While various industry watchers have been suggesting that classics of the 1980s are the next big thing and that now is the perfect time to invest in them – encouraged by the reaction to the BBC’s Ashes to Ashes, a time-travelling series that features a number of iconic cars from the Eighties – at least one group of experts is warning against this.
Yes, according to EurotaxGlass’s, publisher of Glass’s Guide to Older Car Values, forecasts of any long-term additional improvement in prices for cars similar to those used in the programme are ‘…overly optimistic’.
TV programmes and magazine features that raise the profile of particular models are often expected to have a positive effect on prices, but EurotaxGlass’s suggests this sort of populist exposure does not usually have a lasting impact. ‘Though Ashes to Ashes is undoubtedly entertaining, and prices for red Audi Quattros in particular may enjoy a minor blip while the series remains on air, the show is unlikely to have a direct and quantifiable long-term impact on Quattro prices,’ said John Glynn, editor of the Older Car Guide.
According to Glynn, values of certain modern classics are already riding high: ‘Enthusiasts do not need TV shows to remind them how interesting the cars of the era were. They already know, and prices have been rising accordingly for some time. The Audi Quattro, which is the vehicular centrepiece of the Ashes to Ashes series, is already an established favourite amongst Eighties supercars, and the best examples have never struggled to find appreciative owners.
‘The same is true of the Porsche 911, a car that has always been popular with Eighties aficionados, and for which prices have been on the rise for quite some time. Even seemingly ordinary cars, such as the MkII Ford Escort, have legions of devoted followers chasing the best examples, and prices for special editions such as the Harrier will often surpass good-condition Quattros and 911 Coupes.’
Other notable examples of Eighties cars enjoying rising popularity, according to EurotaxGlass’s, include the Ford Capri 2.8i and some of the rarer Japanese cars of the era, such as the Toyota Corolla GT Coupe. Prestige cars of the day are also increasing in price, it claims, with models like the Ferrari 328, Lotus Esprit and Aston Martin V8 Vantage enjoying a healthy rise in fortunes over the last few years.
So is John Glynn right? Are many classics of the Eighties not such sound buys as other experts would have us believe? Whatever your view on classics of the 1980s, drop us a line (and tell us which is your favourite) via: keith.moody@cslpublishing.com.
|
April 1st, 2008 |
by Paul Guinness
7287pwkr
It was with a very strong sense of déjà vu that I coasted to a halt in the Vitesse, the engine having died with a whimper. Incredible but true, the car stopped in exactly the same place as it had a few weeks earlier, as recounted in a previous thrilling instalment of Staff Calamities. The scene, once again, was a narrow country lane, en route to the MoT test. Still more amazing, seconds after the Vitesse shuddered its last, leaving me sitting admiring the scenery, exactly the same 4WD vehicle, towing exactly the same large trailer, rattled towards me in the opposite direction, the driver obviously finding it difficult to believe that some idiot in an old Triumph should be parked in the same stupid place on two occasions.
Last time this happened I eventually managed to limp home, the fault seeming to correct itself once some part of the engine had cooled down. My hunch was that the ignition coil had been the culprit, despite the apparent presence of a healthy supply of sparks at the end of the HT leads. Still, it’s often the case that nice fat sparks will be seen at the plugs when they’re outside the engine, but the electricity then finds an easier path to earth once they’re screwed into the cylinder head (the voltage required to jump a gap increases with pressure).
To be on the safe side, I replaced the points and capacitor, gave the distributor cap and HT leads a stern examination, and fitted another ignition coil alongside the old one, enabling instant swaps. The rotor arm was brand spanking new when I ventured out the first time and had therefore only done about 15 miles, so that had to be beyond suspicion, didn’t it? To be on the even safer side, I also checked all the other things in the fuel system, just in case there were some red herrings swimming around.
So, engine purring, I set forth again, feeling slightly chuffed when a bloke in the local filling station came up to admire the Vitesse, without seeming to notice the hideous paintwork and rust patches. The rosy glow soon faded, although the breakdown pattern was slightly different this time: instead of a worsening misfire, following by a gradual stoppage, the engine sounded fine until a few minutes before its sudden death. After exchanging ‘I don’t believe it’ Victor Meldrew looks with the aforementioned farmer, I lost no time in opening the bonnet and swapping the leads over to my back-up coil. And what do you know, the engine fired up again quite easily. The signs were that I’d been right, although I had a nagging doubt that there was still a bit of a five-cylinder-ish feel. Should I carry on, or should I head for home? After the last farce, my inclination was not to tempt fate again, but for the glory of Classic Car Mart, I carried on. A mistake, as it happened…
To cut a long and embarrassing story short, the engine died again five miles further on. I didn’t want to walk home, so discovering the true fault became a matter of some concern.
