Innehållsförteckning för February 2016 från Classics World

After its first year proved overwhelmingly successful for dealers, the London Classic Car Show (LCCS) returns to the ExCeL Centre (from Thursday, February 18 to Sunday, February 21) bigger and better than ever before, with a 34,000 square foot floor plan. “We are expanding the London Classic Car Show because that’s what everybody wants,” said event director Bas Bungish. “Feedback from visitors and exhibitors at the first show told us that they loved the innovation, the quality of the displays and the atmosphere so much that they wanted even more!” Guests can expect a star-studded VIP preview evening on the first day of the show, together with an entirely new hall filled with cars belonging to the UK’s top 25 clubs; exhibits will date from the Twenties through to the…

From dozens of R4s threading their way through London’s fashionable streets to scores of battered examples being driven on their hubcaps around the Arc De Triomphe in Paris, the model was a massive sales success for ‘Reggie’ Renault and this gangly little estate went on to make the record books as the company’s first front-wheel drive car. Today, this basic little four-door Renault may have almost disappeared from our roads but at least the R4 is recognised by collectors of classic factoids as the model that redefined the family car as well as being the first mass-produced hatchback. Launched in 1961 along with the even more basic R3, the 747cc R4 replaced the post-war introduced rear engined 4CV and was Renault’s answer to Citroen’s sir cooled tin snail. Although the…

Scott Higgins Contributor Scott has always been an engineer at heart: Lego, Meccano and disassembly of anything that stays still for too long being obvious symptoms. After serving an engineering apprenticeship at Land Rover Solihull, he now works in product development. You guessed it. No painted shell yet although they have started! Better than that I have dropped off the other shell and they have started both. Hurray! I had better make sure I have a pile of bits ready for them. This month it’s the starter and twin SU carbs. Starting with the starter, naturally I stripped it down by removing the brush plate first. Thankfully the brushes didn’t need changing as while they are available there are some big soldered joints in there that are beyond my soldering…

You know how it goes, the car’s booked into the garage for what at first looks like a simple job and the guy twirling the spanners calls up and patiently explains how he’s found a major problem and what do you want to do about it. This is exactly what happened when our project XJS was in the workshop at Jaguar specialists Just XJS Ltd (07940 998199, www.justxjs.com) in Staffordshire having a set of new upper and lower wishbone bushes fitted. To be fair, what proprietor Andy Harvey doesn’t know about these luxury grand tourers probably isn’t worth knowing and when booking the car in he warned me that this job often turns into a nightmare as the lower bushes are often seized solid. When we had the new shocks…

Many engines claim to be the first production four cylinder 16-valve unit: the Dolomite Sprint from 1973 is often claimed as the first, and the Lotus 900 as first seen in the ill-fated Jensen-Healey is another. In fact the Ford Cosworth BDA as fitted to the 1970 Escort RS1600 beat them all to it, but the Lotus 900 is certainly one of the first. Sadly it had a grim start to life and took a long time to shake off a poor reputation, sending the Jensen-Healey to an early grave although that car had a multitude of other problems to scupper it too. In the beginning, Lotus had of course the 1558 cc twin cam that was based on the 1500 Ford Cortina block. This was a great little engine…

When the covers finally came off the Hillman Imp, this smart-looking little two-door car received a lot of favourable comments and period advertising material produced by the Rootes Group described the new model as ‘the grown up answer to Scalextric’. This jokey headline made a refreshing change as prior to the Imp’s launch in May 1963 a lot of cars produced by the Rootes Group had been described as stylish but disappointing and boring to drive. These negative remarks certainly couldn’t be levelled at the little rear-engined Imp and despite the car’s unveiling being spoilt by a leading motoring title letting the cat out of the bag a few months before the official launch, the press were largely favourable about the highly practical new small Hillman. Rootes had started to…

The year 2015 saw the Jaguar Mk1 celebrate its 60th birthday and we ran through the history of what was Jaguar’s first unitary construction car back in our March issue. There’s no arguing with the sentiment that the Mk1 was a truly significant car for Jaguar, even though the Jaguar 3.4 – as it was known at the time – didn’t itself last in production very long. Launched in 1955, it was replaced in 1959 by the Mk2, although this was effectively merely a heavily facelifted Mk1, the company using its experience with the newfangled unitary construction methods to refine the design with slimmer pillars affording a bigger glass area, plus a wider track for improved handling. The Mk2’s basic design would be produced until the launch of the XJ…

