Innehållsförteckning för August 2021 från Classics World

I remember once reading somebody claim that there is no such thing as bad music, just music that you like and music that you don’t like. You can see where they were coming from. After all, I can’t bear listening to rap music for longer than a few seconds, but my kids seem to actually quite like the stuff. Even making allowances for the fact that I have much better taste than them, they are at least entitled to their own opinions. Thank goodness for headphones is all I can say. It is a similar situation regarding classic cars. After all, we all have our personal favourites, but for every car that holds relatively little interest for us, there will be another enthusiast for whom it is the stuff of…

A new venture for 2021 is the Inter-Club Triumph and MG Weekend, the UK’s largest outdoor Triumph and MG Show, organised jointly by the TR Register, the TSSC and the MG Car Club. It's all taking place at the Three Counties Showground in Malvern on 13th-15th August, and will be a celebration of all things Triumph and MG that also commemorates 90 years since the launch of the Triumph Super 9, 60 years of the Triumph TR4, Herald 1200 and MG Midget, 40 years of the Triumph Acclaim (the last vehicle to wear the Triumph badge), and also a very special anniversary for the MG Zeds, launched 20 years ago in 2001. There will be lots for everyone to do, both car fans and the rest of the family alike.…

Burlen, the world’s sole manufacturer of genuine SU, Amal, and Zenith carburettor brands, has been celebrating 90 years since an SU carburettor was fitted to the new sidevalve Morris Minor, and its subsequent stunt PR vehicle. This was in 1931, and to aid sales it was decided the new model would be offered at a lower price of £100, a price drop that inspired Sir Miles Thomas to come up with an idea to further improve showroom appeal. Morris had often advertised their Cowley as a car that would do 50mph and 50mpg, and Sir Thomas bullishly announced that he would double that with the Minor – the 100mph, 100mpg, £100 (Triple Ton) Minor concept was born. Such an idea would not be allowed in modern times, as the stunt…

We are sad to report that British race and rally driver John Sprinzel has died in Hawaii at the age of 90, after a brief illness. John became one of the best-known drivers of his era despite never racing single-seaters, which didn’t interest him. What he really enjoyed was taking an ordinary production car – ideally small-engined with little or no sporting pretensions – modifying it within the regulations, and then driving the wheels off it in some of the world’s top-flight motorsport events. His giant-killing feats endeared him to the public, while his natural charisma, ready wit and disarmingly self-effacing manner sparkled in front of a camera. It all started in 1955, when he saw an Autosport announcement that entries were opening for the British International Rally. First thing…

It is often reported that when Lord Nuffield first saw a prototype of Issigonis’ Morris Minor, he described it disparagingly as looking like a poached egg. Yet despite his comments, it would go on to be the first British car to reach the magical production figure of one million. In all, around 1.6 million Morris Minors would be made by the time it was discontinued in 1971. Revealed at the 1948 London Motor Show, the Minor established Alec Issigonis as one of the great car designers of all time. It was the right car at the right time for Morris, coming out of war production at a time when 'export or die' was the catch-cry of the government to rebuild the British economy. In all, around 50% of Minors were…

“Having a boyfriend at the age of 17 who had a car was one way to impress your friends!” This story really starts 30 years ago, in 1991 when Ian and Linda first met. They were only 17 at the time, and at college together. Back then, Ian had a Red Mk2 Escort, a 1300 four-door Popular, and was already a confirmed Ford enthusiast. We can blame his family for that – dad had a Ford Anglia and then a Mk1 Cortina when Ian was very young, while his grandad had a Mk5 Cortina that Ian remembers very well. Tellingly, his three brothers also went on to have various Fords. As for Linda, she was yet to be indoctrinated in the ways of the Blue Oval, but as she says:…

After signing off on our Project Shoestring Triumph Acclaim in the June issue having brought it in under budget, I did wonder this month whether I would have to revive the project and admit to breaking the bank. The problem reared its head initially on a local trip when the engine started to run rough and die at idle. Once I’d got out of town and given it a half mile burst of open throttle, everything went back to normal and I put it down to a speck of something being carried by the fuel into the carburettors and causing a short-lived blockage of one jet. Everything was then fine for some time and I put the incident to the back of my mind, but then on a trip to…

