Classics Worldの February 2022 の目次

Anybody who has held a new-born baby will be able to testify that they feel incredibly light and fragile in your hands. Anybody who has had the pleasure of raising said new-born from birth to double digits will be able to confirm that they grow incredibly quickly, even if it may not always appear so at the time. The funny thing is that when you hoik them in and out of the car on a daily basis, lift them onto your shoulders because they are too tired to walk or carry them screaming round Sainsbury’s because they simply refuse to walk, you tend not to notice the addition of an ounce here and a pound there, you simply lift them up and get on with it. But fast forward a…

Last issue we bought you news of the Volvo P1800 drag racer belonging to 71-year-old mechanic Lee Johnstone, which had been selected as the UK finalist of the global Hot Wheels Legends Tour. Called 'Ain't no Saint,' the Volvo had been acquired by Lee as a rusty rolling shell before being thoroughly restored, modified and transformed into the quarter-mile monster it is today. Finished in a fitting shade of Volvo green, it is a true culmination of more than 50 years of ‘race it, break it, build it better’ experience. Perhaps most importantly – and in true challenger spirit – Ain't No Saint is also a family affair, with Lee's three daughters, Eleanor, Sarah and Victoria sharing in the driving duties and his wife, Sue, on standby to help. The…

The Morgan Motor Company has revealed the design direction of its all-new three-wheeled model with the release of this series of design sketches. Taken from the drawing boards of Morgan’s design team, the illustrations demonstrate the aesthetic intent of the new model, as well as the inspirations that underpin it. No single sketch in isolation reveals the exact look of the new model, yet taken together they demonstrate some of the key design features that will be revealed in full when the new three-wheeled model is launched in 2022. Sketches show a technical front end trailed by a fluid form, the vehicle ‘visually towed’ by its leading front wheels. The visual mass resides behind the centre line of the front wheels and never on top of them, a theme that…

When the film Ghostbusters hit cinemas in 1984, it grossed £219m in its first run and is often considered one of the first movie blockbusters. There was a sequel in 1989, a reboot in 2016 and now, nearly 30 years after the original, Ghostbusters: Afterlife has just been released. As with so many great films, one of the stars of Ghostbusters was a car, in this case the 1959 Cadillac better known as Ecto-1. This car has gone on to attain cult status, which means that the original prop cars used in the production of Ghostbusters have become highly prized – and valuable too! At the same time, a thriving market in replica Ectomobiles has sprung up. This has prompted Hagerty to investigate the cars and their values. Ecto-1 was…

MAZDA RX3 MEMORIES I very much enjoyed your feature on the Mazda RX3. I never owned one, but I have a fond memory from the mid-1970s when the legendary drummer Cozy Powell campaigned an RX3 in a racing series. I saw him driving it at Silverstone, racing on the old club circuit. Powell had been contending for the lead for most of the race and on the very last lap he and the other contender for first place came round Woodcote corner, which was a tight right hander in those days, absolutely together. Powell lost control coming round the corner and spun through 180 degrees, but in a magical moment he managed to regain control of the car and crossed the line in third place – IN REVERSE! Yes the…

Ihave never owned a brand-new car. All my many rides have been secondhand, but among the throng there have been very few bad ones. Maybe I’m just plain lucky, or maybe I possess enough knowledge to avoid the obvious duffers and money pits. Looking back, the vast majority of my motors have been German, which has maybe also helped keep me from being on first-name terms with the local AA operatives. Along the way though, I have been the registered keeper of some really very nice machines, as well as some decidedly quotidian fare. But – and here we abandon smugness to wander among the ruins of regret – I’ve never owned a Range Rover, a Lotus, an Alfa Romeo 156 Sportwagon, a Saab 99 or 900 Turbo, a Land…

Whilst restoring classic cars is nowadays a hugely popular hobby for many enthusiasts who derive great pleasure from the handson experience, there’s also a growing trend to leave much of the car in as original a condition as is practicably possible. After all, not everyone wants a mint restoration – a car is only ever original once, and the oily rag/highly patinated finish is now accepted and respected. Wez Cooper’s 1968 Volkswagen Type 3 Notchback definitely falls into the latter category. He wasn’t seeking a flawless car at the end, he merely wanted to get it up, running and back on the road again. His task was very much to recommission and rejuvenate the Type 3, not restore it. 'My dad Ian purchased the Type 3 approximately 30 years ago…

