Innehållsförteckning för October 2020 från Classics World

Throughout this year we have made a conscious effort at Classics not to dwell too much on the global pandemic, preferring instead to offer you an oasis of calm and enjoyment in what has been a very unsettling and turbulent year. After all, there is more than enough doom and gloom already being spread in so-called news bulletins on TV and the internet, and absolutely no need for us to pile in with any more. None of us can avoid the subject entirely though, and the steady flow of reports about shows and events that have been cancelled or radically altered are testament to that. However, things are slowly starting to move again. I went to an outdoor autojumble this month, the first of a new but truncated season at…

Sunday 2nd August saw the second running of the NASCAR RUN, organised by MG and Alfa Spares in Chadderton, near Oldham. Run in aid of The National Autistic Society, MG and Alfa Spares were unsure whether the event could take place this year, but after careful consideration and monitoring the current situation, they had 45 cars join them on the day. 'We did our best to social distance by staying in our cars and remaining outside the building at the start,' said company owner and driving force behind the run, Jason Swinyard. 'We must say Thank You to Tim and Jo Hamer of Krakin Catering, who supplied the participants with bacon or sausage barms at the start and also gave them a picnic each so everyone could continue social distancing…

Following a successful launch to the Simply rally season on Sunday 19th July, Beaulieu has announced that Simply French will be the latest edition to this year’s ever-popular Simply Rally line-up. On September 6th, all owners of vehicles built in France or by a French manufacturer are invited into Beaulieu for what promises to be a superb day out for both owners and enthusiasts. From wonderful classics like the Citroën 2CV or the Alpine A110, through to the everyday family favourites like the Renault Megane and the Peugeot 308, all makes and models are welcome. To ensure the safety and enjoyment of visitors is met in line with Beaulieu’s Visitor Safety Promise, capacity of this rally is limited and tickets are only available to purchase on a pre-booked basis. New…

Doesn’t time fly, especially when one is a historian? Here we are in 2020, and I have just realised that it is now 60 years since Standard-Triumph was entering its last full year as an independent concern, and that we did not realise this at the time. To remind you, Standard (which had been founded in 1903) had taken over the remains of the original Triumph car-manufacturing business in 1944, and the new combine had built up a prestigious operation since then. As 1960 opened, Alick Dick’s management was looking ahead to further major expansion, with a new assembly hall (the Rocket Range) being built, a new six-cylinder petrol engine on the way, the Vitesse, the Spitfire and the new-generation TR4 sports car all being developed, along with hopes of…

The Mini Cooper was launched on 20th September 1961, just over two years after the original Mini. Although the Mini itself revolutionised motoring, it was never intended as a sporty car. Indeed, the original engine size was going to be 948cc, but that was thought to be too fast during the prototype testing phase and so it was downgraded to 848cc. However, it didn’t take long for people to start tinkering with Mini engines, and for companies like Downton Engineering, Speedwell and a host of others to start tuning them. Twin carburettors, modified heads, performance manifolds and exhausts all became very popular, and in very short order Minis were entering – and winning – races at race tracks in the UK and around the world. One person to see the…

Having had more than enough welding on my 1950 Morris Minor Tourer last month, I turned my attention to Lily, my 1967 four-door saloon. Long term readers will remember that last year I repainted the car, which saved it from turning into a bit of a heap. At the time I didn’t touch the running gear, leaving it with the slightly tired 1098cc engine. However, I’d long wanted to make Lily into a more durable long-range car and to take some pressure off the 1950 Lowlight, which has been uprated but is a bit too special to use every day, particularly in winter. So now I decided to fit a 1275cc engine and a four-speed overdrive box conversion to Lily, for which I had been steadily acquiring the parts over…

I have owned many 1960s Triumphs, and on the ladder of cool Triumphs I climbed as far as a GT6. I’ve always fancied completing the list with a TR6, although the list is just a little bonus – it’s the masculine styling, the perfect proportions, the comfy touring suspension, the handsome dash, the silky torque and the delicious exhaust music of the TR6 that really push all my buttons. I bought this one last year because the price was so low it would have been rude to refuse. Maybe you would have had the strength of mind to bat it aside and focus on more important stuff, but sadly I did not. What happened was that a friend had to move house, and he phoned up and said: ‘Okay, here’s…