Last month saw us throwing caution to the winds and going against all the buying advice we’ve ever received or given by buying a Bentley Turbo R sight unseen online during a national lockdown. As I reported last time, a snapped alternator belt spoiled the party on the Bentley’s first day with us, but with that sorted out and the timeworn 4x4 tyres ditched in favour of a set of the correct Avons, the car was pressed into service. Like most relatively complex cars of the era, these Bentleys really don’t like being left idle, and indeed one piece of advice we received recently from a prominent figure in the Rolls/Bentley parts industry is that for every £1 spent on fuel, you’ll probably save £2 on maintenance. Accordingly, I’ve been…

You really couldn’t make it up – four years after Alec Issigonis and Alex Moulton delivered the Mini which convinced everyone that transverse, front-engined, front wheel drive was a game changer, the venerable Rootes Group introduced a small saloon that contrarily employed the opposite layout. It seems incomprehensible that a company building the ultra-conservative Hillmans and Sunbeams of middle England could pursue such a mad course of action, and then also open its new factory 300 miles from their traditional base. But of course, there was method behind the apparent madness. Conventional wisdom leads you to the 1956 Suez crisis as the pivotal point for UK economy cars. With petrol in short supply, getting maximum mpg was suddenly high on the agenda. This encouraged the unconventional small-engined lightweights of bubble…

MAZDA This little oddity is a 1966 Mazda Carol 360. Built from 1962-1970, it had a four-cylinder, water-cooled, five-main-bearing engine in the back, but incredibly this only swept 358ccs. Mazda also managed to squeeze in four doors from 1963. It was, of course, designed to qualify as a Kei car under Japan's keijidosha regulations, which specified maximum vehicle dimensions, engine capacity and power output in return for tax and insurance concessions, plus parking concessions outside the main urban centres. There was also a Carol 600 version from 1962-1964, which came with a bigger 586cc engine. MG We are now inside the MG factory at Abingdon. Trying to date the picture, those sidelights on the MGAs don't seem to incorporate amber turn signals, which would make them 1500 models, so from…

Beaulieu is calling for everyday cars of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to join its new display, Forgotten Favourites, as part of the award-winning International Autojumble which will return on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th September. Honouring the cars that used to be on every street corner, the display will bring back memories of family holidays, driving lessons, baking hot vinyl seats and beige colour schemes. So is your pre-1990 historic motor the sort of everyday car that is now rarely seen on the roads? Perhaps it’s just like the one you learned to drive in, or reminds you of the car your parents drove back in the day? Then apply to be considered for the display by visiting beaulieu. co.uk/events/internationalautojumble/ forgotten-favourites. Places are limited and show entry is free…

The 60th anniversary of the Jaguar E-type was celebrated in fine style in June as around 400 of them gathered at the historic and spectacular Shelsley Walsh for E-type 60. On the Friday preceding the event, E-type Club co-founder Philip Porter, Chairman of Worcester Civic Society Phil Douce and Motor Sport magazine editor Joe Dunn unveiled a blue plaque in commemoration of the great Stirling Moss first competing at Shelsley Walsh in 1948. Apart from a glut of competition Es including celebrated Lightweights, Low-Drags, the E2A Le Mans prototype and the first two E-types ever raced, the event also played host to an incredible reunion of the 1961 Geneva Motor Show trio (pictured below) – the first time these three cars have been seen together for 60 years! The first…