As always, there is too much to do and not enough time to do it. Some of you may remember that I wrote about assessing the Swanage Railway’s 1965 Austin A35 van to fix it up and sell on their behalf. What with work, the lockdowns, volunteering on the railway as a fireman, a few summer holidays, running repairs and the 1950 Lowlight Tourer taking priority, it was now going on a year from when I last looked at it! Before winter truly set in, I decided to retrieve the vehicle back to base so that the necessary repairs could be carried out before the sale. I loaded up Lily, my trusty 1967 Morris Minor four-door with tools and spares, and headed off for Swanage where the van was carefully…

This issue, we are continuing with the recommissioning process of our 1992 Fiat Panda 900 Dance. To recap briefly, it came with a recent MoT, but had rusty brake pipes, cracked flexihoses, damaged tyres, nonexistent rubber boots on balljoints and track rod ends, lights that did not work and structural rust – it really was quite remarkable how much it had deteriorated in just three months since being passed as fit for the road! Having replaced the rusty brake pipes on the rear axle, an inspection of the front end showed that the OSF brake pipe had already been changed to copper, so that just left three original steel pipes – one from the master cylinder to the NSF wheel, another from the master cylinder to the apportioning valve for…

Working on cars can be dangerous, so it is essential to always keep safety in mind. Nowhere is this more important than when lifting and supporting a car. In this section, there are really three tools that you will definitely need: a jack, axle stands and an engine crane. Starting with the jack, I wouldn’t bother with the cheapest option of a scissor lift as these are very unstable, while a bottle jack usually requires more height than your classic enjoys. Much better is a trolley jack, which start from £35 or so. These cheaper ones will have more than enough capacity to take the weight, but may be a little bulky to fit under sports cars, not lift quite as high as you would like, and have a narrow…

Introduction You may recall that way back in the Spring 2020 issue, long before we had even started serialising the work on our Montego project, I asked if any readers could help us source some plastic clips that went around the nearside rear window and secured the plastic trim to the body. There were two types that appeared very similar but not identical – white ones under the window and black ones going up the pillar on the D-post at the back of the car. Amazingly, we had two very kind and generous offers from readers. First, retired mechanic John Dowson got in touch to say that he has a Montego Countryman Estate which he has owned from new. This car has been maintained regardless of cost, and its mileage…

In a year in which live events were able to return, virtual initiatives which started in 2020 evolved, and skilled craftsmen and women and dedicated, determined enthusiasts and organisations continued preserving and conserving our automotive history, there was a great deal to celebrate at the RAC Historic Awards. The Lifetime Achievement award went to John Grant, Chairman of the British Racing Drivers’ Club. John is a talented historic racer and former Chairman of the Motor Sport Association (now Motorsport UK). A lifelong enthusiast for all forms of four-wheeled sport, John spent most of his working life as a successful businessman, with directorships of Ford of Europe, the Ford Motor Company USA and Jaguar Cars, and has combined his considerable financial talents and management skills with his passion for the sport…

Hyundai Motor Company – not a name we get to feature too often in Classics Monthly! – has celebrating the 35th anniversary of its 1986 Grandeur flagship sedan by reinterpreting it as an all-electric car. From the outside, the Heritage Series Grandeur shows most of its retro charm, but with updates such as new side mirrors, covered wheels and side cladding, plus pixel-style LED headlights and taillights that hint at the concept’s use of Hyundai’s electric powertrain. For the Heritage Series Grandeur’s interior, the designers applied a ‘Newtro (newness + retro)’ concept theme to stimulate passengers’ senses with bronze-coloured lighting that is reminiscent of period audio equipment, and a modern audiophile sound system to match. The front seats are fitted with burgundy velvet inspired by the original Grandeur, but with…

A Land Rover Defender from the latest Bond film, No Time to Die, has gone on display at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon. One of three Defender V8s used in the high-octane woodland car chase scene, this Defender V8 will be on display until late January 2022 in the main entrance to the museum in its authentic – ie battered and bruised – state. Other cars from film and TV also on show in the museum include Del Boy’s Reliant Regal Supervan III, the Land Rover Defender from Skyfall, Lady Penelope's FAB1, the Land Rover Defender from Laura Croft Tomb Raider, the Land Rover CAB from Judge Dredd and a replica of the DeLorean from Back to the Future. The British Motor Museum houses the collections of the British…

