Innehållsförteckning för Spring 2024 från Classics World

The big news this issue has to be our special feature starting on p55, looking at 20 of the very best classics you can buy. So how did we whittle it down to just 20? In all honesty it came down largely to a mixture of personal preference, seeking a range of price points, the desire to showcase something different and a little dash of the intangible ‘it just feels right’… We certainly can’t claim there was a whole lot of science behind the process, but isn’t that pretty much how our enthusiasm for all classics is fuelled? After all, I’ve said more than once that investing huge amounts of time and money into restoring or running a classic makes little objective sense, but we do it just the same…

It would be fair to say that the Frégate endured a problematic career. For one thing, the development time before it debuted at the Paris Motor Show in October 1950 was limited. Shortly afterwards, the Minister of Defence informed La Regie’s chairman, Pierre Lefaucheux, of a ban on introducing new models starting on 1st January 1951. To make matters even more challenging, the government planned to requisition the new Flins factory to cope with their military demands in Korea and Indochina. Renault planned to hurry the Frégate’s introduction, hoping that a positive reaction would cause the government to abandon its scheme. It was, after all, a handsome six-seater with contemporary looks, excellent brakes and an all-independent suspension. Unfortunately, the early models suffered from body vibrations, while the 2-litre ‘big four’…

Gordon’s driving and testing for Triumph was all-encompassing, which meant that he drove not only the models being developed for production, but everything else besides. Being a development engineer, he was also responsible for setting them up to ensure they handled and behaved as well as possible. He regularly drove the cars to stylist Giovanni Michelotti in Turin, and collected the finished products to drive them back too. On top of that, he tested and set up the race and rally cars in his second role as Deputy Competitions Manager. As part of the celebration of Triumph in its automotive centenary year of 2023, I was delighted to have recorded a full interview with Gordon. ‘I started in the service department as an apprentice doing things like rebuilding Tiny Lewis’s…

VAUXHALL PA CRESTA Back in the 1950s, Vauxhall released a car that looked like an Eddie Cochran song on wheels. Will Holman asks: can you imagine the firm being so adventurous today? Staid, boring but dependable Vauxhall, right? Wrong. 1954’s Cresta E was a big step up for the Luton firm in terms of appointments and styling, but it was the PA that captured the Zeitgeist perfectly three years later. The new model became a symbol of rebellion and style, and with its sleek lines, distinctive tail fins and undeniable rock ‘n’ roll vibe, quickly became a favourite among enthusiasts and rebellious spirits alike. The Vauxhall PA Cresta made its debut in 1957, at a time when rock ‘n’ roll music was taking the world by storm and the young…

Last month we were talking about my green 318Ti that has had some mild reconstructive surgery in the rear sill area - and what a marathon that was. At the end of the first session of cutting and prepping for new metal, I swept up and retrieved a few bits of the old sills and it shows just how rubbish ‘MoT standard’ welding can be and how the description ‘solid’ can mean very little. Yes, this was ‘solid’ until you really went at it with a hammer and screwdriver. Day after day, the job of making up sections from 18 gauge steel, trying to use tin snips (forget it), running out of cutting discs, lying under the car fitting, measuring, shaping, trying again and again wore very thin. Even when…

The first few months with any old car can be very frustrating, partly because it takes time to discover all of its frailties and foibles, but also because very often things start to go wrong when they are pushed back into service after what could be many years of relative inaction. That was certainly the case with the Reliant Robin because, having investigated a fuel supply issue last time around, I enjoyed several trips out in it without any apparent problems. Then one day I was about to set off when the day was still gloomy and was surprised at how little light the headlights were throwing onto the drive. I’d not driven it at night yet, but I now realised that the headlights were not working on either dip…

PART 3 All you need is a spark, an air/fuel mixture and compression. Suck, squeeze, bang, blow and bosch - a running engine. Well that’s the theory, anyway. Let’s see whether we can match it up with the practice. Our 1989 VW Jetta GTI is the later 16-valve version, so it’s well worth getting it. up and running, because with 136bhp and 1231b.ft of torque it should have absolutely no problem keeping up with modern traffic. But first we need to put a fuel tank in it. It did come with one fitted, obviously, but the steel wire that holds the float onto the petrol gauge sender unit had rusted through while the car was laid up, and the float was rattling around in the bottom of the tank. I…

