Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2024 i Classics World

Hands up those of you who recognised the car pictured above straight away? And I don't mean that it is a Vauxhall Chevette, I mean that it is a Vauxhall Chevette Grenadier. I have to be honest and say that I can't exactly see your hands, but I bet that not many were raised! I certainly had never heard of the model before seeing this one at a local show, and the only reason I can identify it is because the owner most thoughtfully put an explanation on the windscreen. According to that: ‘The Vauxhall Chevette Grenadier was a special edition sold through Vauxhall dealerships with modifications to trim and colour scheme by Star Custom Vehicles (SCV) of Ampthill in Bedfordshire. Very few of this model were made, and this…

The Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show will mark its 40th anniversary by launching a prestigious Hall of Fame to celebrate those who work closely with the show and the classic motoring community. From 2024 onwards, the show organisers will invite its chosen inductees to join the Hall of Fame each year and will celebrate them at Birmingham's NEC as part of the season finale. To mark this launch, the organisers have chosen Hall of Fame as the show's 2024 theme. Clubs could choose to showcase the very best of their marque or their members’ cars along with vehicles that have taken on unbelievable challenges, have made history or just achieved the unthinkable. They also have the option to include those cars that are famous for all the wrong reasons. As…

The Gay Classic Car Club recently ran its first economy run. The idea was simple – everyone filled their cars to the brim at a specified filling station, drove to the start point, then went for a threehour drive in the beautiful roads around Newbury, Avebury, Marlborough and Hungerford. The knack seemed to be to anticipate junctions, hills and other hazards (such as the many bicycles out for Sunday rides). Before the event, participants had submitted their car make and model and the organiser had researched the original combined fuel consumption figures. At the end of the three-hour drive, they all returned to the same filling station and all brimmed their tanks. They then submitted the receipts and anxiously awaited the results. The majority of the cars on the run…

EMAIL CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK Inspired by Robin Fletcher's column in the June issue regarding the cars he has owned over the years, I got to thinking about the cars that I've owned, and which of them could be regarded as classics. I have always had only a very limited budget at my disposal, so affordable running costs were a deciding factor, along with access to more mechanically trained experts since sadly I am lacking in that kind of expertise. Nevertheless, this has never stopped me from enjoying what I hope are 21 quite interesting cars. My driving life began in a Vauxhall Viva HA whilst at sixth form and restoring my 1960 Morris Mini Minor. The Viva moved to my younger brother when the Mini was finished. While my brother drove the…

I've just received my latest Classics World mag, and I see that you are about to embark on a Morris Marina project. I'm hopefully coming towards the end of recommissioning my Mk2 1.8 estate. Although I've not yet read the article, I did notice that you commented on a partthrottle issue, causing slight ‘lumpiness.’ I've had a similar issue, which I've yet to resolve. I've replaced the entire ignition system, checked the timing and tappets, cleaned out the carburettor and petrol tank, replaced the fuel line, as well as checking the mechanical fuel pump output. In spite of this, I still have the issue. It's more of an irritation than a big problem. I'm wondering whether it's a slightly sticking engine valve, so I've put some upper cylinder lubricant in…

My father-in-law Bernard Belsham was the owner of many classic cars over the years, but his pride and joys were a 1969 Daimler V8 250, a Jaguar XJ6 Mk1 Auto 2.8 from 1970 and a 1971 Daimler Sovereign Auto. Ownership of these historic vehicles was a very personal thing to him – he was passionate about them and they required a major investment of his time, effort and money in firstly restoring them to their former glory, and then the never-ending maintenance. Invariably when we went to visit, we'd find him under one of his cars or sitting beside them with his mandatory rollup. The cars rewarded all this effort by giving him wonderful times on road trips, either with his wife Marion setting off from their home in Leicestershire…

Classic car shows are the life blood for us motoring enthusiasts. They offer the chance to mix with like-minded people, swap stories and information, obtain some hard-to-find component, or just an excuse to polish and show off that pride and joy which takes up so much of our free time, and possibly most of our free cash too. Sometimes a local show can offer a little more of an incentive to buff up your trusty steed as there could be a chance to pick up a trophy or two, which may finally give the decision to spend all those hours in the garage a little bit of payback. Now, I've attended my fair share of shows over the years and on several occasions found some judging decisions to be quite…

