tedlit

Doesn’t it just look… angry?

Plenty of cars have faces. Some are cross-eyed, some look confused (I’m looking at you, every Citroen before 1986), and some look genuinely excited to be on the road (every Mini). The most obvious example brought up is frequently the eternally-happy Austin Healey Sprite, but a lot of modern cars are made (factory or by hacking about with fibreglass) to look rather mean. This isn’t a new thing though, as various manufacturers proved in the 50s/60s, such as this wonderful Triumph Vitesse that’s temporarily (ie: until post-COVID times) gracing my driveway.

Obligatory GB magnet and creeping moss in evidence

This particular one had sat for a while, but once all the birds nests had been removed and the various seized things unseized, it actually runs rather nicely – but it still looks angry. What’s non-obvious from this angle is how small it is though – as a four-seater car, it’s not really wider than a proper Mini and is absolutely dwarfed by anything modern.

However, this one does have a few surprises. First of these is that it actually started, despite having arrived here with ten year old petrol in it. Secondly, it’s the rather rarer 2 litre mk1 model, with the 4-speed overdrive box. It does not have a 2 litre engine; some wag in the past has fitted the loud bits out of a 2500TC to it, along with a rather fruity exhaust. Unfortunately, it’s got the original Vitesse differential, which I don’t imagine will have a terribly long lifespan if all that torque is used that often. It is also rather front-heavy though, which will be interesting with that famously-stable rear suspension….

By tedlit, ago

Goodbyeeeeeeeeeee

For a quick ‘get-me-through-the-winter’ car, this one stuck around for a long time… nearly nine years. 266k miles, of which 50k or so was mine – and it genuinely only left me stranded once when the transfer case chain gave up in the middle of the St Johns Bridge junction just after rush hour. Turns out it’s quite difficult to push a Range Rover.

After the final clear-out, this one has now ended up in Houston. I’m not entirely sure how this happened, but hopefully it’s as good to its new owner as it was to me. Over the years, I’ve had 12 Range Rovers and this was the best – for example, that 4.2 v8 is absolutely indestructible and is far more forgiving than the 3.9/4.0 and the head-gasket-explodey 4.6 that we don’t talk about.

By tedlit, ago

If it’s good enough for the Queen…

….then surely it can come sit in my barn?

After having a (comparatively) massive clearout over the last few months, I found this gem waiting for me a few weeks ago. It’s a 1965 Rover P5 3 litre coupe, and it’s now mine. The P5 was a strange car, being technically both backward and amazingly forward-looking at the same time. If you look past the leaf springs and ancient 6cyl engine, you find the first seeds of things that eventually  made up the P6.. driver safety was just becoming a factor and the whole concept of easily-replaceable panels is sort-of there.

OK, perhaps the title is slightly misleading – the Queen had a P5B sedan, but it’s not that different. The P5 coupe is only a coupe in the “streamlined and slightly chopped down” sense of the word; it’s still got four doors and it’ll still seat four cigar-smoking adults in very British comfort.

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This photo doesn’t really do justice to the sheer size of this thing. The P6 looks quite svelte in comparison; the P5 is built like a tank and is – coincidentally – also rather like driving one. For a ’60s British car, it’s positively massive. It doesn’t quite dwarf the Jaguar 420 that’s currently sitting next to it, but it’s much bulkier.

This particular car has lived in the sunny NW most of its life, and it’s been off the road for about eight years.. which is (almost) nothing. However, the fancy dual fuel pump has seized and it looks like it’s been resprayed as part of a playgroup of three year olds’ summer project.

However… some day soon……!

By tedlit, ago

JUNGLE IS MASSIVE

This is a mk2 Triumph Spitfire, as it helpfully says on the back of the car. This was at ABFM this year; they’re not always this WIKID though. Just *look* at those tailpipes. That must be.. oh.. one per cylinder!

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By tedlit, ago

Sometimes… Rover got it right.

Much has been written about the general nastiness that was British Leyland in the 1970s. Some truly awful cars and some truly great cars ruined by quality resulted from the merry factories of the Midlands during that time, and the beancounters did an excellent job of failing to invest in any meaningful development of the ranges that were inherited from the 1960s. One only has to look at the Triumph Stag (no Rover v8? Why????), the Triumph 2000/2500 (positively prehistoric by 1977), and the Morris Marina / Ital.

