Classics Worldの January 2020 の目次

Last issue I talked about manufacturers going out on a stylistic limb, and I guess I am taking that idea to an extreme limit this issue with the picture above. Don’t worry though because the magazine is not changing direction and attempting to compete with the likes of Custom Car, but hopefully this image has got your attention! I took it at this year’s Classic Motor Show in Birmingham (see our report on p8 for more on that) on the Meguiar’s Club Showcase stand and officially it was listed as a 1924 Singer Sport, but the owner calls it Automatron and he built every incredible detail on it by hand. The word ‘stunning’ is much in vogue and overused these days, but there really is no other way of describing…

The Revving Red Carpet expert panel have announced their top 20 tuned cars of 2020. The judging panel included the Director of the Automotive Lifestyle brand SlammedUK, Jordan Clarke, Coventry based car meet ‘Dub Club’ organiser Ian Cook and Liberty Walk Director, James Pearman. They judged the submitted cars on a range of categories including exterior, interior and mechanical quality as well as taking into account the owners' individualism and technical expertise. The top 20 will now go to a public vote across the show's social media channels to decide the modified vehicle fans want to see centre stage on the red carpet at the Performance & Tuning Car Show 2020 at Birmingham's NEC on 11-12 January. This is a unique event for enthusiasts of high-end modification and tuning. Tickets…

MORE ON THOSE AUSSIE MOKES I loved the story on the Mokes in the October issue (being a Moke owner myself for over 37 years). It was good to read an article on the Moke that got it mostly correct. My one comment for correction is that the Australian army did not order 800 Mokes. They bought a total of 316 Mokes, supplied in five batches between 1973 and 1980, plus the eight supplied for tropical trials testing between 1969 and 1970. I have a detailed history of the Australian army Mokes, as well as a list of all chassis numbers and when they were bought and sold. Here are a couple of pictures of the sole survivor still owned by the army, in one of its museums and in…

As fellow DIY mechanics out there will be all too aware, proceedings often grind to a halt when an essential part or tool goes AWOL. This is particularly annoying when you are absolutely certain that said object is definitely somewhere in the vicinity, but you can’t remember the precise location of that somewhere. Annoyance turns to exasperation and indignity as you stomp around muttering the back garden mechanics’ mantra: ‘But it must be here!’ So you search again, even though you’ve looked everywhere five times, including in the cardboard boxes with the bottoms that fall out when picked up and the drawer crammed with ancient spark plugs that have absolutely no practical use. At this point there’s a danger you’ll turn into Basil Fawlty and give your car a damn…

It is true that I am towards the younger end of the E-Type ownership spectrum. Somebody on the E-Type forum did ask about people's ages and while I don't think I was quite the youngest, I wasn't far off. That means I didn't grow up with E-Types or see them on the road when I was a kid, but I've always had an interest in classic cars. At university I used to read the classic car magazines, but whereas the cars featured in something like Classic and Sports Car were always out of reach, ones in the more mainstream titles seemed to be attainable. The E-Types were featured regularly and seemed to be the pinnacle of things you could aim for, so it had always been in my mind as…

The 1970s and ’80s were traumatic years for British Leyland/BL/AustinRover/Rover, not least because it was bailed out by the UK government in 1975 and the subsequent very tight lock on cash flow had a significant effect on model development. In part, that explains the protracted development of the Maestro and Montego. These started as internal project code ADO99 (Austin Drawing Office project 99), which was set in 1975 and was for a new mid-range hatchback to replace both the Allegro and the Maxi. By 1977, following significant company restructuring, the internal code had changed to LC10 (Leyland Cars project 10), and that took the project into what became the hatchback Maestro and the Montego three-box saloon. They were to remain like Siamese twins until 1980, when they were split into…

1965 E-TYPE JAGUAR ENGINE: 4235cc inline-six OWNED SINCE: September 1986 TRIUMPH STAG ENGINE: 2997cc V8 OWNED SINCE: 2004 THOUGHT OF THE MONTH My experience with the voltage regulator shows that you should always thoroughly inspect (and if possible test) every new component that you purchase prior to fitment. I have experienced a few failures of newly sourced electrical items, however I am loath to heap too much blame on the suppliers. I have worked in and around low volume industrial manufacturing all my life and you are always walking that tightrope between quality and cost – if you go for top quality, few customers purchase due to price and if you go for low cost, you frequently get quality problems and customer complaints. Therefore in my book, the stockist and…

