Innehållsförteckning för January 2017 från Classics World

The history of the Rover SD1 and Standard-Triumph company are well known among marque enthusiasts; any number of online and print sources can provide the details. Recently, classic car documentary film maker John Clancy had the opportunity to shed new light on the history of both car and company. After speaking to Rover and Triumph staff previously ignored by historians, journalists and writers, John’s two new films – Rover SD1 At Forty and The Standard-Triumph Story – promise to put back the missing pieces. “It always bothered me that people were missing from the stories in question,” he explained to Kelsey Media. With a background in computing and Super 8 film making, one of John’s earliest pieces – Project Bullet, a biopic of the Triumph TR7 – was a smash…

Dad spotted BJU 715K in a local garage,” explains owner Jason Salmon. “This was back in 1979. I was just four at the time! Before this, he owned a Series Rapier, a IIIa, which he used on high days and holidays. He’d always liked Rapiers, but wasn’t specifically looking for a H120. It just so happened that this car was quite local. He had a daily driver 1964 Hillman Minx 1600, so the idea of the sporty and much more modern H120 appealed.” It appealed so much that money changed hands and Salmon senior became the proud owner of BJU 715K. Like the Series IIIa before it, the H120 became a ‘high days and holidays’ car, and was loved and cherished Then, one fateful day back in 1988, it was…

“I knew that trying to get masking tape onto the outer part of the wheel was always going to be a challenge” Smartening up the A40’s wheels has been my main pre-occupation this month, keen as I was to get My the usua wheels working onto position the car. of late Regular viewers may remember I left you in suspense last month, with the wheels having been painted silver, the inner spoke area awaiting several coats of satin black to finish them off. Keen to make this as easy a job as I possibly could I’d been pondering the best approach thanks to being large of hands and access into the join ‘twixt. rim . and spokes being quite limited. I eventually decided that if I could wedge something stiff…

“The old hoses might well have been in place for the last 30 years and one had rubbed against the chassis and worn” One of the jobs that I have wanted to carry out on the Gentry is to change the lower radiator hose assembly. I say assembly, because that is just what it is. As the radiator is from an Austin Maxi and the engine a Triumph, the only way to connect the bottom hose outlet to the water pump is via a combination of different size hoses bent at one end through 90 degrees and at the other through 180 degrees. The hoses are connected by a copper link pipe. Although I have been meaning to replace these old hoses for a while, I have been unable to…

Unless you’re lucky enough to experience a generous win on the Lottery, the rarefied world of exotic motorcars is one that’s usually exclusively reserved for the well-heeled and famous to explore. However, it needn’t cost a king’s ransom to enjoy driving an Aston Martin DB7, as the black hand of depreciation has slashed the cost of early examples to match that of a modern hatchback. This means a first class six-cylinder DB7 with a relatively low number of miles under its belt can be tracked down for well under £20,000, or less if you’re very fortunate. However, mention you own a DB7 to a group of die-hard enthusiasts of the marque and heads will shake while mutterings refer to the baby Aston’s development taking place while Ford held the purse…

Insurance is one of those things you pay for in the hope that you’ll never need but it’s absolutely essential. Not only is it a legal requirement (with heavy penalties if the law is flouted) but would you want to pay to repair or replace your car, any medical treatment and cover any time off work following an accident out of your own pocket – and then pay the same all over again if someone else is involved? But insurance is still a running cost, and we all want to minimise those as much as possible, especially if our classic is a hobby car that’s being run alongside a daily driver, and insurance can be one of the easiest costs to cut. How a premium is calculated is not a…

In 2016 the family-owned Morgan Motor Company celebrated the 80th anniversary of the Morgan 4/4, a model first unveiled in 1936 and one that now holds the record for being the world’s longest running production vehicle. Although the latest version of the 4/4 is a very different car under its ash-framed bodywork to its octogenarian namesake, it’s still being built at Morgan’s Pickersleigh Road site in the same traditional body-on-frame method as that first Morgan 4/4 was back in the late-1930s. The origins of Morgan as a manufacturer of motor cars can be traced back to the dawn of motoring when Henry Fredrick Stanley Morgan – known as H F S to his friends and colleagues – bought his first car, a 1902 Eagle tandem after completing his apprenticeship at…

