Innehållsförteckning för Spring 2023 från Classics World

Mattel is commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Matchbox brand and seven decades of die-cast adventures by introducing a line of special limited-edition vehicles paying tribute to Matchbox’s heritage of inventing highly detailed and realistic vehicles that have inspired generations of kids while remaining a trusted brand for collectors. The celebratory line will include special 70th anniversary die-cast vehicles featured in seven different assortments across the Matchbox range, all honouring the anniversary with special platinum details. Conceived in 1953 by English engineer Jack Odell, a vehicle mechanic for the British Army in World War 2, Matchbox reinvented the toy vehicle category with a revolutionary scale, affordable price and mass availability for consumers. 70 years later, Matchbox toys are planned to be available in 2023 at Tesco, Sainsbury's, B&M Bargain, Morrisons, The…

Price: £113.99-£191.98 Machine Mart have added four new Clarke welders to their existing range as they strengthen their options in the MMA/TIG welding market. The new 120A, 160A and 200A MMA/TIG inverter welders are all ultra-lightweight and portable, ideal for both automotive and general tasks. They feature efficient inverter technology that utilises a high switching frequency that typically allows the welders to be less bulky and better controlled than traditional non-inverter transformer type welders. Prices range from £113.99 to £167.98. The fourth new product in the range is the MIG120-Multi welder. This high quality, multi-functional product combines MIG, MMA and TIG processes into a single unit that is ideal for garage, body shop or general workshop welding. The price for this one is £191.98. Shop in store, or visit www.machinemart.co.uk…

EMAIL: CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK FIND US ON FACEBOOK: THE LATEST FEEDS AT WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/CLASSICSMONTHLYMAGAZINE FOLLOW OUR UPDATES AT WWW.TWITTER.COM/CLASSICSMAG I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for the March 2023 edition, which I've just read. I don't think that in all the years I've been reading classic car magazines (which stretches back to the early 1980s) I have ever had quite so many motoring memories brought back to my mind in one edition. It was literally as if every time I turned a page it brought back another bit of my life history, whether it was the Standard Vanguard Phase 1 that my dad owned back in the early 1960s, the ADO16 that a girlfriend used to have during my late teens, the red Mk1 Ford Capri that was my…

PART 11 Progress on a project is never entirely linear and getting one from 90% to 99% finished (they are never 100% finished!) always seems to take longer than it should. Our Regal really is not very far off though, helped by the fact that it is quite a basic car. It also helps that we elected to disconnect the wiring loom from the engine and leave everything on the bodyshell connected, which has made life a lot simpler now the time has come to hook everything up – the cables have retained their shape and literally show you where they want to go, helped along by the use of standard Lucas colour coding on the cables. There have of course been a few puzzles thrown up along the way.…

The depreciation a new car suffers the moment you drive it out of the showroom can be eyewatering. Of course, if you are rolling in money then that might be irrelevant and you can buy whatever you fancy without having to consider the cost. Other people may have to struggle a bit more to raise the necessary cash, but feel it is worth the effort if it means they can drive the car of their dreams. And then there are those for whom image is everything, people who wouldn't be seen dead in a new Dacia but rejoice in the prestige of having a Range Rover parked on their drive. For classic enthusiasts, this situation opens up a world of possibilities. If you are in the market for a more…

Ask most people what their favourite classic Jaguar is and a decent proportion will say the E-Type. Fair enough, after all, even Enzo Ferrari is said to have described it as ‘The most beautiful car ever made.’ Well I’m not here to pick fights with Italian icons, but I’m not as big a fan as some people. The E-Type’s a lovely thing, make no mistake, but it’s a little effete looking for my taste. In fact, and here comes the heresy bit, I prefer the V12 version with the wider track, flared wheelarches and four exhaust pipes, but I wouldn’t want to own either version. £5100 People sell ‘new’ E-Types for £250,000 these days. The people that buy them spec the car up with fuel-injected engines, massive brakes, fivespeed gearboxes,…