According to sources including Autocar and the Financial Times, the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) group has expressed a desire to buy Silverstone, Britain’s premier motorsport venue and home of the British Grand Prix, in addition to rounds of almost every international racing series, plus the biggest historic racing event in the world – the Silverstone Classic. It is reported that property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield has been asked to assess the market value of the site in Northamptonshire. It is suggested that the track would become the new headquarters for JLR, incorporating hotels, offices and a visitor centre. The entire site has reportedly been valued at £22.7 million by Cushman & Wakefield, though a formal offer from JLR has not been yet been put forward. Any prospective deal will only…

I’d had a Spitfire years before and it was the only car I’d ever regretted selling,” remembers Chris Hart of his decision to buy a 38-year old Triumph off the ‘electronic Bay’. In truth he’d lost the bidding the first time round but when the original buyer pulled out, Chris struck a deal with the seller and since the car was local ended up taking it on for the princely sum of £800. That was back in 2006 and regular readers of CM may remember Chris featured in our Work In Progress spot a couple of years ago with the Spitfire ‘almost’ done but as he admits, it’s taken a while to finally get to the end of the tunnel. As bought, the car was a runner but having restored…

Will Armston-Sheret Contributor Will has been collecting classic cars since before he could drive and now has quite a fleet of Morris Minors. He’s currently slowly doing up his dream car, a 1950 Morris Minor Lowlight. Why is it that every project soon spirals out of control to be much more time consuming than you ever hope or expect? As I mentioned last month, I decided to rectify the crack in the rear wing of Lily. The bottom flange was split; I had hoped to fix it in situ, by welding a strengthening plate in from behind. However it soon became clear that this wasn’t possible so with this in mind, I whipped the rear wing off to do the job properly. Thankfully, I had foreseen this eventuality three years…

Ivan Ostroff Contributor Ivan’s now back down to just the two Jags but he’s finding plenty to keep him busy bringing his latest bargain XJ40 up to scratch. Wheel refurbishment and a damper replacement were both long overdue. Sadly, due to space, or rather the lack of it, three Jags was one too many. Therefore the 4.0 Sovereign has now departed for its new home on the Sussex coast. That amazing comfort, serene ride and wonderful extra torque of its AJ6 4-litre six will be sorely missed and there was more than a tinge of sadness as it was driven away by Steve its new owner. I hope he Steve derives as much pleasure owning and driving it as my wife and I have done. The recently acquired Sovereign 3.6-litre…

Forced induction, especially supercharging, is a popular means of delivering more air into an engine to increase its performance. The supercharger, or blower, was developed long before the motor car. When the Roots brothers in the USA unsuccessfully designed a bi-rotor gear pump for their water mill, they instead discovered it could pump large volumes of air, which was perfect for feeding a foundry furnace. Their first patented blower was registered in 1860 and they had filed 16 more patents by 1884. When it comes to fitting a supercharger to an engine, the forced induction helps to deliver more air into it and when this is mixed with fuel, it helps to increase performance. Superchargers are a sort of air pump, and they are usually belt driven, taking their power…

This issue may bear the February cover date but as we send it to press right at the tail end of the year with the party season beckoning, it seems like an opportune time to look back on the last 12 months. It’s been the first full year of Classics Monthly under new owners Kelsey Media and hopefully if you’re still reading then you like the changes we’ve made so far. As far as restorations go, we’ve had everything from pre-war cars to ’90s saloons and pretty much everything in between, something which has reinforced the commonly-held belief that it’s almost impossible to pin down our hobby sufficiently to answer the old chestnut “So what’s a classic car then?” Here then are our picks of the restorations we’ve covered over…

Anyone who’s been to a classic car auction recently will probably have left the sales room in a state of shock after seeing top end models such as E-Types, Ferraris and Porsches going under the hammer for hundreds of thousands, or in some cases millions of pounds, euros or dollars. Looking at past trends, today’s high price bubble could burst with disastrous results for investors and enthusiasts alike. So to find out more about the current state of the classic car market we asked Mark Wilkinson, managing partner at Heritage Insurance (www.heritagecarinsurance.co.uk), one of the UK’s longest established classic car insurance specialists to reveal his thoughts. Commenting on today’s high prices, Mark told us that to better understand what many people are referring to as the classic car bubble and…