However…

In the ’60s – when most of the constituents of BMC/BLMC/Leyland were independent or in much more manageable groups, competition was actually a thing… and Rover in particular got a lot of things right. They’d ditched the Auntie image of the P4/P5 with the P5B, and when the P6 appeared it was so technically advanced there was very little else to hold a candle to it. It launched with a 2-litre OHC engine, a frame/panel structure (much like the Citroen DS), proper crumple zones / a collapsible steering column, and the strangest suspension ever to grace a British car.

All of this was great and wonderful and the car sold well, even – for some reason – in Canada. It was a little down on power; the 4cyl Rover lump was a little thrashy… especially to people used to the silky smoothness of the Rover 3-litre that came before it.

Much has been written about the Rover v8, but – in the late 60s – it came together with the P6 to create the P6B – or, in this case, the Rover 3500S.

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This is a 1970 NADA-spec model, which means electric windows, A/C, the totally awesome bonnet scoops, and a few other bits and pieces. This particular one has also had the twin SUs replaced with an Offenhauser manifold and a Rochester 4-jet (*not* a Quadrajet, apparently they’re very different and it’s somewhat insulting to get them mixed up). It has also had cruise control retrofitted; it looks like kit from an SD1 to me, but I will admit I’ve been too terrified of it to actually turn it on.

It’s an absolute peach to drive, and the 170bhp coming from that v8 makes a huge difference to how the car drives. Granted, the BW35 slushbox really takes the bite off.. maybe the spare LT77 in the garage would fit…?

 

By tedlit, ago

Warning: limited visibility

Sometimes… it’s easy to wake a car up from a long slumber. Sometimes.. it’s not.

Project “get-the-Jag-running again” reached its first major milestone today – that of actually achieving something close to internal combustion. Unfortunately, not all of the combustion was internal, which led to the scene illustrated below:

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This is a 1967 Jaguar 420 – a model sold in the US for two years as a stop-gap before the XJ6 was launched in ’69. It’s a car with a bizarre lineage – easily traced back to the Inspector Morse-mobile that was the mk1/mk2 Jaguars. The S-type (or “3.8S”) of the mid-1960s attempted to modernise that design while adding lots of ungainly curves and bulbuousness, but the 420 sorted the frontend out nicely by stealing from the Mark Ten… which confusingly then became the 420G.

This particular car has sat in Eastern Oregon for most of its life, having last been on the road around fifteen years ago. It arrived here over the summer with a working handbrake and very little else – all the doors bar two were seized shut, as was the boot. Unfortunately, some genius decided to spray-paint the red leather seats blue at some point… for what reason, we will never know.

The car was “stored” with fuel in the tanks – and while 1999-era petrol may have been awesome in 1999, in 2014 it was just foul-smelling jelly… which gets everywhere. Pumps, lines, carbs (all three of them), filters, the lot. The 420 Jaguar doesn’t have a choke of any kind – it has the standard twin SU HD8 carbs, plus a fancy, smaller third carb that’s only delivering fuel while the car is warming up. This was also gummed up with nastiness.

However…

After new plugs, points, leads, caps, condenser, and frantic reading-up on whatever “capacitative discharge ignition” is, we finally had spark and compression (110-120 all round!). With the judicious addition of starting fluid, the poor thing coughed into life on the first crank… creating that cloud of smoke and mice fragments.

Now all that remains is to get the carbs back on. And get the interior upholstered. And sort the electrics. And do all the bodywork.

Easy!

By tedlit, ago

…alive inside this chrome…

This is a shiny thing. It’s the front of a Rover P6 – in this case, a 1967 P6 2000SC.. in other words, the slowest possible configuration of the car. Take a fantastic-if-unrefined 2 litre 4cyl engine, remove one of its carbs, and throw an autobox behind it.. and you’re never going to win the RAC Rally.

However, what we’re interested in is the shininess. Sixties Rovers were always a bit like driving around in a gentlemens’ club, but the P6 had an interesting combination of chrome, wood, leather, and fake plastic.