The Porsche 924 narrative commenced three years after the 1969 introduction of the Volkswagen-Porsche 914. Porsche devised the new car to succeed the 914 on a Consultancy basis for VW’s Audi subsidiary, whose CEO Rudolf Lelding commissioned the design. The criteria for Project EA425 (EA standing for Entwicklungsauftrag or ‘development commission’) were that it should be frontengined, have rear seats capable of accommodating two children and have good luggage space. It should also use as many existing components as possible. EA425 was a three-door coupé using VW’s Type EA831 two-litre inline four-cylinder water-cooled engine. There was a trio of final proposals for EA425’s exterior from Richard Soderberg, Dawson Sellar and Harm Lagaay. VW chose the last-named, but combined with Soderberg’s idea of a large glass hatchback, while Hans Braun devised…

Over 130 cars, motorcycles and automobilia packed Anglia’s auction catalogue at the end of January, the most notable inclusions being a host of barn finds covered in dust and cars that had been in storage for a period of time, real time-warp specials that would make great projects and be good fun to recommission. Of course these were just the tip of the iceberg, and there was a strong field of tidy other modern classic attention grabbers also entering the sales halls. 1994 Ford Mustang 3.8 - £2700 Okay, looks-wise it doesn’t stir anything like the same passion as the classic Mustangs of old, but at this money, it‘s undoubtedly a cheap way to get into prancing horse ownership and you can quite legitimately go online and buy the relevant…

GOT A STORY TO SHARE? EMAIL IT TO CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK OR POST IT TO CLASSICS WORLD NEWSDESK, KELSEY MEDIA, THE GRANARY, DOWNS COURT, YALDING HILL, YALDING ME18 6AL The sale of a nondescript tract of land near a settlement between nothing and nowhere was the unlikely catalyst for a series of events that led to the chance discovery of one of the world’s largest ever automotive barn find treasure troves. It belonged to the late Oom Louis Coetzer, and with this latest discovery bringing the total number of cars now known to have been owned by him to more than 600 vehicles, it cements Coetzer’s place in history as amassing the biggest individual car collection ever chronicled in that country. The find will be going under the hammer at the end…

LETTERS Your editorial in the March issue struck a chord as a few years ago I celebrated 50 years of car ownership by collating photos of all the cars I have owned to create a photobook. Every picture tells a story, but as they are probably of more interest to me than to your readers, I made a collage of all the cars to use as the front cover of the book and I attach a picture of that. Apart from my early student years, there have always been two cars, often three and for five years four cars. I guess all would be classed as ’unexceptional,’ as for many years one of them had to sensible, the other usually a soft top. The highlights for me are: My first…

READERS’ CARS MGA MKII COUPÉ Back in 2013, David Halliday acquired a rare MGA, one of only 206 RHD home market MkII Coupés. It was an MG with a fascinating history and one that was ripe for taking to the next level. 199 EOK began life as a standard car, dispatched from the MG factory on 14th September 1961 and first registered in Birmingham. ’I’d always wanted an MGA and loved the lines of the Coupé. They are just absolutely gorgeous-looking,’ said David. ’When I was at university at Melbourne in Australia, I wanted to trade my MG Midget in for an MGA Coupé, but sadly I couldn’t quite afford it.’ When David got this MGA in February 2013, it hadn’t really been driven for 22 years but its history…

The Regal, thanks in part of course to Only Fools and Horses with their infamous Reliant Regal Supervan III, is such a recognisable shape that you cannot approach one without all sorts of preconceived notions, so the hardest thing can be to stop, look on it as a car like any other that’s designed to do a job, and assess it on how well it does that. Obviously it is not quite like any other car, but my point is that it really helps if you can approach it with an open mind. However open your mind might be though, there is no getting away from the unusual three-wheeled configuration, with a single wheel up front and a more conventional layout at the back. Others did something similar over the…