AUSTIN MAESTRO TEMPERATURE READING Q  I have a 1984 Maestro 1.3L which has a problem with an erratic temperature gauge. Both the coolant temperature warning light and the gauge indicate that the cooling system is overheating, but the engine itself is obviously not as hot as indicated. The coolant temperature is monitored by a thermistor, which I have changed. Before I purchased the vehicle, the carburettor stepper motor has been removed, and a manual choke fitted by the previous owner. As this has been removed, is the ECU still needed? If it is not, can I wire the temperature gauge straight into the thermistor or do I need a new temperature sender unit? John Hancock A As your Maestro has now been fitted with a manual choke system, the…

H&H Ignition Solutions was founded in 2004 by Lee Hull and his uncle, Phil. Both had worked for XL Components beforehand, an ignition factory on a massive scale that turned out thousands of distributors each week for the aftermarket in the late 1980s and 1990s. The units they were working on were simply for secondhand cars at the time (AC Delco for things like the Astra and Nova, Motorcraft for Ford OHV and OHC engines, Bosch and Lucas for CVH engines and so much of the BL stuff for example,) but many of those cars were just starting to edge into classic status. By 2004, the classic market was booming and XL were neglecting it, putting only small volumes into the trade through businesses such as Lucas and Unipart along…

Lawrence ‘Lawrie’ Bond was an engineer by trade. He set up his own engineering workshop in Blackpool during WW2, and by the end of the decade had designed and built two 500cc racers, the ‘Doodlebug’ Bond Special and the Type C Bond. He also designed the first Bond Minicar three-wheeler powered by a 3.25bhp 125cc Villiers motorbike engine, and arranged to have it built by Sharp’s Commercials in nearby Preston. Before long, Sharp’s had bought the rights to the Bond Minicar while Bond himself concentrated on a number of two-wheeled vehicles. In 1956 he set up Lawrence Bond Cars Limited, and one of his first tasks was to design a small sports car for Berkley Cars Ltd, a company set up by Berkeley Coachwork Ltd to supplement their flagging caravan…

MORGAN’S M3W A THUMPING GOOD CLASSIC REMAKE AUSTIN A35 TWO-DOOR DELUXE WITH A KNOWN HISTORY FROM NEW BUYING GUIDE TO THE TR7 ISN’T IT TIME YOU HAD A FRESH LOOK? FORD SIERRA RS COSWORTH TWO ABSOLUTELY STUNNING EXAMPLES ALSO IN THE ISSUE • Reader’s Car: MG (Farina) Magnette MkIV • Top Ten Trivia: Vauxhall Vivas • Project Car: Assessing our new Morris Minor • Archive Images: Manufacturers from E to H • Marques and Models: The Jaguar XJR • Project Car: Ford Escort Mk3 interior refresh • Emerging Classic: Nissan Micra C+C • Workshop Skills: Bodywork skills series part 6 • Tech Focus: Citroën 2CV engine stripdown…

Another great Classic Motor Show at the NEC has been and gone, this year's event taking place on 8-10 November. The highlights could fill the magazine, so this is just a small selection of things that caught our eye – including of course the MX-5 that we have been running as a project and which Lancaster were giving away after the show. The winner has been drawn and notified – we will have details next issue. Of the 16 stunning vehicles on the Meguiar’s Club Showcase, it was Dave Rippard’s 1959 Morris Mini Minor that received the top honours in one of the closest results to date. The hotly contested Lancaster Insurance Pride of Ownership competition saw 20 diverse cars in the final, but it was Ted Brooke’s 1961 Morris…

The future of suspension component availability for British Leyland’s Hydragas equipped models has now been assured, courtesy of developments by a small company specialising in the recharging of existing Hydragas dampers. Hydragas and Hydrolastic Service Ltd, run by husband and wife team Ian and Dawn Kennedy, has been restoring the ride quality of Allegros, Princesses, Metros, Maxis, MGFs and more since 2014, but as the suitability of units for recharging has depended upon the condition of the internal diaphragm, the long term future for Hydragas was in doubt – once these diaphragms perish, the units leak fluid and were once considered scrap. However, Ian and Dawn have now completed prototyping and testing of a remanufactured diaphragm, fitted into a once-scrap displacer and tested at up to 700psi of pressure –…