Drills, impact drivers and ratchets, angle grinders and polishers are some of the power tools that can be bought and operated by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, but is this really the way forward? There was a time when having an air compressor in your garage to feed the aforementioned tools was the future, and they were and still are often cheaper to buy than the electrical equivalents. When battery-operated power tools first became popular and affordable, one of the main dilemmas surrounding them concerned replacement batteries, which were often just as expensive as buying the equipment they powered. And there were often problems of obsolescence; once a particular impact driver or drill had been replaced with a later and more powerful model, support for spares and replacement batteries vanished. Whether you…

History Around 13,000 Rolls-Royce Silver Clouds and its sister S-series Bentleys were built between 1955 and 1965. This compares well with the 5201 MkVI Bentleys, 2320 Bentley R-Types and 761 Rolls Royce Silver Dawns that were spun off one platform and built variously between 1949 and 1955, but falls some way short of the later RR Silver Shadow and T-series Bentleys which racked up over 40,000 sales. The Silver Cloud still has an old-school separate chassis, and relatively old-fashioned styling. Designer David Blatchley was asked for a traditional yet modern design, an entirely contradictory brief. His early designs were rejected, but a quick sketch more or less drawn in a corridor outside a board meeting and taken back into that same meeting got the thumbs up. This was possibly an…

Like most clubs, the Sunbeam Rapier Owners Club had to cancel their National Rally this year, and like quite a few others they decided to hold a Virtual Rally on their Forum web pages instead. Coinciding with that decision, one of their members shared a huge pack of original material he had obtained from the relatives of a former Rootes employee, a pack containing a great many details about the 1960 Earls Court Motor Show. This employee, John Fairer, was a salesman on Stand 77 with the Rootes coachbuilders Thrupp and Maberly, and the pack contained all the information that he needed to face the public and show off the latest Rootes models. Among other information, it told the club what cars were on display that year and what their…

LANCASTER INSURANCE TOP TRUMPS PACKS Price: £5.99 To celebrate their love for classic cars, Lancaster Insurance is giving enthusiasts another opportunity to purchase its Special Edition Top Trumps packs. The cards showcase interesting facts and statistics on 30 classic cars, ranging from the Lamborghini Countach LP400 to the Austin 1100. In addition, five golden tickets are still to be found which were randomly placed in the packs – each one wins a pair of tickets to Goodwood Revival 2021 and an overnight stay (T&Cs apply). Lancaster Insurance Classic Car Special Edition Top Trumps packs are available to buy at www.lancasterinsurance.co.uk and the price of £5.99 includes delivery. CLARKE ½IN IMPACT WRENCH Price: £65.99 The new Clarke CEW520 is a powerful mains-powered impact wrench for heavy duty applications, ideal for quickly…

Being a writer is financially a curse. If you’re a writer, it’s what you are rather than what you do. I’ve never written a novel, because there are probably 50,000 people in the UK alone who have the talent and application to write good novels, so it would just be silly to compete. For every super-lucky (and also talented and determined) JK Rowling, there are 49,999 equally talented and determined writers who will retire unpublished. I was going to update George Orwell's 1984 to 2084, but Gorgeous Wife stopped me; she said it would be depressing and infuriating and would put me in a bad temper for a couple of years. In any case, modern life is so surreal and random that you can’t predict anything at all. If I’d…

And so we come to the final instalment of our Morris Minor project. Of course, cars of this age are never truly finished and unless you store it in a museum there will always be repairs that need doing and improvements that can made, but we have completed virtually everything on our initial list of jobs to do and the Minor is now smart, safe, enjoyable and – hopefully – reliable. You will be able to follow its further progress in our Driver Diary pages, but for now here is a whistle-stop tour of the final jobs carried out this month, some of them planned, but one or two a little more unexpected! Starting with the unexpected, after the initial drive home from the workshop following the bodywork repairs, I…

Will has a collection of Morris Minors. This column follows the maintenance and modification of them for daily use, as well as the long-term restoration of a 1950 Lowlight Tourer from a desert scrapyard in America and a 1970 Morris Van which has been in his family for nearly 40 years. MY FLEET 1950 MORRIS MINOR LOWLIGHT SALOON Owned since 2012 1950 MINOR LOWLIGHT CONVERTIBLE Owned since 2017 1967 MINOR SALOON Owned since 2010 1970 MINOR VAN Owned (by mum) since 1980…