AUDI QUATTRO An Audi Quattro, but which one - the 80? The 90? The Coupe? None of the above, says Will Holman, it’s the Ur Quattro that you want. I was lucky enough to own a Quattro back in the days when they were a cheap secondhand car, and about 20 years ago I rang the local Audi dealer trying to buy a part for it. The dealer asked me which car I had. I told him it was a Quattro. ‘Which one?’ he replied. ‘The one,’ I told him. He asked whether it was an 80 or a 90. I tried to explain that it wasn’t either, it was simply the original Audi Quattro. I wanted to tell him it was also the reason he had a job in…

Last time, I introduced one of my two Rovers, the 827 Coupè. As you can see, the other Rover is also green, but that is pretty much where the similarity ends. The P6 is often referred to as ‘the last proper Rover.’ I don’t really like that term because it can be applied to just about every post-war Rover, but then again the P6 was the last car to be designed by an independent Rover, so I guess that gives it some justification. Anyway, some of you may recognise OFL 134J because I covered the story of its discovery and return to the road in this magazine some six years ago. To recap in brief, it spent its first 23 years on Jersey (as J4490) before being bought in 1994…

BUYING GUIDE With its mixture of 1960s style, solid build and rugged mechanical components, the Volvo Amazon – or 120 series to give its proper name – makes a very practical classic which is eminently capable of being pressed into daily service. That doesn’t mean it won’t need suitable care and attention. After all, the design first saw the light of day in the 1950s and rugged though it may be, it’s still a 1950s car underneath. Launched in 1956 as the Volvo 120 Series, the Amazon tag was used only in Sweden after motorbike maker Kriedler objected to Volvo’s original name of Amason as they had registered it themselves. Elsewhere the car kicked off the threedigit naming convention used by Volvo until the late 1990s. That doesn’t stop most…

Where it all began The Centre-Steer was built in October 1947 to try out various concepts for the forthcoming new vehicle. The central steering position betrayed the agricultural aspirations Rover had for the model initially, mimicking as it did the driving position of a tractor. It also of course made it unnecessary for the company to produce both LHD and RHD versions, but was rather impractical on the road and did not make it beyond this prototype stage. The influence of the wartime Jeep in this prototype is clear, not least in the bodywork at the rear and the 80in wheelbase, but it was simplified for Land Rover production with flatter and more easily worked panels. HM Coastguard fleet We don’t have much information with this wonderful image and as…

FORGOTTEN HERO Based on an earlier concept, the forward thinking A2 broke cover in late 1999 and went on sale here in 2000. Clever and classy, its elegant yet accommodating high roof line, big glass area and the fact that it was an Audi served to tempt buyers who might have otherwise bought a more mundane Polo, Punto or Peugeot 206. The fact that most were supplied as gadgetladen SE models proved the icing on the cake for many. It came with three engine options: the 75bhp 1.4 MPi, the punchy three-cylinder 1.4 TDi and the more sporty 110bhp direct petrol injection 1.6 FSi (from 2002). All three are rapid and incredibly frugal thanks to the Audi’s lightweight aluminium spaceframe and body panels. Indeed, one of Audi’s sales slogans was…

FLYING SPUR PROJECT PART 5 Last month’s ’quick job’ of replacing a failed ignition coil may have turned into a marathon involving removal of the entire inlet manifold, but with the mighty W12 engine back on a dozen cylinders and the bonus of a complete set of new spark plugs, the car was running nicely. This seemed like an ideal time to address some of the other issues picked up during our initiai assessment at Rolls/Bentley specialist Nigel Sandell, one of which was the front brakes coming up for replacement. Brakes With the wheels off for the inspection, technician Jonny O’Neill had noticed that the front discs were worn and although they still looked pretty hefty to me, this is one of those things where specialist Continental knowledge comes in…

Many thanks for featuring my Daimler Double-Six adventures in the Letters pages of April’s magazine, it was great to see my story in print! Turning over the page, I was then delighted to find a letter from Maurice Hardy regarding the Mk1 Astra featured in your February issue.l well remember Maurice as the motoring scribe on our local paper, The Gloucester Citizen, and I too recall Haines & Strange and Skipper of Gloucester as being our local Vauxhall dealerships back then. Like Maurice, I much preferred the crisp, fresh styling of the Mk1 Astra to the anonymous blob which became the Mk2, but 40 years on, I think it’s easy to forget just how revolutionary these cars had seemed when new. Superseding the dull-as-ditchwater HC Vivas and Mk2 Escorts, 1980’s…