Beaulieu has announced its 2022 calendar, with a packed line-up of successful shows returning for the new season. Eagerly anticipated is the return of the Spring Autojumble on 14th-15th May after a two-year break. Following in its tyre-tracks on 10th-11th September will be the much-loved International Autojumble. Incredible hot rods, custom cars and bikes, plus classic vehicles from America, will all be the stars of the Hot Rod & Custom Show on 19th June, with music and retro fashions at the heart of this colourful event. The high octane thrills will continue with the Beaulieu Supercar Weekend on 6th-7th August. No fewer than 16 Simply… rallies are scheduled to take place throughout 2022, with favourites including Simply Aston Martin on 3rd April, Simply Porsche on 5th June and Simply Japanese…

If you are mobile, then you can pick where you want to live, but you also have to pick the right time to live there. You might already be in a good place at a good time, but as populations rise, this is going to get harder, particularly in small and crowded countries. The photo below is of my uncle Alastair’s MGB GT. He organised himself a thoroughly nice life, at the right times and in the right places. After Navy service during WW2, during which he retained a low rank by being red/green colour blind and by questioning the authority of fools, he went to Cambridge, which was then the exclusive preserve of the top 2%. English people can’t position Scottish social class by accent, so that went well…

CM: I am interested in knowing how somebody ends up owning a car as exotic as the DeLorean, so perhaps you could start by filling in a little of your automotive background? Gez Medinger: Sure. I've always been into cars, and when I was six or seven years old I memorised the top speed of every car listed in the back of Autocar magazine. So this was my party trick as a small boy in the mid-1980s, to quote from memory something like: 'Ford Orion 1.6i Ghia – 113mph.' CM: You must have been wicked at Top Trumps? Gez: Yeah, I memorised all of those too! So I always had this passion around cars, but my first one was nothing exotic, just a humble Volvo 360 GLS. That was my…

The Standard Motor Company, which had bought the defunct Triumph marque in 1944, was in robust shape going into the 1950s with Vanguard sales strong and growing production of the Ferguson tractor underpinning the company’s finances. But Sir John Black, the company’s autocratic chairman, was not happy. He had watched Jaguar claim the upmarket sports car slot as their own, and relative minnows such as MG and Morgan carve out their own sports car niches lower down the financial pecking order. Standard-Triumph lacked a sports car offering though, and for all the company’s impressive resources, its own tentative forays in this direction in the immediate post-war period had been half-hearted and unsuccessful. The Triumph Roadster of 1946 had been a boulevard cruiser rather than a sports car. The TRX Roadster…

My Driver Diaries can be somewhat scattered, but this one is unusually focused on the slightly unnecessary steel bonnet scoop for my Triumph-based Cobra lookalike. I was interested in power-hammering metal panels, and local master coachbuilder Dave Ryan offered to make a scoop for the Cobra to show us how it’s done. There is some sneaky fun in this: if the scoop is visibly a real metal one riveted onto the GRP bonnet, then the car might just be real – it’s amusing confusing people. It’s also a real home-garage option to shape sheet metal into complex curves using an air-driven planisher, which is a very small power hammer. This would take a long time for a big panel, but if it’s a hobby, maybe that’s fine. You can also…

A project car rarely comes to a definite end unless it’s a full-blown restoration. There’s always something to do which can’t be completed due to time or money limitations, or both. In the case of our Bentley Turbo R, all of the work shown from part 3 of the project series up to this final instalment was completed over a mere three weeks in time for a scheduled road trip. During that time, Prestige Services accounted for over 50 hours of labour, which excludes the four days I spent servicing the engine, gearbox and diff, along with stripping the rear brakes and replacing the fuel lines. The aim all along with the work on this Bentley was primarily to ensure it was safe to drive, which meant we had to…

Having decided that most people setting out on their first restoration will have a basic set of hand tools – spanners, screwdrivers, pliers, a file, hacksaw, knife and sundry small items – we do not need to list every single item. But if you are genuinely starting from scratch, then it might be worth buying a starter set of mechanic’s tools. These are often offered in temptingly large sets at very competitive prices, but do read through the contents list carefully and make sure you are comparing like with like because they can contain a lot of small items of dubious use and quality to bump up the tool count – dozens of screwdriver bits each counted separately is one favourite ploy. One problem with many tool kits, and also…