£13,500 The classic car world is full of what ifs. What if Gordon Keeble had been as good at marketing as Jensen? What if British Leyland’s management hadn’t been quite as feckless? And what if the Triumph Stag had lived up to its potential to be a British Mercedes SL rival? TR owners sometimes attack the Stag for being ‘too soft,’ but they’re missing the point. The Stag was never supposed to be a rival to the TR6 – it was in the same model line-up for goodness sake – it was pitched straight at the Merc SL. And with its handsome lines and overhead cam V8 engine, on paper at least it was an absolute winner. So why did Mercedes go on to win countless Formula 1 Constructors Championships,…

£5000 What’s the appeal of a huge car with an engine big enough to power a small naval craft? Well, maybe some of it is related to captaining a ship. And the good ship BMW 7-Series is a fine vessel in many respects, especially in second generation flavour, known by BMW and countless fans since as the E32 model. Launched in 1986 as the Munich firm’s flagship model and designed as a direct competitor to Merc’s S Class and Jag’s XJ6, the E32 was available in long wheelbase and even longer wheelbase versions (I and iL), and was ahead of the pack when it comes to what was then new tech. It debuted many bits of kit we take for granted these days – ABS, traction control, HID projector headlights…

£11,800 Football managers often talk of their players being brave. I’m not suggesting that leaving your goalmouth and trying to grab the ball that a 6ft 4in striker is trying to kick doesn’t require some courage, but have these guys ever considered buying a Maserati Biturbo? That require some serious stones. I mean, would you be barking bonkers to buy a 1980s mass produced Italian car built by a cottage industry manufacturer with no idea how to mass produce things? Possibly, but you still want one, don’t you? And so you should. The Biturbo, which later morphed into the Ghibli, was a radical departure for the Italian supercar builder. They’d spent a lot of time making cars that found too few buyers, and hence decided it was time to build…

£11,700 It’s a Daimler, actually.’ Practice saying it, because you’ll need to be able to do it without getting flustered. But this is the only downside of owning a Daimler V8-250 over the same car with a Jaguar badge and an XK six pot engine. A Mk2 Jag is a great car, but with a Daimler 2.5-litre hemi V8 up front, I’d argue it’s even better. Never forget that Jaguar themselves, having bought Daimler in 1960, fitted a MkX Jag with the 4.5-litre version of the V8 and lapped the Motor Industry Research Association’s (MIRA) test track at 133mph average speed – quicker than the Jag-engined version could manage. Sadly, a Daimler V8- 450 never made production. It would have been a hell of a car, and I imagine the…

The word ‘labyrinthine’ best describes the story of the Dolomite family. It is a narrative that encompasses different body lengths, two or four doors, a myriad of engine choices, and both front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive. It also breaks new ground, the 1300 being the first FWD Triumph and the Sprint with its innovative 16-valve engine once being lauded as the British sports saloon du jour. As a result, the range often serves as a reminder of when Triumph aspired to be the UK’s answer to BMW or Lancia. Standard-Triumph initiated the Ajax project (that would eventually become the Dolomite family) in 1962 as a Herald replacement, but by 1964 and with the arrival of the more powerful 1200 having boosted Herald sales, they decided the Ajax project should take a more…

Those production figures quoted above are correct – nearly 3.6 million rear-engined Skodas were produced from 1964 to 1990. Surely 3.6 million buyers couldn't all be wrong? Of course there were fewer buyers than that because many were repeat customers, buying a new one every few years during that 26- year run. Plus, in its native Czechoslovakia there was admittedly a limited choice of cars for sale in its price range. If you look at communist-era photographs of Prague traffic, you will see plenty of Skodas and a few Wartburgs, Ladas, Moskvitches, Polski-Fiats (FSOs), Zaporozhets, Volgas and maybe the odd Zastava or Warsawa. Western-built cars were few indeed. However, many Skodas were sold in Western Europe, where they were very competitively priced. Here in the UK, Skoda jokes became popular…

If you were presented with a car in similar condition to the one above, would you consider restoring it? And I should add that the rust you can see here is indicative of the general condition, but by no means the worst spot. You won’t find a trace of rust on the boot floor simply because there is no floor left in the boot – it has rotted away entirely and all you’ll see are your feet poking out from underneath what remains of the rear bumper. Surely this is fit only for the crusher? After all, it is ‘only’ a Triumph 2000 saloon, a lovely and highly useful model to be sure, but hardly a high value item. Certainly you could go out tomorrow and buy a lovely car…