Way back in 1989, the very last of the 200 Ford RS200s (which had originally been designed to make the most of Group B rally regulations) was sold. Before long, the entire programme, which had always been based at Ford’s Competition Centre at Boreham airfield in Essex, was gracefully wound up, after which the focus was on Sierra Cosworth 4x4s – and soon, on the first of the Escort RS Cosworths. Even today, though, I’m happy to recall that I have been one of the fortunate few to whom the RS200 was a part of my daily life for four glorious years. In short, from early 1985 when I first drove a prototype car, through April 1987 when I took over my first RS200 road car, and to January 1991…

In 1971 I was only 10 years old, (yes I know, I’m wearing really well!) but even I can remember that back then the cars were much simpler than they are today. They were not only simpler, but some weren’t that reliable either. I know we hark back to these cars with misty-eyed affection, but to be really honest, a lot of them weren’t that good. Certainly we Brits were happy to run around in vehicles that had inherited most of their underpinnings, engines and technology from the 1960s, 1950s or even earlier, re-clothed in a modestly modernised shell, all the while half expecting them to break down or rust away prematurely. Of course we all love to see them painstakingly restored and working today – that’s why we read…

When I was a teenager, I always wanted a Morris Minor. It is probably just as well I couldn’t afford one at the time because the dream was to fit bigger rear wheels and cover the dash in fake fur. In my defence I was 13 at the time and this was the 1970s. I’m now considerably older and like to think I have developed slightly more in the way of good taste. However, I never thought it would take me this long to scratch the Minor itch, and I really do not know what has caused the delay. In the subsequent 40 years of classic car tinkering I have owned a couple of Minor 1000 saloons, but only for brief periods as they were part of a series I…

This month, I finally had a little spare time which could be spent in the garage working on the Standard. To briefly recap, I bought this as a total restoration six years ago and it has progressed in fits and starts since then. I took it back to a bare chassis, built that up and packed the body off to welding maestro Andy Dann who bravely took on the panel restoration and paint. The mechanical restoration was completed some time ago and in theory the Standard has been on the road for a couple of years, but it still needs the soft furnishings. In this regard, I had long ago paid a substantial sum to have the front seats that came with the car restored. Unfortunately they turned out to…

The headlining was replaced in the Jaguar XJ6 over a year ago and it still looks perfect. However, the kit – which comprised pre-fitted headlining on a GRP board – did not include a separate panel for the sunroof. This being the case, the company kindly supplied me with sufficient headlining material to deal with the sun roof later. The headlining material covering the small area of the sunroof was a little grubby, but was otherwise sound so the job was put off. However, more recently the cloth covering began to fall to pieces and the material started hanging down, so now it had to be dealt with. I wanted to be sure that the sunroof would look as good as the rest of the recently replaced headlining, so instead…

It’s really only when you get into the rust that you truly discover the full extent of the damage that can lurk beneath half decent paintwork. Inevitably, after an initial sanding back of the paint, we found more than was at first obvious on our Mk3 Escort. The process is one that will be familiar to anyone who’s dealt with rust before: grind down until you run out of rust and find only solid metal. Naturally the aim is to do this gently and with a degree of patience as you don’t want to needlessly grind away good metal in a frenzy of sparks. It’s also important to consider the finish, even at this early stage, and that will be all the better for an even and considered approach to…

Imitation is supposedly the sincerest form of flattery. Cobra lookalikes have now become a genre rather than a specific car, and the existence of many times more offspring and lookalikes than originals suggests that the originals were eminently worth copying, by and for people who couldn’t afford the real thing. The car that became the Cobra when it sniffed the automotive angel dust was the AC Ace, an exquisite and delicate gentleman’s sports car in the best of the British sporting tradition, ie. not very fast, and distinctly Italian in design. To be accurate, which is important in the Cobra world, the AC Cobra is an AC Ace with a bigger engine. The Ace was designed by John Tojeiro. He was not exactly Italian, but a Portuguese/British racing chassis and…