Alfa Romeo P3 Why start a feature on Ferraris with an Alfa Romeo? Because Enzo Ferrari set up Scuderia Ferrari on 16th November 1929 and became effectively the Works team for Alfa Romeo. At Le Mans in 1932, the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Spider became the very first car to sport the Prancing Horse as part of its livery. The Alfa Romeo P3 as pictured here was the first genuine single seater racing car. Introduced halfway through the European 1932 Grand Prix season in June, the P3 won its first race in the hands of Tazio Nuvolari and went on to win six races in total that year, driven by both Nuvolari and Rudolf Caracciola. These victories included all three major Grands Prix in Italy, France and Germany. In late…

Sout West Vehicle Auctions The second sale from South West Vehicle Auction's impressive new HQ was amongst the most eclectic we've seen from the Dorset firm, with all manner of modern classics finding new homes. Convertibles were in demand, with a 2004 Mercedes R230 SL350 offering stylish cruising for £5100. Here were some of the other entries that got our modern classic juices flowing. 2005 Jaguar XK8 Convertible – £1600 In silver with a black leather interior, this bargain Jaguar lot was described as requiring some restoration on the body, with some areas requiring substantial work. To be honest, it didn't look bad in the pictures. Indeed, with just three former keepers, a warranted mileage of 127,029 and invoices totalling over £15,000 in its history file, this big cat sold…

I recently made a list of the cars I've owned, including the ones I've broken for parts. It comes to over 200. The number of cars I've actually used is somewhat less, but even so – my dad only ever had about eight in his whole driving career. My most prolific year was 1994. I started the year with a 1983 Alfasud 1.3SC threedoor in Ivory. Many things have been said about the Sud, most of them true, but later ones like this weren't quite so bad for rust and mechanically they were superb. They were lovely to drive with excellent steering and handling, plus a very compliant ride unlike today's junk. I would gladly drive one now, 30 years on. The Alfa 33 had never been on my radar…

MG marked its first 100 years in style at the Goodwood Festival of Speed with the past and the future combining to create a memorable moving showcase. The Duke of Richmond opened the event by leading a parade of old and new MGs past Goodwood House and then up the famous hill climb. His Grace drove one his grandfather's MG C-Type racers (bottom right) which competed at the Brooklands Double 12 in 1931. Joining the C-Type was a gathering of cars representing MG's finest moments on both the road and track, with the new MG Cyberster convertible lining up alongside the MGA Le Mans, MGC GTS Sebring and MG 6R4. MG's dynamic future was showcased with the global debut of the dramatic MG Cyber GTS Concept (above right), a hardtop…

Motor Sport magazine celebrated its 100th birthday in style with a star-studded evening in London, at which the winner of the Race Car of the Century poll was announced as the legendary Lotus 49. It beat off stiff opposition from Porsche's incredible Le Mans winning 917 sports prototype from the early 1970s and McLaren's all-conquering MP4/4 – another highly innovative F1 car, this time from the late 1980s. Waving the flag for rallying, Subaru's iconic Impreza from the 1990s came fourth. The Lotus 49 was the first F1 car to be powered by the eradefining Ford Cosworth DFV engine, used as a fully stressbearing structural member bolted to a monocoque at the front and the rear suspension and gearbox at the back. The 49 was also the first F1 car…

EMAIL CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK Further to my father's motoring experiences and mine of latter decades, the story continues – but only to be read if you've forgotten my Isetta incident! Having enjoyed many years of owning a concours winning 1962 Sunbeam Alpine and discovering that the fellowship of fellow owners was crucial to the pleasure of owning the car, conditions enforced a change. The Alpine had been 100% reliable over thousands of miles, but was beginning to tire, leak and needed refurbishment. Spannering had never been my bag, and when my tame professional spanner man moved away I decided it was time to move away from classic car ownership. The change came in the form of a then modern sports car that is now a classic in its own right. Constructed in…

READERS’ CARS MG TC & TRIUMPH TR3A I have been an avid classic car enthusiast from a very young age and have been fortunate to own a myriad of classics, the earliest being a 1928 Rolls-Royce 20HP tourer the newest a 2015 Ariel Atom 3.5/245. As for my first classic car, well that was a VW Beetle back in the 1970s. They were not considered classics back then, like most saloon cars of the period they were just your daily hack. With that in mind, my first classic would have to be the Lancia Fulvia Sport Zagato, again my daily transport of the time but not your usual daily driver. A few years ago I wanted to build my dream garage to house a pair of classic cars, but unfortunately…