An expat motoring author and journo resident in Vancouver, Iain was unable to resist the opportunities that comprise his fleet of projects, but is also unable to muster the focus, energy or organisational skills to complete them. MY FLEET 1947 BENTLEY MKVI OWNED SINCE: 2015 1957 BENTLEY S1 OWNED SINCE: 2019 1958 CHEVROLET DELRAY OWNED SINCE: 2005 1972 TRIUMPH TR6 PROJECT OWNED SINCE 2019 1974 MINI MARCOS PROJECT OWNED SINCE: 2015 1984 DODGE CAMPERVAN OWNED SINCE: 2009 1990 ROVER MINI COOPER RSP OWNED: since 2016 1992 JEEP CHEROKEE OWNED SINCE: 2006 1992 MAZDA MX5 SUNBURST OWNED SINCE: 2015 199X COBRA REPLICA PROJECT OWNED SINCE: 2007…

We left the Figaro last issue in disgrace, after one of the plastic take-off stubs on the heater had snapped off while I was changing the coolant hoses. I was changing the hoses because one had been nibbled by mice and I didn’t want to take the chance of a hidden pipe being similarly afflicted and bursting at an inopportune moment. This was particularly galling because to change the heater matrix meant removing the entire dash, a job that I had only recently done in order to fit a leather-topped replacement. I’m sure I am not the only one who hates having to repeat a major task so quickly. However, there was nothing for it but to take a deep breath, shut the garage door and put the kettle on,…

Item ID 9203N £54.84 1/2in drive 17mm, 19mm and 21mm 6 point deep metric impact sockets to be used for wheel nuts. Made in chrome molybdenum with a black finish and protective inserts for use on aluminium wheels. Supplied as a set of three. Item ID TT9015HX £209.88 15 piece 3/8in and 1/2in drive hex impact socket bit set. Item ID TT9024 £103.08 24 piece set containing 1/4in drive regular and 3/8in drive regular and deep impact sockets plus an adaptor. Item ID TT9207 £110.28 1/2in drive impact socket accessory set containing extension bars, universal joint and adaptors.…

One the face of it, the Rootes Group’s midrange model offering in the first half of the 1960s seemed a bit odd. There were two model lines – the Hillman Minx and its Singer Gazelle and Sunbeam Rapier equivalents, and then there was the slightly larger Super Minx family – Hillman, slightly upmarket Singer Vogue and an even plusher Humber Sceptre. The Super Minxes were bigger, but not by that much and both ranges shared the same power units and running gear. If you are thinking that this all sounds a bit strange, then that’s because it is! Especially when you consider that the whole Rootes business had grown out of a highly effective sales and marketing operation, and effective sales and marketing was part of the Rootes DNA. To…

For the first time in its 72-year history, a selection of cars from Vauxhall Heritage’s famous collection will be on public display, telling the story of Vauxhall Motors' rise from a niche sporting car manufacturer to one of the UK’s best-known automotive brands. Called Vauxhall – Made in Luton, it opens on 5th September at Stockwood Discovery Centre in Luton, just a stone’s throw from where almost all the exhibits were originally manufactured. The main exhibition will include ten of Vauxhall’s most significant Luton-built cars from the last 115 years, book-ended by the very first model to be produced at the famous Kimpton Road factory – a 1905 7/9hp – to the last passenger car to roll off the line – a 2002 Vectra – before the plant started to…

In 2021 the Jaguar E-type will be 60, and to mark the occasion the Jaguar E-type Club is planning a celebration at Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb to which owners and enthusiasts everywhere are invited. E-type 60 will enjoy plenty of action over two days with competitive timed climbs, cavalcades and demo runs by famous cars and personalities. The 1960s and early '70s will be celebrated with cars, music, dance, film, art and fashion. The E-type Hall of Fame will include 9600 HP, the original Geneva launch press car, and another 1960s star will also be there to celebrate six decades as the Mini Cooper turns 60 then too. It's all taking place on 12th-13th June 2021; see www. etype60.com for more.…

FORD BONANZA ON ISLE OF MAN The Isle of Man Motor Museum hosted its first event of the 2020 season on Sunday 26th July – the Ford Festival and Classic Car Show which celebrated 50 years of the MkI Escort RS1600. There were six Mk1 Escorts in attendance, alongside two MkII Escorts. Also present were a wide variety of Fords ranging from a 1914 Model T all the way through to a 2018 Ford GT and everything in between, including a Model A, Customline, four Capris, MkII and MkIII Cortinas, a Consul and a Prefect. The modern classic Fords were also well represented with a number of Focus ST and RS models, along with Fiesta STs and an Escort Cosworth as well as a pair of MkII Fiesta XR2s. Muscle…