2.5 TONNE ALUMINIUM AND STEEL QUICK-LIFT JACK Price: £191.98 This is the new Clarke CTJ2500QLGB from Machine Mart, a great 2.5 tonne low entry, height adjustable aluminium/steel garage jack benefiting from a twin piston pump for a quick lift action. Other features include a rubber pad which protects the vehicle underside from damage, and nylon non-marking wheels for quieter movement across the garage floor. It is ideal for use with sports cars thanks to its low 100mm minimum saddle height, rising to a maximum of 465mm. As ever, see www.machinemart.co.uk or visit your local store. ENGINE REBUILD COMPONENTS Price: various Engine Parts (UK) Ltd have been supplying quality engine parts and components for car and van engines for over 30 years. They stock all parts for cylinder head repair including…

Modelled on a 1920s Australian country garage complete with its corrugated iron frontage, walls and roof, Bill and Richard's Morris Minor Garage is located just north of the Victorian country town of Harcourt, about 1½ hours drive from Melbourne. Inside, the private collection includes around 20 Morris Minors, a couple of Holden cars and a pair of 1920s Chevrolets. Among the Minors are five of particular significance. These are a 1956 convertible that was famously used in the Australian TV comedy series Mother And Son, along with possibly the only Minor police panda car in Australia, possibly the only Royal Mail Minor panel van in Australia, and our featured Minor Million – definitely the only one in Australia! There is also a 1928 Morris Minor, which is the oldest in…

With the huge success of cars like the Renault 4 and Renault 5, not to mention later models like the Clio, it is easy to forget that the French company has not always been wedded to the notion of front wheel drive. Naturally enough for a company founded in 1898, the early years were dominated by cars with the engine up front and driving the rear wheels, though a radiator mounted behind the engine did give the cars a distinctive appearance until the end of the 1920s thanks to the resulting coal scuttle bonnet. However, from 1946 until 1972 they also offered a range of rear-engined cars. As Graham Hull explains in this issue’s Marques and Models feature on the Hillman Imp, this layout was considered perfectly normal, even ideal,…

The previous owner of Pimple, the RSP Mini Cooper, did very little maintenance. The brake discs in particular looked pretty grim, so I planned to replace them along with fitting new pads when the suspension cones were changed. However, when the pads came out, I knew I was probably going to have to cough up for a set of new calipers as well. That’s because there was only about 1mm left on the brake pads. I hadn’t bothered checking them because they were going to be replaced anyway, and the dreadful terminal squealing of metal brake pad bases on metal brake discs hadn’t happened yet, but it would have done in another month or two. The big problem here is that by the time the pad material has all worn…

We’re getting there with the Escort, but as ever with a car which has been restored and has fundamentally very little wrong with it, the tasks which end up at the bottom of the to-do list are the small but tedious ones – usually the finishing touches which require obsolete parts or a lot of time spent in diagnosis. One such issue with the XR3i is the cold-start system, which has been disconnected ever since we’ve had the car. Being an earlier XR3i, our car uses the regular Bosch K-Jetronic injection system as found on pretty much every 1980s injection engine. This uses a very simple system to richen up the mixture on a cold start – a thermo-time switch sensor in the cylinder head is connected to a fifth…

ROVER 3500 POOR HOT STARTING Q I have a 1969 Rover P5 3500 Coupé which starts easily from cold and runs well, but if I stop for a short time and then attempt to restart, the engine will just spin over without starting. I need to let the engine cool right down before it will then restart without problems. When this occurred recently, my friend removed the spark plugs to find that they were wet, and after drying them off I was able to start the engine easily again. Why does this only occur when the engine is hot? Ben Foute A I would suspect that the problem is with the float level in the carburettors. Slight wear on the needle valve allows the fuel level to rise above…

You know how sometimes of an evening you get an idea which seems great at the time, but deep down inside you suspect that in the cold light of day it might not seem quite so inspired? In some ways, our latest project car may seem to fall into this camp. It is a 1985 Austin Montego 1.6 estate, and it was bought on a whim by our publisher who, despite being very successful at his day job, is as much of a car nut as you and me and has a very questionable penchant for unfashionable cars from the 1980s. Under normal circumstance that affliction would be broadly manageable, but there is an added dimension in this case which makes it rather more dangerous. Most people, if they floated…