Once again, there were sparks at the ends of the HT leads, the plugs were getting fuel, and the compression was fine. I concluded that the sparks couldn’t be arriving in the cylinders, and as the distributor cap showed no evidence of tracking, the fault just had to be the rotor arm. I had a spare with me, but it was really there by accident, because it was an old, battered one that had split and then been superglued together by some mean old skinflint (hello). In the absence of other straws to clutch at, I fitted it. The engine fired up immediately, and I was able to cruise home at an easy 100mph (OK, that might be slight exaggeration, but there were no more misfires). The moral of the story is that you should never assume that new parts are fit for their purpose. I can well remember that a few years back there had been an epidemic of breakdowns caused by faulty rotor arms that shorted out when they reached a certain temperature.
Word on the street was that this applied to a batch of sub-standard parts made somewhere in the Far East. Not having been affected before, I assumed that the bad apples had all disappeared by now. However, it appears that I’ve just been lucky, perhaps because of my policy of never buying new parts unless it’s unavoidable. After digging a bit deeper I’ve discovered that rotor arms are becoming the bane of some people’s classic life. Tales are told of Triumph TR owners who never go anywhere without a glovebox full of replacements. The general rule seems to be that the more cylinders your engine has, the more likely the rotor arm is to fail when it heats up. Thus, those with fours are reasonably safe, while V8 Rover owners suffer badly (I don’t know anyone rich enough to run a Jag V12, but assume they’re the worst).
You might assume that the way of avoiding trouble is to buy an OE spec rotor arm made by a reputable manufacturer, rather than some cheapo pattern junk. You’d be wrong, because apparently even the good name of Lucas has been sullied, due to the tendency of companies to outsource manufacture. My understanding is that recent ‘Lucas’ rotor arms are made in foreign fields and can fail just as quickly as the no-name ones.
At some stage I’ll need to investigate further, but at the moment there’s no great risk of my Vitesse breaking down because it’s been sitting idle since the MoT fiasco, receiving welding attention to its nether regions. Two areas were identified as being in need of attention, which on the face of it wouldn’t take long to put right. As usual, though, once you start prodding and poking around, you always find lots more to do. The main problems were a rotten seam where the floorpan joins the vertical panel under the rear seat, plus a crumbly area inside the rear wheelarch. The former is within 30cm of the seat belt anchorage and has to be 100% solid. The bit behind the wheel is less crucial on a separate chassis Vitesse (unless it’s a convertible, which has the other seat belt mounting bolted to the arch) but does need sorting, if only to stop water sloshing into the car. I could probably have repaired the offside floor without too much dismantling, but the wheelarch is hidden behind the petrol tank, so that obviously had to come out first. Of course, if you don’t want to waste the Fire Brigade’s time it’s always a good idea to remove the tank before doing any welding – and don’t forget about the fuel line.
After raising the rear end of the car the inner arch is quite easy to get at. Prodding the metal with the proverbial blunt instrument revealed that the weak area was quite localised. As is so often the case with cars of this age, the difficulty was that this part had previously been patched, and there were various layers of metal, the rustiest bit being the most recent. Triumph’s steel was evidently better quality!
The trusty angle grinder and cutting disc made short work of the old welds, leaving a section a few inches long to fill. After making a cardboard template, a steel replica was fashioned and MIG-ed into place. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the adjacent part of the floor (also previously patched), which is normally hidden under glued-down sound-proofing material, didn’t appreciate all the hammering, and began to disintegrate. Peering into the area above the wheelarch and behind the interior trim, I could see more crumbling metal. Hopes of a quick fix and return to the road were revised…
Resigned to a major bodywork repair operation, there was no alternative now but to remove the rear seat and all the trim, carpets, soundproofing, etc. The next stop was my friendly local sheet metal specialist – just my luck that the price of steel is at a record high. To deal with the relatively easy bit first, I plated the seat belt anchorage inside the car, then cut out another old repair patch on the vertical panel under the seat squab. Using a heavier gauge of metal than probably necessary (which is just slightly too thick to cut comfortably with ordinary ‘aviation shears’, grrr), the cardboard template routine was followed again.
MIG operations complete, my ‘trusty’ angle grinder decided to become untrusty, and suddenly expired in a puff of smoke. Drat and grrr again: the motor had burned out. It’s lucky that the Chinese factories which seem incapable of making functional rotor arms at any price can churn out usable angle grinders selling for about fifteen quid. I was still saving for one of those when the pictures were taken, explaining why the welds look like they’ve been made by incontinent pigeons.
