of the phrase ‘Luxury Executive for the USA’. The marque debuted in 1989 in the North American market, appearing in the UK the following year and initially offered just one model: the LS400 saloon. Roughly the size of the Jaguar XJ6 and BMW 7-Series, it was intended as something of a showcase for Toyota’s technology and manufacturing prowess. No holds were barred in the pursuit of excellence and one of the aims of the development programme was an…