It's 1997 and the Ker family have gathered to gaze at the newly acquired Peugeot. ‘How do you like mummy’s new car?’ asked my dad, expecting the best. The fertile mind of my young nephew whirred away for some time. Finally, after obvious deep thought, the answer was released. Prodding a Kit-kat encrusted digit at the dashboard, he had the definitive automotive opinion: 'Cassette ICE is naff, but the air-con is good for farts.’ Well, who would guess that blowing raspberries might sway a person spending £10k on a new motor? Peugeot must have felt very proud. Of course, the ultimate raspberry generator was always the Morris Minor. Whether the distinct over-run blart was a deliberate result of designer Issigonis’s sense of humour or just an accidental effect of the…

Isn’t it amazing that we all seem to remember our childhood summers as being warm, sunny and full of fun and colour? Even the photographs in the old family album don’t seem to be quite as bright as our memories. [That's sepia for you, Andy! – Ed] I can distinctly recall the great times of being bundled into dad’s bright red Vauxhall Firenza or the golden Viva HC that followed it and heading off to another fab time in Cornwall or Tenby. I wonder if my kids will remember the trips out in the grey Xantia or the slightly less grey Mk6 Escort we had? I’d put money on the fact that they’d remember the holiday, but not how we got there. Adrian Abbott is like me – he can…

So far, our Cortina project has been relatively benign. There were a few jitters when it took months rather than weeks to get it registered in the UK, but that turned out to require patience rather than anything more demanding. Similarly, most of the tasks we have tackled so far have been to correct important but relatively superficial problems and the old girl has not thrown us many curve balls. Now, however, things start to get serious as we take it to Alan Denne’s workshop, because it is invariably bodywork issues that turn a project from a minor to a major one. At the very least you can guarantee that what you see on the surface is only ever the proverbial tip of the rustberg. In terms of rust, so…

The Porsche has really been earning its keep recently. Carolyn and I used it to take part in the Forresters Car Club’s Two Rivers Tour in September. This is an excellent event, which covered some 120 miles in total, the route taking in the picturesque roads and lanes of Monmouthshire, surrounding counties and eastern valleys. The only problem we had (along with many of the other participants) was that it took place during the height of the fuel crisis. Fortunately, we managed to find one fuel station that had sufficient stocks of E5 and a forecourt that wasn’t rammed with panic buyers. Mind you, it was a close-run thing as the Porsche had been running on fumes for a while! Then in mid-October we did the Usk Valley Classic Car…

It is very unlikely that anybody embarking on a full restoration will be starting from scratch. Most of us cut our teeth with a little servicing, then build up through minor troubleshooting to major repairs before taking the full restoration plunge. Along the way we will have built up a modest tool kit and some basic garage equipment, so the next step will be to build on this when required rather than rushing out and buying everything in one shot. Even a youngster setting out on a project before they are old enough to drive will most likely have inherited their interest from dad, and be allowed to borrow his spanners. Aside from the obvious advantage of spreading the cost, this means you can get stuck into a project right…

When carrying out a restoration, you will invariably be dealing with years of neglect and decay. When workshop manuals are compiled, the author is generally working on a new car so when they blithely say: ‘Undo X and Y, then lift off Z,’ that might be the starting point for a weekend’s worth of frustration and delay for you. The important thing is not to get angry, but to get wise. The first tools you will need are cheap and simple – a wire brush to remove the grime and rust, and a tin of penetrating fluid to work its way into the threads. The next is a long breaker bar, effectively a non-ratcheting handle that is used with one of your sockets. The longer the bar, the more leverage…

This section is not going to be as exciting as those looking at tools, but it is probably more important. The first advice I would give concerns clothing. Never go out to a project, even just for a ten-minute job (which will invariably take a couple of hours anyway), unless you are wearing clothes that you don’t mind getting stained. Often this just means a pair of overalls, but do remember that any oil or grease will work through that fabric and stain the clothes underneath. Proper overalls also have the advantage that they will have no hanging straps or cords that could get caught in moving objects such as drills or engines, and nor should they have exposed buttons, zips or poppers that can scratch car bodywork. A sturdy…

Those of you who follow the Classic World YouTube channel may have seen Phil Weeden’s take on the Mk5 Escort, a car that was much maligned, but not nearly enough. With a few notable exceptions (mainly some of the larger rear wheel drive German cars) I really have little enthusiasm for modern cars. The ones I’ve driven lately have been so indescribably awful that they and their cheapskate manufacturers have to be named and shamed. Ford learned the hard way, but many haven’t. I’m looking at you, PSA, Renault, Nissan and Vauxhall. It’s all the same stuff anyway. At the moment I’m the custodian of a Citroën DS3 for Car Mechanics magazine, a car that was launched about ten years ago and was discontinued about 2019. The DS3 is a…