There can't be many people out there who don't love a Morris Minor. It's one of those timeless and classless classics which seems to raise a smile wherever it goes. And unlike some estate car variants which compromise the pure saloon design and are consequently less desirable, the Minor Traveller has its own unique charm and following. Most of that is, of course, down to the distinctive timber frame which somehow seems to match not only genuine Tudor half-timbered houses, but the mock-Tudor used so extensively when suburbia was developing in the 1930s and people were looking to recreate a rural idyll in places such as Bromley, Bushey or Braintree. Sat on a driveway somewhere like this, a Minor Traveller seems just so right. Most of you will recognise the…

PART 2 We introduced our project Morris Marina last issue, and also highlighted a few of the most obvious repairs required, the ones that had been self-evident before purchase. But there is one thing you can be certain of on a car that is 50 years old – what you can see initially will only ever be the tip of the iceberg. Tucked out of sight and hidden behind paint and filler will almost certainly be a rather long litany of rust, accident damage and poorly executed repairs. That certainly proved to be the case with our Marina once we got it up in the air and started to poke, prod and clean back to bare metal. The most extensive areas of rust that we hadn't expected were on the…

Volvo in the 1970s was a very fashionable brand. The big, boxy 144 dating from 1967 had transmogrified into the 244, which added massive bumpers, a bigger OHC engine and a trendsetting lean-back front end. Inside was a chunky, stylish, black facia and comfortable seats with functional head restraints. Volvo laid the emphasis on solid durability and safety. The bumpers were for the US market, where the big Volvos sold extremely well, and for the even more affluent buyer there were luxury models with leather upholstery, and the 264 model with a 2.7-litre V6. The estate car versions had huge carrying capacity and became the definitive vehicle for the antiques dealer. What Volvo didn't have was a small car. The old PV444/544 models were long gone. The Gothenburg factory was…

FUTURE Classics FORGOTTEN HERO Launched on a wave of cautious optimism at the 1999 London Motor Show, the Rover 25 was essentially a reworked version of an existing model, the 200. Rover had made the brave decision to go upmarket with its supermini, giving the new kid on the supermini block a nose job which mimicked its Rover 75 sibling as well as some of its plush interior fittings. It was offered in a variety of different guises from 1.1-litre eight-valve to 1.8 VVC in the rare and now collectable GTi, with the 1.4i 16v models representing by far the biggest chunk of sales. It was also sold with Rover's 2.0-litre L-Series diesel. The bodyshell, three or five-door, was basically the same as the outgoing ‘R3’ 200. Alas, as fans…

PART 3: BRAKING BAD? Welcome to the latest update on our ‘Save the ST170’ project in conjunction with Machine Mart, where we are breathing new life into a Ford Focus ST170. After the recent servicing work in the engine bay, this update sees us sort the brakes and make the first performance upgrade by fitting a full set of Toyo Proxes TR1 tyres. If you've been following the progress of our Ford Focus ST170 project, you may remember that a previous inspection of the car in Part 1 revealed that the brakes needed work. They functioned well enough to pass its MoT a few weeks earlier, but they left a lot to be desired. For starters, there clearly wasn't a lot of life left in the old brake pads, the…

A collection of no fewer than five very special Fords will be coming to sale with Iconic Auctioneers at the Silverstone Festival on 24th August. Star of the show will be the 1976 Ford Escort RS 2000 which was a bespoke build for Henry Ford II when he toured Europe and the UK in the 1970s. It has a unique leather interior and is in a one-off colour to the Ford Escort range, but it's also an automatic which was never made for the Ford Escort RS2000 model. This special car has done just 44,000 miles, and is estimated at £50-£60,000. Also in the sale are four delivery-mileage only Ford Focuses, with estimates ranging from £40,000 to £70,000. This will be the 14th sale for Iconic Auctioneers (formerly Silverstone Auctions)…