With the famous Brooklands Museum celebrating the 25th anniversary of its official opening in March 2016, festivities are set to get off to an early start with what is expected to be the biggest New Year’s Day gathering of classic cars anywhere in the country on January 1, 2016 from 9am. The New Year’s Day Gathering at Brooklands is set to attract big numbers – last year’s event attracted 1250 classics and over 5000 visitors. Next year’s event will fill out the Museum’s Paddock, Finishing Straight and Members Banking, featuring displays from clubs and individual owners alike. The famous Winter Barbeque returns, alongside the on-site Sunbeam Café which will be serving lunches and snacks all day. “One of the best things about the New Year’s Day gathering at Brooklands is…

Despite being one of the most common cars on the roads a couple of decades ago, the second generation Capri is now one of the rarest classics anywhere with numbers probably in the low hundreds – from the hundreds of thousands which were built. The MkII Capri arrived in February 1974 to replace the 1969 MkI which had been a major success for Ford. Capri sales had actually been falling and it was hoped that a more practical liftback version might help. While it didn’t arrest the gradual fall in sales, it was certainly a popular car and a money maker for Ford. With the first examples being registered on an M plate, UK versions were built at Halewood until September 1976 when all Capri production moved to the Cologne…

Gez Hughes Contributor Gez longs for the simpler life, so his fleet consists of cars that can be run on pennies and fixed with a spoon. A lifelong fascination with motors built in the heyday of the British motor industry means there’s always something that needs fixing. With the NSU finished and roadworthy, and some valuable space cleared at the lockup, there was at last some room available to work on the Landcrab. The 1800 had somehow dropped down the list of priorities to the point where it had been stuck behind several other cars and a thick layer of dust and grime had built up on the paintwork. I don’t know why I’d neglected it for so long - just before being relegated to the no-use zone, it had…

Mike Taylor Contributor Mike’s Stag Rescue has been a long-term feature in CM for the last few years and the project is now finally nearing completion. Time to fit the doors, hopefully without causing any damage to the paint. Initial installation was relatively simple as the hinges were correctly located, having been undisturbed since initial door fitting. With the front of the door resting on the hinges and the rear on the hydraulic trolley, the six fixing bolts were screwed into place and two on each hinge were tightened and tested for fit. Dan came to asist in alignment as there are numerous edges to check when the door closes. We used pieces of card cut from a cereal packet to use as feeler gauges around the door edges and…

We signed off last month with the new gearbox sliding into place after a whole lot of heavy work. That wasn’t quite the end of the job though, since on to the end of the gearbox goes the equally heavy transfer box and with that done we still needed to replace all the other bits of suspension and drivetrain which had been removed to allow space for the transmission to slide in and out. With it all back together, we took the Discovery for a test drive and the news was both good and bad. The new gearbox was perfect as you’d expect and our diagnosis that the original failure was the gearbox rather than the transfer box proved to be correct. But... we did find it tricky to select…

Don’t trust the handbrake, just leave it in gear, is the advice for many a classic car owner, even for a lightweight car like a Mini. There’s no denying the fact that a car’s handbrake isn’t as efficient as its hydraulic braking system, but that’s not to say it cannot be maintained and adjusted to ensure it’s as good as it can be. Most handbrake systems consist of a lever inside the car and cables leading to the rear brakes where either a pair of brake shoes lock a drum or disc, or a brake caliper has a mechanical system to lock the rear brake discs. There are some exceptions, such as Land Rovers that lock the diff and some Citroëns and Alfa Romeos that lock the front brakes. However,…

In 1978, Vauxhall launched the Chevette HS with a 2.3-litre 16-valve slant four engine. It was thought that this was a Lotus 900 engine but it wasn’t – in fact it was a Vauxhall 16-valve development of the 2300 Victor engine with an iron block that developed 135 bhp. Because the Lotus head fits the Vauxhall block, Vauxhall’s rally team were sometimes forced to use Lotus heads on their rally cars due to a shortage of the Vauxhall unit and Chevette HS cars were withdrawn from the 1978 Portuguese rally after protests from other competitors.…

TVR’s real heyday was the 1990s when under Peter Wheeler’s control, the firm took its tried-and-tested recipe of tubular chassis and fibreglass bodywork into the mainstream. Before then it had been something of a niche market, enthusiasm mainly concentrated among hardcore sports car fans, but modern styling and very modern performance enabled it to compete with some much more complex products. That the Blackpool firm managed to provide Porsche-rivalling performance with nothing more than the old pushrod Rover V8 was a masterstroke, giving the cars a rumbling soundtrack which could be heard long before a bright yellow Griffith hammered into view. Despite its performance, the TVR-modified Rover engines were outwardly largely identical to those found under the front of a Range Rover or Discovery which resulted in ease of servicing…