Indice dei contenuti per November 2017 in Classics World

It’s not very often you come across a smartly restored Lada similar to the one featured in this issue of CM. Although based on the Fiat 124, the unfairly maligned Lada 1500 is still the butt of dozens of cruel bar room jokes. These jibes aren’t really fair, as a brand-new or year-old Lada offered cheap motoring for families on a shoestring budget and as the old saying goes: ‘A second or third class ride is always better than a first class walk!’ Although I’ve never owned a Lada, back in the day I drove a couple of 1200 saloons and thought they were okay. I never experienced any of the reliability issues these cars suffered from. The panel fit and paint finish might have left a lot to be…

From 20 May 2018, all 40-year-old classics will be exempt from roadworthiness testing – in line with rolling historic vehicle tax. Once your ‘Vehicle of Historic Interest’ (VHI) turns 40, it will no longer need an MoT. The government finally published its response to the VHI roadworthiness testing consultation last February – after 2217 responses from owners, car clubs, trade bodies and businesses were collated. The consultation period ran from September to November last year, with the FBHVC involved in the process. The decision was taken to exempt historic vehicles after the success of the pre-1960 MoT exemption, which was adopted back in 2012. Fears of unroadworthy classics causing accidents proved unfounded and many owners still submit their cars for checks voluntarily; an option that will still be open. There…

Whereas a lot of Japanese vehicle manufactures started off in business producing cars heavily inspired or based on current European or American models, Honda concentrated on building up its extensive motorcycle empire and didn’t commence manufacturing cars and commercial vehicles until the early Sixties. The Honda Motor Company introduced its first four-wheel vehicle in 1963 and the pint-sized T360 pick-up truck went on sale classified under Japan’s Kei class regulations. These rules related to the Japanese government’s strict tax and insurance regulations restricting the overall size of a special category of small private and commercial vehicles. As the Kei classification also exempted owners from having to certify they had adequate parking facilities near where they lived or worked, Kei class vehicles became a popular choice in heavily congested Japanese cities.…

Last month I mentioned how the Mazda had developed a slightly lumpy tickover and I would have to take a closer look. I know I shouldn’t tempt fate, but the Eunos is ultra reliable as a rule and doesn’t give any trouble. So even the slightest niggle is obvious, but other than an ever-so-slightly irregular idle, all seemed well – the car was running well. Or so I thought. I tucked the car away one night after a very enjoyable blast across the Malverns, but when I returned to it a couple of days later, it didn’t want to play. There was a terrible misfire and it was struggling to run on three cylinders. The tickover was so rough I thought I’d done it a terrible mischief on my last…

Changing direction on a project undoubtedly wastes lots of time and money, I’m sure that if I had started the Lowlight project with a clear vision of what I wanted it to be like, with all of the bits in stock, it would be finished by now. I’ve changed my mind about engines, gearboxes, axle, wheels, brakes and shock absorbers several times, even after spending time and money on the earlier plans. The latest example of this is the front panel. When I had the car painted, the original steel grill was sprayed body colour and I had this all ready to fit. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to source a front panel with a chrome grille – a much more attractive option. After a lot of deliberation I…

With the wheel alignment sorted out last month and the cooling system thoroughly overhauled, the MGF is now driving really well and has made a series of 220-mile round trips to our Peterborough office without incident. As I cover more miles in the MGF I’m coming to appreciate it even more and in VVC form it’s something of a best-kept secret. Certainly the combination of the VVC engine’s 143bhp and the car’s featherweight build mean it’s capable of surprising many modern cars from the lights... something which never fails to make me chuckle as the inner teenager takes over. With the basics now having been gone through and no pressing mechanical jobs on the to-do list, I felt we could treat the car to some cosmetic improvement. I managed to…

1 The first job is to double-check that the air correction and main jets are the same size in both carburettors. 2 The twin carburettors on this Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GTA were roughly set up so the engine would start before the car went on the rolling road. 3 Before starting to tune the carburettors, make sure the ignition timing is correct and the points are set to the recommended gap. 4 On multi carb setups, a synchrometer can be used to ensure each cylinder receives the correct amount of air. This can be done before and after adjusting the mixture and idle. 5 Turning the mixture screw will either reduce or increase the amount of fuel entering the cylinders. Tuning the carburettors on a rolling road allows the…

Volvo had always been a conservative manufacturer; putting safety and build quality above everything else and the Swedish manufacturer was the equal of anything Mercedes Benz built. The 121 Amazon had been joined (and effectively replaced) by the virtually new 140 range in 1966 but in the end the Amazon was built until 1970, such was its popularity. The 140 was a new body and chassis design with nice features, such as disc brakes all-round and under the bonnet was the good old B18 engine, an all-iron OHV unit lifted straight from the 121 and P1800 cars – another Volvo engine legend. Volvo was a small company who made minor but useful improvements to their cars rather than making huge leaps in technology and in 1969 the 2.0-litre B20 version…