Apart from advancing medical science, it’s hard to think of any remotely positive effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, but at least many of us suddenly had plenty of spare time on our grubby hands. Furloughed, shielded or quarantined, what better opportunity to do some spring cleaning of your house, garage, shed or cardboard box? As it happened, I’d actually started this traditionally annual activity before the virus invaded, but as usual operations had ground to a halt in Shed 1 where the motorcycles live. Sadly, this vaguely organised section had mostly reverted to its natural chaos and I seemed to have less space than ever. Then part of the roof fell off. Moving on, rain was replaced by heatwaves and the government was relaxing lockdown restrictions. Free time was less…

“Ivan has breathed new life into this piece of Ford motoring history and picked up some silverware along the way” When Ivan Calvert left school, he became an apprentice in the commercial vehicle depot at Ford dealers, J E Coulter in Belfast. He learned his mechanical skills on road transport stalwarts such as the Thames Trader, the D Series truck and, of course, the Transit van. Having attended courses at the local technical college and night classes, he made rapid progress, being promoted to foremen when he was just 22 years old. Spending many of his evenings working at home servicing and repairing cars for neighbours and friends, he added to his skills and developed an understanding of the interchangeability of Ford components which would later steer him through the…

Great news this issue – I’ve bought another Allard. Or to be more accurate, my long-suffering wife Jayne has now got one! It all came about after I was sent an email to tell me that there was a Kent registered Allard L for sale on eBay. Naturally I took a look, and it turned out to be the famous rally car, LKR 963, a very late example of the model that was sold in September 1949. The Allard L was the four-seater with well styled Paramount-made wings. The L started it off for Allard in 1946, and a bright red example took part in the famous July SMMT 500 vehicle London Cavalcade that included a number of venerable steam machines and was watched by the Royal family and over…

There were still a few small jobs left over from my initial assessment to be done on the Volvo 340. I had already sorted the exhaust, the wipers, the headlights and a handful of other issues; now my attention turned to the interior. One of the problems to address here was that the mileometer had been working when I started using the car, but had since stopped turning. The speedo was still fine so this was not a major concern, but it would be nice to keep a record of how many miles the car has done, plus any limited mileage insurance policy is going to need it functioning. Having read up on the issue, I knew that this is a common failure on the 340 and was due to…

Last issue I explained the reasons why I’d decided to upgrade my Stag’s driveshafts with modern CVjointed items, and how I got them shipped out from the UK. This issue I’ll get stuck into the job of fitting them, and also a couple of other tasks I decided to add to the list. Both rear brake assemblies required removal prior to withdrawing the old driveshafts, a task that I was becoming familiar with as I had removed both of the rear brake drums to investigate and change a leaky rear brake cylinder with subsequent brake shoe replacement a few months ago. This time, when removing the brake shoes I was careful not to dislodge the brake cylinder pistons, which would allow brake fluid to escape and air to ingress and…

There’s no escaping the fact that if you are armed with a grease gun packed with grease and facing a bunch of potentially blocked grease nipples, this will generally result in lots of mess, swearing and a mental note to find a better way of doing the job next time. Sadly, there’s often no avoiding this task if you want to look after your classic’s moving mechanical components contained within the suspension, steering and drivetrain, as lubricating wheel bearings, balljoints, trunnions and universal joints will help to prevent seizure and premature wear. Having an understanding of what type of grease is required, how much of it should be applied and what to do if it refuses to go in helps to make this routine job more successful. So the following…

‘ In the old days,’ wrote Jeremy Clarkson, ‘Porsches were flawed and a bit flamboyant... You got the impression they were designed by people who understood the whole business of cars.’ What the veteran journalist ignored in this 2008 article is that without the excellent, efficiently-built and pragmatic Boxster, the actual business of Porsche may well not have survived the decade. The 1990s was a period of modernisation for Germany’s industry. In the wake of national reunification, this was much-needed. And while it was an icon of German car making, Porsche was struggling. This flawed and flamboyant marque faced very modern pressures from a looming global recession and a strong national currency. Sensibly, Porsche commissioned a review by people who really understood the whole car business. The result was the…