Fans of the blue oval are in for a real treat as the UK's ultimate celebration of all things Ford is back with a bang! To be held on Sunday 22nd September at Mallory Park, FordFest will bring together Fords of all eras for a one-day family festival of head turning static displays and fantastic live action. As well as a busy schedule in the Live Arena, static exhibits will include the Classic Ford and Fast Ford magazine paddocks with their own impressive displays, a private autojumble and Cars for Sale area plus displays from the UK's favourite Ford clubs. Track sessions will be running all day, and these can be booked for £30 per 15-minute session on the show's website. Passenger rides are available for £10 per ride. If…

EMAIL CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK While polishing my classic car the other week, an elderly neighbour, Jerry, stopped and admired my Honda Accord. We chatted and established that I was going to a show that weekend, to which he asked: ‘What is the fun of just sitting in a field with row after row of cars lined up? Surely that is boring?’ Rather taken aback, I explained that there was far more to it than just sitting in a field. Firstly, it was the chance to meet other like-minded people who have an interest in older cars and to share your own car's virtues with others. Secondly it was a day out. ‘Remember when people used to go out on a Sunday for a family picnic somewhere?’ I asked, ‘Well our shows are…

EMAIL CLASSICS.ED@KELSEY.CO.UK Lancia always had the reputation of high quality, beautifully engineered motor cars, usually with a sporting persona and somewhat more expensive than their competitors. However, in the 1960s due to expensive forays into motorsport with the imaginative Lancia D50 Formula One team in 1954-55, plus an extravagant headquarters building in Turin, the company was in a dire financial position and subsequently taken over by Fiat. While continuing production of the Fulvia coupé, Fiat introduced the Lancia Beta saloon in 1972 utilising the Aurelio Lampredi DOHC engines previously used in the Fiat 124 Coupé and Spyder. This was a richly appointed four-door saloon with five-speed gearbox and disc brakes on all four wheels. That was subsequently followed by Coupé, Spyder and HPE sports estate versions. Although very well received…

PART 10 Our Fiat 500 was bought at auction as an unfinished project, with the previous owner having died some years previously and the car then having sat in a workshop corner. This set of circumstances has brought with it a number of problems. For one thing, the previous owner carried out an awful lot of work on the Fiat, but we are unable to get any details about just what was done when, and so body-wise we have had to backtrack quite a lot to be sure of exactly what lay under the paint and underseal. We are also somewhat in the dark with regards the mechanical condition, but problems here have been compounded by the passage of time. So, for example, we've had the engine running and it…

MARQUES & MODELS FORD GRANADA MK1 AND MK2 Ford launched the Granada, their first pan-European large car, in March 1972 at the Geneva Motor Show. In the UK it succeeded the Zephyr/ Zodiac MkIV, and in Germany it replaced the P7 range. The UK sales film Two at the Top highlighted the fact that it was more compact than its predecessor, while the rack and pinion steering was a ‘first’ on a large British Ford. Dagenham also stated, in a not overly subtle reference to BL: ‘Nobody is going to buy British just because there is a Union Jack on the bonnet.’ The company's engineering director Alan Aitken boasted it was ‘as happy on an Italian autostrada as in the London rush hour.’ When sales began on 6th April 1972,…

FUTURE Classics BUYING GUIDE The first two generations of M5 where frankly phenomenal. Super saloons powered by characterful and melodious straight-sixes which were just as happy pootling around town as they were entertaining on a twisty B-road, the E28 and E34 set the standard by which all other quick saloons were judged. So, when the E39 broke cover in 1995, expectations were understandably through the roof. After all, the thinking was that if the 528i and 540i were this good, just imagine how utterly brilliant the M5 would be? And every prediction proved right when the car was unveiled at the Geneva show in 1998, nigh on four years after the E34 M5 had ceased production. Even today, there's many a bar room pundit that will insist the E39 M5…

Range Rover Evoque (2011-2018) The sleek, coupé-like Evoque was an exciting departure for JLR, its edgy profile deviating very little from the stunning, three-door LRX concept made for the 2008 Detroit show. It was quite funny then when Victoria Beckham, appointed Creative Design Executive to help reel in a new, younger audience to the Range Rover brand, mistakenly took credit for the Evoque's design at the launch of the VB special edition in Beijing, a model boasting a custom paint job and a bespoke interior. Thankfully that's all in the past now, of course, and today the Evoque represents a refreshingly different looking SUV with a plush interior and a raft of off-road technology underneath, such as the firm's talented Terrain Response and Hill Descent – features that were pioneering…