Renault designed the 25 from the outset with aerodynamic efficiency in mind and with a drag coefficient of just 0.28Cd, the TS-badged variant of this slippery front-wheel drive hatchback briefly held the title of being ‘the world’s most aerodynamically designed mass produced car’. Introduced towards the end of 1983, the Renault 25 replaced the plain Jane looking 20 and 30 range and became the most expensive and prestigious model in the company’s line up when it finally went on sale in March 1984. The Renault 25 was an advanced car for the time and the design for this sleek five-door car is credited to Gaston Juchet and Robert Opron, the latter being the noted automotive stylist responsible for producing the distinctive look of the Renault Fuego and Citroën SM. A…

A survey conducted by specialist car insurer Carole Nash has named the Audi TT as the car most enthusiasts expect to see at a classic car show in the future. Carole Nash asked a cross-section of its policyholders in the UK and Ireland for their views – and it seems the perception of what constitutes a classic is changing. Data indicated that younger people value their current cars more than the older generation; three percent of 25- to 34-year-olds believed their car would be a collectible one day compared to 16 percent of people aged over 55. The top five cars that were chosen included the Audi TT, BMW Mini Hatchback, Volkswagen Golf GTI, BMW 3 Series Coupè and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. The Audi TT topped the list at 36 percent,…

Classic cover could get cheaper if proposed changes to the ‘discount rate’ (also know as the ‘Odgen’ rate,) get enacted into law. Since March, motorists (including classic car owners) have faced steadily rising premiums following the decision by then-Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Liz Truss to curtail the discount rate. The Ogden rate changed from 2.5 percent to minus 0.75 percent on Monday 20 March; fearing increasing costs, brokers passed the extra costs on to customers. Following pressure from the insurance industry, the Ministry of Justice has proposed to alter the Ogden rate again. Having listened to concerns from the Association of British Insurers (ABI), incumbent Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary David Lidington unveiled new discount rate proposals. Plans are currently under consultation for a new discount rate of between…

A well turned-out TR6 can still turn heads and anyone who’s driven one of these six-cylinder TRs recently and isn’t familiar with the breed will always come away surprised by the punch this very capable sports car can pack. The Triumph TR6 is often considered the last of the breed with regards to mass-produced hairy chested British sports cars and was a product of the British motor industry that enjoyed a far longer lifespan than many of its contemporaries. Although the TR6 had the longest production run of the whole TR family, the model’s longevity was really down to the high demand in North America for its replacement, the unfairly maligned TR7. With the introduction of the new TR delayed twice in the UK, Triumph was forced to keep the…

“When I popped the big Healey’s core plugs out of the block there were inches of silt and muck in the waterways” This month the Healey 3000 is coming together nicely and I plan to get the car’s rolling substructure painted by spring next year. The block is away for some help, as I had heard various stories of Healeys and MGCs overheating and was concerned for how clear the water galleries were. When I popped the big Healey’s core plugs out of the block there were inches of silt and muck in the waterways. Suspecting this is probably the cause of some, if not all of the overheating issues these engines suffer from, I decided to thoroughly deal with the silt. As poking and blowing the crud out seemed…

After taking the main parts I need from the Rover 3.5 engine last month, I have moved on to preparing the 4.6. Side-by-side the two engines look completely unrelated, but that’s down to the bolt-on ancillaries. There’s an awful lot I won’t be needing, and that all needs to come off to get at the internal parts. First, several metres of thick wiring came away, then starting at the top, the coil packs and inlet manifold with GEMS fuel injection unbolted easily. For simplicity I’ll initially replace this with the old SU carbs but will later probably replace the fuel injection or use bigger carbs. At the front I snipped off the serpentine drive belt and took off the ancillaries – power steering and air-con pumps and alternator to get…

At the beginning of August I was in Denmark attending the 2017 Copenhagen Historic Grand Prix and as usual it was brilliant. Watching racing on the city streets was exciting and there was a terrific variety of classic cars to look at too. This year, however, the area used for classic parking was unavailable. Over the previous months three ancient Stone Age grave sites have been discovered and these were being excavated, making the usual car park area unavailable. For 2018 a separate area is to be set aside for people attending the event in classic cars, but for this year people had to grab whatever spaces they could find in the surrounding streets. This resulted in a very pleasant walk along the road to and from the main entrance…

This is the time of the year that generally signifies the end of the outdoor show period. It is also the time when a lot of owners decide to take their pride and joys off the road and lay them up over the winter. These top tips can be adapted for storing a car while going away on holiday and hopefully these pointers will help minimise the effort required to recommission your car when the lighter evenings return in the spring. Finally, don’t forget to SORN the car if it’s going to be laid up for a long period. 1 – A GOOD CLEAN The first thing to do before putting your car away for the winter is to give the bodywork a good wash and brush up. This includes…