The failed door speakers were repaired when the doors were dismantled to sort out the electric windows, but if I was to be using the car regularly I wanted to add a more modern sound system. Back in 1990, the Blaupunkt Bremen cassette unit was a top-end unit, but its lack of RDS meant constantly retuning the radio, while I also wanted to add a hands-free phone facility. I had a suitable unit sitting in the garage and had assumed that it would be a plug-in replacement using the ISO radio plugs which were standard long before our Bentley was made. But of course, it wasn’t that simple – not only were the earth and power connections wired into a Blaupunkt-specific plug, but the car had also been specified with…

If you are running any kind of Rolls-Royce or Bentley, then Flying Spares is a name you’ll want to remember. The firm can supply everything from recycled used parts to brand new spares for the whole range of Rolls-Royce and Bentley-badged cars, which can make a big difference to the cost of running them, especially if you’re prepared to get stuck in with the spanners for the smaller jobs. Having made its name with the older cars, Flying Spares now covers the modern generation too, and can supply everything you might need to bring something like a tired Continental GT back to life.…

Each year, organisers of the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show, with Discovery challenge the exhibiting clubs and traders to create displays around a suggested theme that they can interpret in their own way. The show also creates feature displays and entertaining stage segments in keeping with the theme. The theme of this year’s show – which will be taking place at Birmingham's NEC from 12th-14th November – has been revealed as ‘The Journey Continues...’ Show Director Lee Masters said: 'We wanted the 2021 show theme to reflect where we all are right now – and that’s continuing our journey. Our lives and hobbies were somewhat put on hold due to COVID, but now, as the government road map unfolds, we can get back on the road in every sense. 'So…

This October marks 40 years since the last Triumph sports car was built, and the TR Drivers Club is marking this anniversary with a relay run across the whole of Britain that will involve all the area groups within the club. They felt that something a little different would be required to act as the baton to be passed between the regions, and so they approached former Triumph stylist John Ashford and asked him to create something unique, special – and also possibly a little historic. The result is this styling sketch for a new Triumph sports car for the modern era that BMW, the present owners of the marque, would be welcome to use for inspiration or production! All previous efforts for a new Triumph style have been completely…

THE MG-ROVER TWINS Please find enclosed a photo of my BL cars – if you could find space to show them in the magazine, it would make my day. One is a 2005 MG ZT 1.8T, which had one lady owner before myself. It is completely original apart from the radio, has covered 44,685 miles and I reckon it is the best MG ZT in Northern Ireland. I've owned it for 14 years, and I drive it every Saturday and Sunday. Its sister is a Rover 75 Connoisseur from 2004, now with 64,585 miles on the clock. It's all ready for its MoT, except I can't get headlamp covers at a reasonable price. I've owned that one for 13 years. George Jackson What a coincidence George, yours is one of…

“In 1962 you could buy a reasonably decent used Jaguar E-type for not much more, so the Ogle was certainly not a cheap motor car” The Ogle SX1000 was a special GRP bodied Mini designed by David Ogle Ltd at their premises in Letchworth, Hertfordshire and launched in 1961. The cars used the floorpan, bulkhead, subframes, steering, engine and transmission from a standard Mini donor. After the upper body structure and the original interior trim had been discarded, a new Ogle-styled two-door coupé bodyshell was bonded in place, then trimmed and fitted out to a very high standard. In period, Ogle SX1000s were exported to Japan, France, Sweden and the USA. Today however just 39 examples of the car remain on the Ogle Register, and at the time of writing…

We would hate to overstay our welcome, so this is going to be the Readers Digest of builds. However, alongside a condensed version of the work, we will also highlight some difficulties we had and the solutions we came up with. Therefore, please do bear with us if we bounce around a little and if an item that is fitted in one picture is no longer there in a later one! Last issue we had the engine rebuilt and the front suspension, brakes and steering back on the car. In the meantime, I had also finished off the paint – the all-important outer panels were done professionally, but I still had to do the interior and underneath. These were jobs I was not looking forward to. In truth most of…