I first got to know about Leyland’s P76 when my wife Sue and I lived in Australia from 1986-1988. I was training as a commercial pilot and we needed an inexpensive car because we didn’t have much of a budget. Looking at what was available, we found things like Ford Falcons and Holden Kingswoods, but they were all quite tatty for the kind of money we had. Then we found a car that we’d never even heard of – a Lneyland P76. It turned out that the P76 was a model many Aussies treated with disdain, and that helped to keep prices low. The one we found for sale was green and had a V8 engine – I quite liked the idea of a V8 as I’d never had one…

Have you ever tried to compile a list of your all-time top 10 classics? I know that I’ve given it a go on several occasions, and each time I’ve come up with a slightly different selection. That is why, on the list of cars that I’d buy if I ever won big on the lottery, there were always one or two that were allocated temporary status, occupying slots that I could change on a regular basis. The idea behind this was that I could then sample more of my dream cars without the overall collection growing too unwieldy and to the point that there were not enough days in the week to enjoy them all. We’ve had a similar problem with this feature, and that’s despite doubling our car count…

This issue I’m going to bring you up to date with the Austin 1300GT project. You may remember that this was essentially a very sound car - for an AD016! However, it had been butchered in one or two places, most noticeably the heel board area. There was also some rot in the front and back ends of the sills, and floor repair panels had been pop-riveted over the tops of the original floors to join them to the sills. The panel design is a little unusual here on the 1100/1300 range in that the floorpan folds up to effectively form the inner sill inside the car, joining with the outer sill along the top flange under the doors. There is then a Z-shaped joining panel underneath that connects the…

PART 6 Having cut a hole in the nearside front floorpan last issue and bought a complete half-floor replacement panel for just £65 from Ricambi Fiat 500 Spare Parts, I now had to decide how much of the new metal to use. It was tempting to consider replacing the whole panel, but that would have reguired a great deal of structural dismantling of the shell, so I decided to replace only the rusted section. I cut the replacement panel slightly oversize for the hole in the floor so that I could drop it in from above and weld the overlap rather than butt welding. One problem I had was that I didn’t have any clamps that would reach over the sill to hold the new and old panels tightly together.…

BUYING GUIDE In a world obsessed by SUVs, battery range and the colour of the Crit’Air sticker in your windscreen, cars like the Mazda RX-7 represent a welcome respite. Indeed, with its pop-up headlamps - a feature banned back in 2006 - and its decidedly whacky use of a rotary engine, it couldn’t be more of a rebel against modern car convention if it tried. Moreover, being a technological masterpiece and offering rocket-ship like performance, there’s no doubt about its future classic status. Breaking cover in 1992, the FD was Mazda’s third version of the firm’s sports coupé. And if the fact it heralded a new generation of rotary engine wasn’t enough, it also broke new ground by becoming the first mass-produced car to be fitted with sequential twin turbochargers.…

Porsche Boxster (1996-2005) As classic Porsche prices continue to rise, albeit on a slightly less acute trajectory of late, we reckon diehard fans of the iconic brand are missing a bit of a trick with early Boxsters because values are rock bottom, they’re easy to own and we reckon they offer much more bang for your buck than the firm’s extortionately priced aircooled models. The original Boxster emerged from a 1992 Harm Lagaay prototype with the first production examples, codenamed the 986, leaving the old Porsche 928 production line in Stuttgart in 1996. In 2000, engine capacity for the base model grew from 2.5 to 2.7-litres and the new Boxster S variant appeared with a 249bhp 3.2-litre engine. There was a minor makeover in 2003 when glass replaced plastic in…

THE POWER OF NOSTALGIA Nostalgia is triggered by many things, but music is the one that does it for Andrew. Yesterday, my favourite radio station was playing stuff from 1984, a fuil 40 years ago. No it doesn’t feel like yesterday, but I sure miss it - the year I started driving, left school and did stuff best not mentioned in a family publication such as this. In late 1983, my dad had changed jobs and received a new company car. A708 HFA was an example of the recently launched Ford Sierra, one of Ford’s moments where it excelled itself HFA was a Cardinal Red 2.0GL with two options, these being the fivespeed gearbox and a glass sunroof, essential perks for the serious executive. I can still recall the first…