ABARTH This image was re-released at the start of 2019 as part of the celebrations for Abarth's 70th anniversary, showing Carlo Abarth with some of his legendary creations from the marque's golden era. Abarth & Co was founded by Carlo and racing driver Guido Scagliarini on 31st March 1949 in Bologna, northern Italy. Carlo’s astrological sign, Scorpio, was chosen as the new company logo and the legend of the scorpion was born. Carlo Abarth died on 24th October 1979, by which time Abarth had become Fiat’s racing department. In 2008 Abarth was relaunched to offer a range of competition cars, road-going halo models and tuning kits. AUDI Manufacturers love to borrow some of the glamour of flight in their press pictures. Often the cars are parked in the most unlikely…

Newton Commercial, the classic car interior trim specialist, have been celebrating their 40th anniversary in 2019. The company founders, Richard and Vera Newton, established the business in 1979 following increasing demand from classic car enthusiasts for original interior trim, and the company now supply interior trim products worldwide, with the export market forming over 40% of their business. From its humble beginnings when Richard and Vera made trim from their kitchen table at home, Newton now employ almost 60 people in three purpose-built factories in Leiston, Suffolk. With over 25,000 sq.ft. of manufacturing space, Newton handcrafts trim in original styles, materials and designs for Classic Mini, MG, Triumph, Morris Minor, Porsche, Mazda, Ford and VW. Jonny Newton, Managing Director, said: 'To celebrate 40 years in business is a brilliant achievement,…

It was 95 years ago that the Aston Martin which came to be known as Cloverleaf, XR 1981, lined up at the bottom of Aston Hill. One of just eight customer cars built in late 1923, this very early Aston Martin was competing against two Bugattis and two other Aston Martins – one of which had been entered by the company’s founder, Lionel Martin, who won on the day. This four-cylinder, 1486cc, side-valve engined 1923 long-chassis Cloverleaf-bodied tourer came second at the event, and remains one of only two Bamford and Martin-built Aston Martins from that meeting in 1924 still in existence today. To mark the anniversary of its first competitive outing, Cloverleaf returned to Aston Hill in October this year to be driven by Aston Martin Racing ace and…

FIRE SAFETY STICK Price: from £46.95 This compact little device may be a fire extinguisher, but it is radically different to any you may have used previously. Instead of containing foam or powder under pressure that is expelled to smother flames, the FSS does not contain gas and it is not pressurised. Instead it contains stable and solid minerals which, when activated, combine to emit a gas that attaches itself to the oxygen surrounding a fire and so extinguish the flames. In doing this, it will not affect the user's ability to breathe, and at the end of the extinguishing process only particles of potassium, nitrogen gas and water vapour are emitted into the atmosphere and there is no residue to damage your car. Other advantages of the Fire Safety…

One of life’s great pleasures is the abuse of one’s most treasured friends. I’m not talking about bullying, but cheery, clever, entertaining and secretly sympathetic cruelty-free cruelty. Genuine banter, without any destructive undercurrent, purely for the fun of mental swordplay. Once a torture weapon has been developed, it can become funnier with each repeated stab. For example, a friend of mine lives partly in LA and partly in Washington State. He’s an expat British screenwriter, and for fun he spanners on old British cars comprising an Austin Ten, an Austin Seven and a MkVI Bentley. He’s spiritually a prewar man, the Bentley having come into his life more or less accidentally. He’s been in Los Angeles for a long time, and noticed in the 1990s that non-rusty MkVI Bentleys were…

The year is 1959, and you are attending the London Motor Show in search of your first new small car, as your salary can endure the 'never-never' hire purchase payments. The first exhibits to catch your eye are the new BMC twins, the Morris Mini-Minor and the Austin Seven. ‘From bumper to bumper, there is more brilliance per square inch than any other car ever built,’ proclaims the brochure. The sales copy further promises a cabin that is tailored ‘like a top hat!’ and that ‘you’ll rub your eyes in disbelief when you see how much luggage she carries and you’ll clap your hands with joy at the beautifully effortless ride this amazing motor-car gives you.’ Yes, this could be the ideal vehicle, one that demonstrates your inner avant-garde nature…