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 1974 MINI MARCOS PROJECT OWNED SINCE: 2015 1990 ROVER MINI COOPER RSP OWNED SINCE: 2016 1992 JEEP CHEROKEE OWNED SINCE: 2006 199X COBRA REPLICA PROJECT OWNED SINCE: 2007 1952 8-LITRE-INSPIRED BENTLEY SPECIAL PROJECT OWNED SINCE: 2010…

Group Editor Group Editor at Kelsey Media, Paul heads up the team which brings you our weekly paper Classic Car Buyer and the monthly Classic Car Mart, as well as being unofficial marshal of the company’s eclectic and ever-changing fleet of classic project cars. Ranging from Honda CRX to Bentley Turbo R, the collection temporarily includes this Escort XR3i, while Paul’s own Alfa Spider has recently been changed after 23 years of ownership for a modern classic in the shape of a Honda S2000. MY FLEET 2003 HONDA S2000  Owned since: 2020 1984 FORD ESCORT XR3I Owned (by Lancaster) since: 2019…

The Mini Clubman has always looked to me like it was sitting a little bit low at the front, and certainly it was lower there than at the back. This is not really surprising even with the low mileage, because during its lengthy years of storage the rubber suspension cones will have been permanently compressed with the weight of the car and the engine/ transmission pushing down on them, and time will always take its toll. As well as looking wrong to my eyes, with the automatic gearbox sump hanging down at the front and looking slightly vulnerable to sleeping policemen, it made sense to get this issue sorted. Since I have never done this job on a Mini before, and also because you need a special tool to compress…

› MD910N £92.28 10-piece screwdriver set for slotted, Phillips and Pozi drive heads. The screwdrivers feature TT-MV PLUS steel blades and ergonomically designed bi-material handles with hanging hole and T drive facility for added torque and comfort. › 6510A £83.88 10-piece metric combination spanner set. The spanners are supplied in a plastic holder for carrying away or fixing on the wall or on a work bench panel. Made from chrome vanadium with a satin finish. › M3812N1 £69.48 A basic no-nonsense 12-piece 3/8in drive set of sockets with an FRP ratchet and an extension bar. The set is supplied in a clip box which stores the sockets and includes a clip rail facility for adding extra sockets.…

One of the first things we’d noticed when the car was delivered was the failed silvering on the mirror fitted inside the rear quarter panel. My 13-year old daughter was particularly aggrieved by it, and although a replacement part would be the ultimate solution, I was curious to see if a quick win could be had. I already had a roll of mirror silver glass film – the kind you see on office buildings – and reasoned that it could be applied to the front face of the mirror to improve its appearance until such time as we could source a replacement. Surprisingly, the plan worked – the mirror is easily removed from its veneered surround and a piece of film was cut to size and applied to the glass…

When Giovanni Michelotti took a Triumph 2000 saloon and created a one-off convertible show car, there were no plans to put it into production until Triumph’s boss, Harry Webster, saw it. Webster was so enamoured of the creation that he insisted Triumph should take it and develop it for production. Initially planned to be launched with Triumph’s straight-six engine, a top of the range model was also planned using a new V8 engine which the company was developing. In the end, the six-cylinder version never materialised. The new model, known as the Stag, was launched in June 1970 and lasted for seven years, with a number of revisions and a modest production run of 25,939 units. The specification of the Stag is reasonably modern by classic standards, with power-assisted rack-and-pinion…

My late best friend and I once went to a world-famous hatter to purchase a Panama hat each. We then wafted back home along the Dorset coast, stopping at a hostelry for refreshment on the way. It was a wonderful, leisurely, middle-aged jaunt, and his XJ6 was the perfect conveyance for the mission. Stuart had an eclectic taste in cars, which he bought with his heart rather than his head. He was a dreamer, whose whims and fancies were expressed by the vehicles in which he disported himself. One of the high points of his car-owning career was the 1995 Jaguar XJ6 which he acquired from a marque enthusiast in Hampshire. Stuart loved it, and so did anyone lucky enough to ride along in it. The Jaguar lent a sense…