The poor old MGC was a car that no-one wanted to make and no-one wanted to buy. It must have made perfect sense to the British Motor Corporation management, which loved the idea of cross-breeding an Austin-Healey 3000 and an MGB to produce a replacement for the former and a more powerful version of the latter, and at minimum cost, but everyone else involved was profoundly unhappy. The MG engineers tasked with shoehorning the Big Healey’s straight-six C-Series engine into the ‘B bodyshell insisted that the big all-iron engine, weighing some 230kg, would ruin the car’s finely balanced handling. Donald Healey refused to have anything to do with the project and this was a big part of why the result was launched as an MG and not an Austin-Healey. The…

The rain fell incessantly at this year’s Goodwood Revival but as usual, Lord March made sure all his guests were entertained with a fantastic selection of automotive sights. This year’s classic Tourist Trophy featured ultra high value lightweight E-types, AC Cobras and Ferraris battling it out on the Sussex circuit, while the Sussex Trophy race for pre-1966 sports prototypes had all the big bangers, like GT40s and Lola T70s, thundering down the Lavant straight at 170mph. The noise and the spectacle of this race have to be experienced to believed. One of the highlights for visiting petrolheads at the Goodwood Revival was watching the saloon cars taking part in the St. Mary’s Trophy race. Amongst a field of varied machinery battling it out to take the chequered flag was a…

John Beckett is very much a Ford Consul Classic and Capri man. Indeed, some of his superbly restored Consul Classics and Consul Capris have previously graced the pages of Classics Monthly. This is a passion he also shares with his son, Paul, as his Consul Capri was featured in the August issue of CM. Despite the pair’s allegiance to the Blue Oval, John also owns this Russian runabout. It’s one of a mere handful that are known to still reside in Britain and what's more, with his son's help, John Becket was driven to restore it. But owning, let alone restoring, a Lada was not on the Becketts' radar. Not even a faint blip. Yet on occasions fate steps in and plays its hand and it was a chance remark,…

After threatening to remove the differential from my E-Type Jaguar for months, I’ve finally got down to some action. The E-Type’s independent rear suspension was a new concept for Jaguar and this basic design continued in production for a number of years and was used on a wide range of cars. The differential is bolted to a subframe attached to the car by four rubber mountings, which allows some flexibility and insulates from road noise and vibration. The E-Type’s rear suspension consists of twin radius arms with the fixed length drive shaft forming the upper part, while the lower arm is a fabricated wishbone that is attached to the body by radius arms. The inner end of the lower wishbone is attached to a shaft supported by a bracket mounted…

Remember the green algae that was living in my Weber carburettors? Well, it turned out that the algae had contaminated the carburettors so extensively they required chemical and ultrasonic cleaning. But I haven’t had them cleaned yet. Instead, I raided the piggy bank and bought a pair of new Webers from Webcon. I’ve put the contaminated ones aside for cleaning at a later date and they will probably end up on the Stiletto. Buying new Webers may seem like an extravagance. However, I need to get the Davrian up and running as soon as I can, as we’re booked into a few events. Webcon did a very quick turnaround for me, having jetted the carburettors to my required settings. The really good news is that they have done the trick.…

1 Why did the Herald use a separate chassis? It was because BMC owned Fisher and Ludlow and were becoming a pain to deal with. Triumph had no option but to use a chassis on which to build a body that was basically bolted together, thus enabling various body styles at minimal cost. Triumph bosses got their own back on BMC in the BMH merger though! 2 What was the Herald Coupé all about? Because the roof was a bolt-on panel, Triumph could alter body styles at will and the main body tub is all but identical. However, the Coupè – despite being the ‘looker’ in the range – was not a great success and was discontinued in 1964, as it was felt that it provided internal competition against both…

Lots of classic car owners imagine that the wood trim on their car will simply require re-lacquering to bring it back to its former glory. However, more often than not it will need re-veneering. Ged Gollings and his son Daniel at GDK Veneering in Crewe are genuine old-school craftsmen with the skill to revive damaged woodwork and bring it back to life. After receiving a set of timber panels in a really bad state and then seeing the restored parts packed up to be sent on its way to make the host car look as it should again, gives the team a huge amount of satisfaction. Not only does GDK Veneering offer the full service when it comes to woodwork, the company can also supply specially pre-handcut sets of Walnut…

Renault started the post-war era as the biggest fish in a rather broken pond. During the Nazi occupation of France, Louis Renault (the oldest and only surviving member of the original trio) refused to build tanks, leading to many of his factories being seized. The remainder were destroyed in Allied air raids. Just weeks after the liberation of Paris, Louis Renault died at the age of 67 and the company was nationalised by the new French government. Renault had two cars for its post-war range. One was a small economy car aimed at the mass market (a departure for a marque generally associated with bigger, middle-class machines) and a large saloon more in keeping with Renault’s established image. These were the 4CV and the Frégate. In the economic and social…