Returning to the nearside wheelarch, it became all too obvious that the Vitesse’s previous restorer hadn’t bothered to prime or paint the metal he’d welded into place. If he had, I wouldn’t have been able to peel away large chunks of paper-thin rusty metal with a pair of pliers. This was a pity, because the repairs were otherwise quite skilful, because making 3D shapes out of flat sheet is never easy. Triumph specialists can actually supply repair sections for the outer half of the arch, but these are of such thin gauge that the DIY alternative is preferable, even if the finished result is less pretty for those in the habit of lying prostrate in the gutter (journalists, in other words).
Making a repair panel took a long time, and I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the fit after all the effort. Access is tricky, so the prospect of welding it into place was bad enough. The reality was worse still, because great globs of underseal kept catching fire, often uncovering more pieces of rusty metal. It would have helped if the weather had been better, because my open-air workshop is less than ideal in winter.
Once that little lot had been attended to, I tried to make the nearside door close with less of a slam. Another mistake, because while fiddling with the adjustments, I noticed a bad patch of rot in the A-pillar. Ten minutes of scraping later, the true extent of it became all too obvious. Hours and hours more work to do.
All of which explains why the car is still immobile, an ugly mass of unofficial orifices and undressed welds. Using a very powerful telescope, the end is just about in sight now, I reckon. However, the unexpected complication of the repairs has reminded me that if the plan to make the Vitesse into a convertible is ever going to happen, now would be the perfect time to do it. Decisions, decisions!
|
March 12th, 2008 |
by Rod Ker
7287pwkr
I suppose it’s a reflection on the short succession of French cars recently owned, but I’ve never subscribed to the animosity that supposedly exists between the British and that lot on the other side of the Channel. More seriously though, and particularly over the last two decades, I’ve always considered the French more civilised than we Brits. They apologise if they inadvertently bump into you coming out of their clean and abundant Metro stations, they are solicitous when you walk into their shops and cafes and, although perhaps now slightly less so in the face of relentless globalisation, they dress in a style that whilst unmistakably western, is also unmistakably stylish… and French.
Against the lumpen proletariat of Britain who seem increasingly to attach merit in being rude, selfish and clad in tat, the French therefore might be culturally able to teach us a thing or two about a thing or two, although even they have succumbed to the homogenisation of car design that Messrs. Citroen, Renault and even Peugeot held out against during the ’80s and even the ’90s. But ’twas not ever thus, as a trip to France’s premier classic car event, Retromobile, reminded me.
In fact, I hadn’t banked on visiting France’s premier classic car wing-ding, but perhaps to avert the depressive consequences of great age, my extraordinarily generous girlfriend had treated me to a surprise birthday trip to Paris which happened to coincide with Retromobile’s opening weekend. ‘You can choose whatever we do when we get there,’ she purred as we Eurostar’d out of St Pancras, although I think she had in mind rather more gallery hopping and shopping than plodding around the exhibition halls of the Place De Versailles. But, in reality, Paris is such a compact city, and served so cheaply and efficiently by public transport, that it was possible to do all three and still have plenty of time for over-indulgences of several other varieties.
But back to Retromobile which, in a tradition that remains resolutely French, is unlike any other classic car show I’ve come across. For starters, exhibits of non-French cars were almost perfunctory, whereas in the UK at least, Italian, German and certainly French owners’ clubs exercise considerable pride and ingenuity in showing off a good range of their faves. At Retromobile there were, for example, just three Lancias – and two of them were Integrales, just a couple of Fiats and the only Japanese machines that I could find were a couple of wee ’70s Hondas. True, there was a smattering of Italian exotica, including a Muira and Jarama from Lamborghini, plus a commanding 1936 Mercedes 500 Cabriolet and a very early Lotus Cortina (still badged as a Consul) representing the rarer end of a spectrum the French themselves regard as ‘foreign’.
But with a fervour ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ might dismiss as pure jingoism, Retromobile was evidently and primarily a celebration of French automotive achievement, and elsewhere in this issue I’ve reported on some of the highlights that made it so. But underpinning the big set pieces from Citroen and Peugeot were some reminders of just how diverse the French industry was until 30 or 40 years ago and, indeed, how differently I think the average classic car buff views his heritage as a consequence.
Like most countries, France has, of course, seen many quirky cars since the international combustion engine was invented, such as the egg-like three-wheeler produced by the otherwise conventional Mathis brand in 1946 and the huge Avions Voison Aerodyne of 1935. Even some of its mainstream manufacturers like Renault with the Alpine and the now defunct Panhard et Levassor, who supplied engines and backing for low-volume devices like the svelte Deustch-Bonnet coupe of 1952, designed to take advantage of ‘Index of Performance’ class in endurance and other forms of racing, which favoured small, twin cylinder engines.