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This is an ICELERT. Its badly-spelled name tells you exactly what it is – it’s a big round shiny thing that lights the dashboard up when there’s ice on the road. More modern cars have sensors, alerts, buzzers, and all sorts of fancy electronics to make sure driving like an idiot doesn’t necessarily end in you crashing.

However, for the Rover driver – a small red light is plenty good enough. Rover assumed that concentrating on the road in sub-optimal conditions was far more important than surrounding the driver with gizmos. It actually works perfectly too.

The one tiny flaw? The “icelert light” is on the PASSENGER SIDE of the car!

By tedlit, ago

What happens in the barn… stays in the barn

There’s a lot of talk about the mystery of the “barn find”. People imagine million-dollar Rolls-Royces and Bentleys sitting in barns up and down the country, just waiting to be discovered. They imagine a quick wash and instant fame and fortune at the nearest fancy car auction. The reality is much different…

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This is a 1986 Jaguar XJ6. It sat in a barn in sunny Oregon for roughly 20 years. As you can see, it’s covered in several stages of green mould and spiders, and all the tyres are flat. One would also not be surprised to find the interior full of mice/rats/cats/sharks, trees growing on the floor, and suspicious holes in the carpets/seats/headliner. Additionally, as this is a British car we’re talking about, one would also expect the woodwork to have the consistency of Swiss cheese.

So, to prove a point, I unloaded it and washed it. This is what emerged:

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This is the same 1986 Jaguar XJ6. The paintwork is shiny and dent-free, the body is rust-free, and the chromework is excellent. The interior is in great condition, with no rips or tears on the seats – and the woodwork is pristine.

The secret?

Air.

Yes, really. Storing a car under covers – and perhaps full of newspaper – is an excellent recipe for a rusty, mouldy, rotten disaster. Despite this car being utterly filthy externally, the fact that it was stored in a dry, well-ventilated barn completely saved the car. Aside from the flat tyres (which were, obviously, British), you’d never know it had been stored at all.

By tedlit, ago

What Rover did that wasn’t 4×4

This is a Rover P6. It’s mine, and it had a new exhaust fitted last week.

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Things we learned from this experience:

  • People at exhaust shops get confused if your brakes are attached to your differential.
  • People at exhaust shops get worried if your front shocks are mounted horizontally.
  • People at exhaust places will retrieve wrenches that have been hidden in your bodywork for FIFTEEN YEARS and merely smirk at you.
  • Contrary to popular belief, a 47 year old British exhaust manifold can, in fact, be porous.
  • Yes, a top speed of 77 is more than adequate.
  • Everyone will keep asking if it’s “some old Buick”.

    I love the Rover P6.

    • By tedlit, ago

    …and the Rover is no more.

    The SD1 started its journey to its new owner in Georgia this morning. It’s been an interesting ride with this car – over the last three years I’ve learned more about Lucas EFI than I ever thought possible, as well as grown to appreciate just what Rover were trying to do with SD1. It’s a huge shame they were initially dogged with so many issues here in the US, as the straight-six versions doubtless would’ve sold very well into the 1980s.

    Much has been written about the SD1 in the USA, and why it failed. Rover was a one-model range at the time, and – in Europe – completed a gap in Triumph’s lineup after the withdrawal of the 2000/2500. Had the planned Lynx ever actually been produced, it and the SD1 would’ve made a rather nice range.. together with the “new” Triumph 1500. Even the Rover 213/216 would’ve probably sold well over here, as is evidenced by the visibility today of their Honda brethren.

    It was my daily driver for a while, and – as well as proving it’s possibly to run a thirty year old British car on a daily commute – it still managed to average nearly 30mpg. It’s been to a few shows, confused a lot of people (‘what kind of Chevy/Pontiac/Ferrari is that?’), and been surprisingly reliable. It only broke down on me once, which was a) in the driveway so it doesn’t really count, and b) is because I ran out of fuel ‘cuz the fuel sender didn’t initially work. The kids also loved the fact that it was a little bit special and – for a British car – pretty big and comfy inside. It even did the school run a few times, during which there were occasional complaints about its fundamental brown-ness.

    …but on it must go. It’s going to someone who knows exactly what it is, and will hopefully appreciate it as much as I do. It’s been replaced in the “fleet” here by a Rover P6, which is a whole different animal… but more on that another time.

    By tedlit, ago