Silverstone's auction at Race Retro created some truly astonishing world records in a sale that saw £6.6million traded across the auction floor. Most remarkable of all was lot 508, a Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 that sold for a mind-boggling £596,250. The previous world record figure paid for a Ford Sierra Cosworth at auction was £132,750 last year. The winning bid for this car was 30 times its original 1987 showroom price of £19,950, and over four times the previous record. Other record breakers were HRH the Duke Edinburgh's Land Rover 110 which sold for £123,750, the 1966 Lotus Elan S3 Drophead Coupé used in TV's The Avengers that made £164,250, the ex-Jochen Rindt Lotus Elan S4 FHC which sold for £65,250, a 2000 Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R V-Spec Tommykaira R-S which…

No fewer than 54 Standards and Triumphs gathered at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon on 10th February as part of this year's Drive Your Triumph Day to celebrate the birthday of Sir John Black, the driving force behind the Standard Motor Company throughout the 1930s and then Standard-Triumph in the postwar period until 1954. The day is promoted by Rye Livingston of the Triumph Travelers Sports Car Club in Northern California, and photos from across the world are then posted online. The oldest car to turn up to the Gaydon celebration was a Triumph 10/20 and the youngest a 1983 Acclaim (both pictured below). The museum also brought out their 1936 Standard Speedline and (celebrating its 50th anniversary) the last Dolomite Sprint off the line for participants to park between…

I've just noticed in the latest issue you have a project Vanden Plas 1.7 on the go, which leads me to the Austin Allegro that celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Launched in 1973, this new car from Austin was to have a whole new character. Although I don't own one of the early ones with the Quartic wheel, I do have a posh Vanden Plas 1500 in Reynard Metallic which I have owned for the past 15 years. She came from one careful owner in Wigan – it's always a good find when you can say that you are only the second owner, music to every buyer's ears! Unlike many BL cars, she has survived the dreaded rust due mainly to being garaged and looked after by her first…

The Morris Minor in all its various guises – saloon, Tourer, timberframed Traveller estate, van and pick-up – will need little introduction. With a production run lasting from 1948 until 1972, for generations of Brits they were an ever-present element of the street furniture. By the end of December 1960, over a million of them had been built, the first British car to reach this milestone and a source of great pride to the company. The plug was finally pulled on the convertible Tourer in 1969, the saloon in 1970, the Traveller in 1971 and the commercial variants in 1972, but even then some people were not willing to say goodbye. Such was the affection in which the model was held that a handful of brand new cars were built…

PART 9 Imust admit that I was becoming tired of having to attach my battery-operated tyre inflator to the front tyres of our BGT every time I needed to use the vehicle, and my neighbours were probably also getting fed up with the noise of its small compressor. The last straw came when the nearside front tyre went almost flat overnight. Plus, while the rear tyres retained their pressures, the 2009 date stamps on the sidewalls meant they were well past their use-by dates. A trip to my local garage, MJ Motors, saw me helping to replace the rear tyres, but also to remove the front tyres from their wheels and clean up the alloy. It’s a time-consuming job and, along with replacing the front and rear registration plates, a…

PART 5 The last write-up of the Land Rover project saw us remove the cylinder head from the engine, which had stopped running despite an abundant supply of both petrol and sparks. We still have not discovered why it had decided to stop working, but since we wanted to carry out some work on the engine anyway, we decided that resolving this issue could be shelved for now, and that we could return to it once the engine was overhauled and back together. Not that there was anything fundamentally wrong with the engine, and it was in need of a freshen up rather than a rebuild. Cylinder compression was a little low, but not worryingly so, and even compression numbers across the four cylinders suggested an engine with a fair…

Austin – ah yes. They made bread and butter cars at affordable prices for so-called ordinary folk. Or did they? Well, most of us remember cars like the A35, and the Cambridge (with or without Farina flavouring) has long been a stalwart of the classic scene. The Princess/ Ambassador may not be quite as popular, but I’ve long had a soft spot for the Hydrolastically suspended wedge, and say what you like about the Metro, it saved BL’s financial bacon back in the day, even without a five-speed gearbox. So what’s this hoofing great Bentley doing here with an Austin badge on it? Back in the 1940s large corporations weren’t run by committees or influenced by focus groups – they were controlled by heads of industry, and in Austin’s case…