When Pierre Dreyfus took over as Chairman of Renault in 1955, he inherited the rear-engined Dauphine that was ready for introduction in 1956, but oversaw the company's move from there to the Renault 4, introduced in 1961. Admittedly there were other rear-engined Renaults to come (such as the R8 of 1962 and the R10 of 1969), but it was the R4 which showed the way to a FWD and hatchback future. According to J. Dewar McLintock in his book, Renault: The Cars and the Charisma, Dreyfus had told the designers of the new Renault 4: 'What I want you to come up with is a holdall on wheels – a travelling bag that can go anywhere without feeling self-conscious. It must be tough as a rhino and cost a lot…

Lesson 1: Just because it’s new doesn’t mean it works. Lesson 2: Don’t use secondhand brake parts. Lesson 3: Don’t use G-clamps on MX5 rear calipers. You’re actually lucky to have the annual MoT test in the UK for modern classics, although it may not seem that way sometimes. But it keeps older cars in reasonable shape, it spreads the cost year by year, and it stops your cars deteriorating so far that they have to be thrown away. We don’t have an annual test in BC because accidents caused by poor car condition are so rare they don’t even show in the statistics – virtually all accidents are caused by carelessness, drunks and texters. My MX5 is used pretty well every day. The fuel economy of the 1600cc NA…

On the way home from a recent journey in the Stag, I noticed that the fuel gauge was not giving any reading. I had filled up a couple of days earlier and the gauge had been indicating ¾ full earlier in the day, so I did not think there was any immediate danger of running out and suspected I had a problem with the gauge or its wiring. It seemed unlikely that it was a fuse issue as the gauge shares a fuse with indicators and tacho and these were still operating perfectly, however I did use a voltage tester to double check. Access to the fuel gauge requires unscrewing the main wooden instrument panel and pulling it forwards. This is a bit of a fiddle, so I decided to…

Regular readers will recall that my last diary in the August issue was a tale of woe and non-functioning Lucas electrics. Despite my best efforts, the Landcrab’s starter motor had finally called it a day, and even flatting the commutator with wet-and-dry paper and blowing 40 years of dust off the carbon brushes wasn’t bringing it back to life. Finding a replacement was proving tricky, but Editor Simon made the suggestion that maybe I should call on professional services. I must admit that I wasn’t entirely convinced because the Landcrab has always been run on an absolute shoestring, and has performed pretty well on that basis. Plus, I had taken the starter motor to pieces and to my eyes it didn’t look that bad. However, when my search for a…

So you know how a car is put together, how to cut out rust, how to shape some replacement sections and, following Simon’s piece last month, you know how to use a MIG welder to join pieces together. Now, at last, we can move on to some actual car work. Don’t forget to disconnect the battery and unplug the alternator first though – electric welding can cause damage to both… MIND THE GAP! Welding is a process which joins metal by melting it so that two or more pieces become one, with the welding rod helping the process along. However, and this is a common misconception, the rod does not stick metal together, rather its metal mixes and merges with the pieces of metal that are being joined. It therefore…

Few sports cars have less pedigree than the Hyundai Coupé. The South Korean company’s automotive division had been churning out undistinguished-yet-competent automobiles since its 1967 birth, starting with a licenced version of Ford’s Mk2 Cortina. Its entry into the UK market in 1982 was a four-door, rear-wheel drive hatchback conceived by a former managing director of Austin Morris. The Pony managed to be quite remarkably unexceptional, despite styling that sprang from the pen of Giorgetto Giugiaro. Six years later Hyundai produced a car that, in name at least, had sporting ambitions. The S Coupé was based on the current Pony, which by then had become a front-wheel drive vehicle with origami bodywork and a distinctly utilitarian air. A low-slung, two-door format and a 1.5-litre engine were combined with styling that…

NO CLASSIC FUTURE FOR MODERN CARS? A FEW STORIES recently have conspired to convince me that a lot of modern cars – especially expensive ones – might not be worth having. The first story involved a well known German prestige (whatever that is) brand and its Bosch high pressure diesel pump. This sits at the back of the engine and the first I heard of this issue was when such a fantastic machine spluttered to a halt after a few days of deteriorating performance. A trip to the main dealer on a breakdown truck resulted in an estimate of £6000 – yes, SIX GRAND – to replace a part that used to last 200,000 miles and 35 years without so much as a squeak on a W123 Mercedes. What happened…