LED REVERSING When we visited classic car lighting specialists 4Sight recently, we were shown the prototype for a neat automatic reversing light system and now it has entered production. Many classics came with either no reversing lights at all or fairly hopeless units which coupled with the restricted visibility of many older cars can make night time manoeuvres tricky. The 4Sight kit uses a neat pair of discreet LED lights which replace the number plate fixings and are surprisingly bright despite their size. Instead of relying on a gearbox switch, the lamps are turned on with a simple button on the dash. This provides a timed 30 seconds of light, which means you can’t forget to switch them off – since showing a white light at the rear is illegal.…

As one of the earliest and, it has to said, most committed advocates of badge engineering, Rootes always boasted a proliferation of marques and models. Commer and Karrier were the commercial vehicles, Hillman was reserved for the bread and butter variants, Singer added a smidge of class, Humber was the luxury brand, and the Sunbeam moniker, as befitting its competition pedigree, was applied to the sporting models. In 1966, having bid a fond goodbye to its Audax range of light cars, Rootes revealed its new, much more contemporary, but, nevertheless, quite conventionally-engineered offerings. Collectively referred to as the Arrow range, buyers could choose from a bewildering selection of marques and models. The saloons arrived first. Then, in 1967, came two estate variants (Hillman and Singer). Confusingly, models would come and…

By the time the Allegro was launched, the Westerham firm of Crayford had already made a name for itself producing convertible and estate versions of mainstream saloons including open-topped Corsair, Cortina, Capri, Mini and 1100, as well as the TR7 Tracer estate and the hatchback conversion for the Princess which predated the Ambassador. Most of these were badged and sold as Crayford productions, with the conversion either being performed on a customer’s car or the completed vehicle ordered through the supplying main dealer. The Allegro though was different, being exclusively available through the Twickenham BL dealer Spikins which commissioned the project. At this time, the biggest engine offered in the two-door Allegro was the 1300, which explains why all the Crayfords are 1300-engined. The Spikins-Crayford Allegro was destined to be…

“I removed the cap of the brake master cylinder reservoir and found it completely dry” My mate, Merv, mentioned that he wanted to give his Volvo a once-over before the winter rolled in. So I said I’d lend him a hand and we’d give the car a service while we were at it. For you Volvo spotters out there, the car is a really lovely 210 Duett, the station wagon version of the PV544.I thought it might be wise to see what should go on the shopping list so we checked under the bonnet – oil and oil filter, new air filters for the twin HS6 carbs, new plugs to replace the tired looking NGK BP6Hs, but no need for points and condensor as we discovered electronic ignition had been…

Photo: Chris Frosin Our £325 bargain X-Type continues to rack up the miles without any major hiccups and recently took part in a track day at Mallory Park in Leicestershire. This very enjoyable event had been organised by Jaguar Enthusiasts’ Club Racing and our time out on the track gave us the opportunity to engage in a few laps of car-to-car photography with Classics Monthly’s latest acquisition, a 1975 Russet Brown Triumph 2500TC Estate. We’ll be introducing this new long-term project in a future issue of CM but prior to the track day at Mallory Park, we’d noticed an occasional rubbing sound coming from our Jaguar’s offside rear brake caliper. This proved a difficult noise to diagnose and only happened during a long run of stop-start motoring. The sound was…

Used for nearly a quarter of a century and built in numbers that almost reached one million, the PRV V6 engine is one of those engines one thinks was a failure but which actually did very well even without covering itself with glory. Compared to the German straight sixes of the period it wasn’t fantastic but on the other had, compare it to a Ford V6 and it was quite an interesting unit. FROM EIGHT TO SIX? Legend has it that the 90-degree V6 was originally a V8 with its 90-degree vee angle, but that it was cut down to a V6 in response to the 1973 fuel crisis, something that’s never been proven as fact. The PRV engine was designed to power not a big luxury saloon, but mid-range…

The name FIAT is an acronym taken from Societa Anonima Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino, the title of a charter signed in 1899 that paved the way for the new company’s board of directors headed by Giovanni Agnelli to open Fiat’s first factory in Turin the following year. Production started with the two-cylinder 3.5CV and by 1908 Fiat had opened a manufacturing plant in the USA. The new business expanded rapidly and Fiat soon moved into the production of trucks, trams, commercial vehicles and marine engines. Construction of the company’s famous Lingatto factory in Turin began in 1916 and this five story building with a banked test track on the roof was considered to be one of the largest industrial buildings in Europe. The outbreak of World War One resulted in…