Happy memories are what classic cars often elicit, and if yours involve politicians or royalty, the P5B will almost certainly factor in them too. From Harold Wilson to Margaret Thatcher the flagship Rover – originally in straight-six powered form – ferried heads of state around long after it had left production in 1973. The B in our title stands for Buick, which is where that most British of V8 engines came from. The P5 entered production in 1958, powered by Rover’s 3-litre straight-six with overhead inlet valves and side-valve exhausts. It makes you wonder why they bothered with such a complex arrangement really, but as was often the case in the British motor industry, there just wasn’t the money available to develop a proper OHV unit. This soldiered on until…

Nine thousand pounds is a lot of money, so why not spend it on something really special that will make you happy? £9100 What does nine grand buy you these days? Well, about a third of a new 1-litre Ford Focus Ecoboost, a two week stay at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai and the way things are going, enough heating oil to keep a family of four in a three bed semi warm for an entire year. But the good news is that the Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit not only has a great heater, but also air conditioning. And on top of the climate control, it has a British designed and built 6.75-litre all-alloy V8 engine. Rumours abound about the Rolls L Series V8 being a Cadillac in disguise.…

£14,500 Awhole Aston Martin for less money than a professionally rebuilt DB5 engine – how did that happen? Well, it’s all a question of numbers. Stick with us, we’re not just making cheap jokes (we are making cheap jokes, but we’re also doing something else). There are roughly 300 Aston Martin DB5s left in the world, whereas the British company built in excess of 7000 DB7s, a good proportion of which still exist. And even if only half those DB7s are still around, that’s a lot of Aston coupés swilling around the various For Sale sites. And even with our basic understanding of economics, we can tell you that if there’s a good supply, the price will fall. Of course, there are other reasons the 1990s Aston is so cheap,…

£33,500 So you were thinking of buying a Citroën DS but it isn’t quite oddball enough for you. And you wanted something a little more hand made, a tad more luxurious, something that these days would no doubt be listed under Artisan Car Makers, or a Craft Car. Then please allow me to introduce the Bristol 403, our most expensive offering in this feature. Bristol was an aeroplane manufacturer, and a particularly important one during WW2, with the Beaufighter being heavily used by both the RAF and USAAF. In the post war era Bristol was repaid, in part at least, for its wartime contribution by a visit to the former BMW factory, now in Soviet controlled East Germany. It came home with the design drawings for a straight-six engine and…

Manufactured between 1958 and 1967, the compact two-door Austin A40 Farina was seen as a major improvement over the now cute-looking A35 that it replaced, thanks largely to Italian Battista Farina’s design house, Pininfarina, being commissioned to style it into a then modern two-box shape. Unfortunately the running gear wasn’t updated in the same way and instead was taken from its predecessor, so there was no synchromesh in first gear, a modest 34bhp 948cc A-series engine under the bonnet that drove the rear wheels, a steering box, and drum brakes all round operated by a part-hydraulic and partmechanical system. Initially available as a twodoor saloon with a small dropdown bootlid, a Countryman was launched in 1959 that marked the beginning of the hatchback era with, in this case, separate upper…

Andrew reflects on 20 years of owning the 1989 BMW 730i that he bought for £560 Ibought F262 OVL, my 1989 BMW 730i, one evening 20 years ago from Bawtry Motor Auctions, an establishment that was well known as a last chance saloon for various bangers clinging to an MoT. This one, a rare manual version, was an absolute cracker, though. It looked straight and original, fired up first time and edged through the hall sounding just as it should. I won it, paid up and drove home. It was also totally fine whistling down the A1 at a steady 70mph. By then I’d started using Parkside BMW in Worksop, so I took it over and up on the ramp it went. What was wrong with it? Absolutely nothing. Dampers,…