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has ended negotiations with the British Racing Drivers’ Club (BRDC) to purchase Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix. Had its bid been successful, the Indian-owned marque would have used the circuit for high-speed test drives. Rumours had the firm redeveloping the historic site as a second home for Jaguar Land Rover Classic’s heritage collection, in addition to the collections centre at the British Motor Museum. Despite the success of events such as the Silverstone Classic, track losses and redevelopment bills are mounting up. In a ‘reactive statement’ released by the BRDC on Monday, November 7, it turns out that two other bidders remain in the frame to purchase Silverstone. One proposal – submitted around the same time JLR began negotiations – came from Lawrence Tomlinson,…

We’ve come across many immaculate standard Anglia 105Es in our time, but when we first clapped eyes on Nick Horridge’s 1962 Deluxe it became immediately obvious he’d taken his own example to the next level. Look anywhere on this car and it’s like you’ve been taken right back to a Ford showroom over half a century ago. As Nick points out however, this project began some 25 years ago, so he’s had plenty of time to perfect things. Since 1991, Nick has run Newford Parts based in Abbey Village, Lancashire, a business set up by his father John in 1974 to supply new old stock Ford parts to the public. Since that time the turnover of the family business has increased dramatically and it’s always been Nick’s ambition to restore…

“I breathed a sigh of relief when the sump came off to reveal an intact crank” With the 1275 Frogeye sold on and my Dad’s Frogeye now back from paint it’s all change in the garage. I am cracking on with the assembly of the Frog, starting with the suspension components and engine build. I don’t want to bore you with another Frogeye build, so will just explain a bit each month and include a few progress pictures. I will, however, explain the supercharger build, as I am quite looking forward to that bit! So onto the Austin Healey 3000 project, as this car will be featuring in my diary for the forthcoming months. I sold an old VW Camper quite a few years ago, had a think, took a…

“A fellow motorist drew alongside at a set of lights and told us that the Stag’s brake lights weren’t operating” Once again organising the house and workshop has taken most of my time leaving little left to drive or fettle the cars. The Stag has been used on a few local trips and taken to a car show. While returning from one of these local trips, a fellow motorist drew alongside at a set of lights and told us that the brake lights weren’t operating. I thanked him for letting us know and whilst driving home discussed the likely cause with my wife who was in the car at the time. My immediate diagnosis was a faulty switch, as I had refitted the original which was operational when tested, but…

The Caravelle has been a part of the CM fleet for quite a while now and as a project its time with us is coming to an end. Since acquiring it in a distinctly down-at-heel state as a non-runner, we’ve managed to bring it back to mechanical health as reliable everyday transport and we’ve also managed to sort out the filthy, stinking interior to a point where the seven-seater VW is a pleasant way to travel. Along the way we’ve called out the AA twice – once for a failed alternator and once for an intermittent fault which was later traced to the ignition switch. Otherwise it’s been a case of slowly working at the Caravelle’s many defects and one by one restoring it to something approaching its former glory.…

Standing by a £995,000 Porsche 911 for sale at the NEC show recently, we were struck by just how crazy values of some of the blue chip classics have become... and by the same token, just how cheap many other perfectly good cars suddenly are. In an age where modern vehicles last longer than ever, it’s ironic that so many interesting cars are being discarded for peanuts when a bit of tinkering can often restore them to decent running condition. Indeed, our own X-Type project makes you question the wisdom of coughing up thousands of pounds for an everyday modern car. We’re talking modern classics here of course but you’ll still find the odd ‘proper’ classic within your reach if you’ve got the kit and the skills – mainly of…

Part of the appeal of classic cars is their ease of maintenance and even with high-end cars the practicalities are straightforward. Whether it’s a Minor or a DB6, the dirty oil drains out of the bottom, the clean oil goes in the top and the mucky old air filter goes in the same bin. Cars running conventional points and distributor ignition systems don’t generally need expensive professional equipment to get them timed up correctly and if the fuelling is way out then you’ll notice it either through poor running and performance or increased fuel consumption. With modern classics though it can all be a bit more tricky and the more electronic controls the car has, the more likely you are to need specialist equipment. It all started with the advent…

I met controversial BMW design chief Chris Bangle once. The occasion was the press launch of the fifth generation 5-Series and the location was rather randomly, the docks in Cagliari, Sardinia where the US-born stylist was easy to spot by his bright red trousers in a sea of corporate BMW uniforms. I remember our short meeting being fascinating and he was clearly a man of vision bent on overturning the Bavarians’ conservative range. And he had form in this area too, for long before Bangle became the controversial name behind the new generation of visually challenging BMWs, he had pulled off a similar trick at Fiat’s Centro Stile. After years of playing it safe in order to escape from financial doom, Fiat in the early ’90s had returned to the…