GOT A STORY TO SHARE? EMAIL IT TO CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK OR POST IT TO CLASSICS MONTHLY NEWSDESK, KELSEY MEDIA, THE GRANARY, DOWNS COURT, YALDING HILL, YALDING ME18 6AL The MG and Triumph Spares Day brings together two marques that were formerly the most bitter of rivals, but whose rivalry has mellowed somewhat on the classic scene. And so it should have because the two really have more in common than they have that divides them, including this year both celebrating their centenaries. At Stoneleigh, there were some very interesting cars on display among all the parts and garage paraphernalia for sale. The first to catch our attention was the TR7 Tracer (above) of TR Drivers Club chairman Chris Turner. The only surviving Tracer from two built by Crayford as a proposed…

HERO-ERA have announced their youth-focused Rally for the Ages, which is designed to encourage younger people into historic rallying as an extension of their youth policy. The oneday rally will run from Bicester Heritage on 3rd June and in line with HERO-ERA’s policy of encouraging the young and the newbies into the sport, crews with a combined age of less than 70 years at the time of the rally will be eligible for a full refund of the entry fee. HERO- ERA’s Arrive and Drive fleet of classic rally cars is available to hire for the totally carbon neutral event (all emissions on all HERO-ERA events are offset through the NET-HERO carbon offset programme). Details are on the website, with full rally regulations and entry having opened on 1st March.…

The inaugural 2022 Hagerty Hill Climb was such a success that it returns to the iconic Shelsley Walsh Hill Climb for two days of action on the 27th and 28th May, lining up some of the country’s finest road and competition cars alongside legends of Group B and WRC rallying. A rarely seen collection of motorsport stars will take to the hill, including an Audi Sport Quattro, an ex-Tony Pond MG Metro 6R4, Petter Solberg’s Subaru Impreza and a Ford RS200, all of which will perform fast and furious demonstration runs. Other confirmed rally stars include a Group B Ferrari 308 GTB, Lancia 037 and BMW E30 M3 along with a Group A Ford Escort Cosworth and Mitsubishi Lancer. A rare Ford Escort 1700T and an RS200 will also be…

DO YOU HAVE A PRODUCT OR SERVICE YOU’D LIKE FELLOW CLASSIC CAR ENTHUSIASTS TO KNOW ABOUT? GET IN TOUCH BY EMAILING: CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK Price: Various  Original quality leaf springs for MG, Triumph and Austin-Healey models are now in stock at British Motor Heritage. They fully match the quality and specification of the original items, and are even made on the original tooling wherever possible. The springs are exclusively manufactured in conjunction with GB Springs Ltd, a UK-based business with full access to the original specifications. They are batch tested to ensure the required standards are maintained, and carry the BMH logo as confirmation of the quality and level of fit. The extensive stock of springs covers most versions of the following models: ● MGB ● MGC ● MG Midget/Austin-Healey Sprite ●…

PART 2 Last issue, Wayne Cherry told as about the XVR and SRV concept cars. Now we move on to discuss Silver Bullet, Black Magic, Silver Aero and Equus, and that means going back to October 1974 when, among the exhibits on the Vauxhall stand at the Earl’s Court Motor Show, was a sports hatch estate. What the admiring public were blissfully unaware of was that back at Vauxhall’s Design HQ there was an even more outrageous version called Silver Bullet, with glistening opalescent paintwork and extra add-on goodies. First there was the graduated silver and shadebanded paintwork to give the right high gloss finish and the illusion of additional length. Up front the nose cone boasted a six light cluster headlamp system and a deep chin spoiler with an…

PART 2 My introduction to this Allegro had been a 200-mile run, which is not my preferred way of getting to know a new purchase. As detailed last issue though, there were some mitigating circumstances that made me willing to give it a go. And generally it was not too bad, although I did note that the engine felt surprisingly gutless, the automatic gearbox could not be persuaded to kick down a ratio even if you mashed the accelerator into the carpet, and the brakes felt very wooden. The brakes were obviously the main concern, especially after an emergency stop when I had to put all my weight on the pedal and still only just stopped in time. After this I pulled over at the earliest opportunity to investigate, and…

PART 3 Last month we stripped down our side-damaged 1998 Z3, found that there was no serious structural damage and located some replacement panels, namely a passenger door, a mirror casing (well, a broken mirror with a good casing) and a pair of decent sills. I’d temporarily fitted the door to get the gaps correct before removing the 10mm through bolts on the hinges and lifting the door off. Be warned – they’re heavy. Now we had to get them repaired and painted. A good used rear wing would have made the job a lot easier, but the chances of finding a rust-free pre-facelift Z3 rear wing are about as close to zero as you can get. Don’t even ask how much a new one is, but it’s more than…

I’d love to say that Ursula Andress emerging goddess like from the Caribbean sea, dripping wet in a white bikini, is my over-riding early memory of James Bond films, but it’s actually a white car. We didn’t get to the cinema much when I was a kid, but for my 12th birthday dad took me to see The Spy Who Loved Me where I fell in love not with Barbara Bach, but the Lotus Esprit. Its dramatic chiselled wedge profile is still striking today, but in late 1970s depression-ravaged Britain it was a revelation. I remember thinking it must have been built specially for the movie, but of course it had actually been released by Lotus a year earlier, as a replacement for the Europa. The usual Lotus construction method…

What links Donna Summer, Bruce Lee and Richard Nixon’s speech writer? Well they all, along with Madonna and me, love the Mercedes W107/R107 SL. (By the way, when I say Madonna and me, I’m not sure she knows I share her passion.) Confused about W107 and R107? Don’t be, because they are the same thing. All Mercs used to have a W number, but at some point during 107 production the SL lost it and got an R instead. It could have been worse – at one point the R107 range included a 450SL 5.0. It was years before Mercedes saw sense and renamed it the 500SL. £20,300 SL is a very special designation to anyone with an interest in Mercedes, or indeed general motoring history. And while this isn’t…

£13,900 (£19,500 for Pallas spec) It takes a supreme sense of confidence in your product to name it the Goddess, but with the DS Citroën could claim to have elevated the car to an art form, if not quite a deity. Just look at it, and remember that when it was launched in 1955, Austin’s competitor was the A50 Cambridge. If Back To The Future had been made in the 1960s rather than the ’80s, Michael J Fox’s character would have driven a Citroën DS, there's no question about it. At the 1955 Paris Motor Show, the DS didn’t just raise a few eyebrows – it genuinely stunned its audience. It also set a new benchmark for automotive design in the postwar, space-age era, introducing engineering and aesthetic breakthroughs that…

In 1978 the Porsche 928 looked so futuristic that it could well have driven straight off the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Everyone from engineers to designers applauded Porsche’s efforts to design a replacement for the rear-engined, air cooled 911. Porsche had been working on doing this for some years, and it’s only now with the benefit of hindsight that we know they were trying to solve a problem that didn’t really exist. £12,800 But the 928 is a much more practical, more usable and massively more affordable Porsche than its rear-engined older brother. And it's equally happy cruising along a motorway as it is going to the local shops. As for replacing the 911, well we all know that it didn’t. As early as the late 1960s the…

£10,600 BMC, BL, Austin Rover, Rover… flatline. Is it a sorry tale, or one of historical success for a company which at one time built nearly 40% of the UK’s cars? That really depends on whether your glass is half full or half empty, but what we can agree on is that, whatever the name at the time, the company made some great cars and some not so great ones. But did they ever make anything quite as left field as the 4-litre R? Certainly no other manufacturer has the honour of building a mass produced car with a Rolls- Royce engine, aside from Rolls itself of course. Vanden Plas stared life as a coachbuilder, which was bought by Austin in 1946 and so found itself swallowed into the gargantuan…

1100 We'll kick off with this Fiat 1100, or the Nuova 1100 to give it its full name as there had been a previous 1100 E. This Nuova came with the project code 103, and featured all-new unibody construction when introduced in 1953. This one looks to us like a facelift car from 1956 though, and a top of the range TV (Turismo Veloce) model judging by the two-tone paint and those rectangular driving lights below the headlights. One frustrating thing with the B&W press pictures of this era is that it is impossible to tell what those paint colours would have been, but judging by the flashy whitewall tyres, we can assume it must have been quite a jolly combo. The 1100 continued with numerous updates until the Fiat…