And like the 2CV and its subsequent developments, many of these were never intended as anything other than rudimentary transport that were cheap to buy, simple to maintain but not particularly durable. Which, not uncoincidentally, is why so many Renault 4s and 2CVs have long since rotted away and those relatively few that remain cost more to restore to rude good health than they could ever be worth: whilst some of us might well spend two or three thousand pounds sorting out the bodily decay of, say, an MG or an Alfa that will be worth at least four or five grand when we’ve done so, few would be persuaded to pay that sort of money for a humble tin snail, whatever its condition.
So it was some of these wee rarities that especially intrigued me at Retromobile embellished, as many of them were, with the stylistic charms that are just so, well, French. Take the Panhard Dyna X86 which sat on the stand of an organisation whose credentials were quite unabashed, the Fan Club Panhard et Levassor. Produced in the early ’50s as one of the first post-war saloons not entirely dedicated to the utilitarian, the X86 (and what that stands for heaven knows) was nevertheless powered by an ubiquitous 750cc two-cylinder engine but looked incredibly flashy. Its aluminium bodywork was ladled with exquisite alloy vents, grilles and handles and its flat-twin engine (with one piece cylinder-cum-cylinder head bolted straight onto a horizontally opposed crankcase) produced a hefty – for its day – 40bhp.
Roughly comparable I suppose to the Morris Minor, the X86 has survived in far fewer numbers than the British car, and probably because it was so relatively fragile and adorned with such startling and complex appurtenances that few could be bothered to source the bits required to restore them.
Which, of course, doesn’t mean that the French classic car trade isn’t blessed with many entrepreneurs – or auto-jumblers as we’d call them – catering to the needs of those who can indeed be bothered to keep these old gallic crocs on the road. As with last year’s British event at the NEC, there were dozens of stalls heaving with automotive bric-a-brac, much of it identifiable only by those who knew what they were looking for, but there were two types of exhibitor which distinguished Retromobile from its British equivalent.
The first of these was noticed by my now long-suffering girlfriend, her powers of perception perhaps sharpened by several wine producers who were handing out free samples throughout the halls, who pointed out the large amount of ‘arty bollocks’ being plugged at the show. Mainly in the form of expensively mounted, and often convincingly reproduced posters from the ’30s to the ’70s, this effulgence of automotive art also included sculptures and scale reconstructions of sporting achievements in model form.
Having spent most of the weekend traipsing – albeit quite happily – around some of Paris’s many museums and art galleries, I suppose it should’ve come as little surprise that the French should extend their propensity for high-culture to the automobile, but I was nonetheless impressed that so many classic car amis were willing to shell out thousands of Euros for stuff they could only look at, rather than drive.
Of course, not everyone could afford these art-pieces, which perhaps explains the other phenomenon that caught my attention, namely the myriad of stalls selling scale models. There must have been at least twenty of these – far more than at the NEC for example – and the variety of both the marques and, er, models involved was made all the more bewildering by the differing standards of detailing and, for that matter, size.
I have never been a collector of scale replicas of cars – or replica anythings – but I soon found myself poring over the wares to see if I might find a memento of my past and present prides and joys, namely a Lancia Gamma Coupe or a Maser Merak. Rather fortunately for my self-esteem (and wallet), I was unable to find either before the girlfriend hauled me off for a late lunch at a brasserie where two succulent courses and a half-litre of vin rouge cost us just €30… something else you wouldn’t get in Britain.
|
March 12th, 2008 |
by Mark Williams
7287pwkr
Have you ever wanted to ditch your boring rep-mobile for something more interesting? Well, you could do a lot worse than swap your Mondeo for a Minor.
I once met a self-employed blind maker who ran a mint Traveller as his company car. It obviously did the trick as not only did the lucky so-and-so own a lust-worthy (and pricey) Gibson Les Paul guitar – but everyone in the town knew him.
Going for a sign-written Traveller over a run-of-the-mill Focus Estate was, in short, genius.
Now, I know what you’re thinking (it’ll break down all the time) and, sure, it’s going to conk out now and again. But it’s really no different from your previous company hack with the dash that used to light up like a Christmas tree. And, if your classic does break down, I’ll bet you a tenner that the AA/RAC man can fix it by the road.
If you’re clocking up 60,000 miles a year – or spending hours of your life on the M25 – then perhaps the classic option isn’t for you.
But if you dream of making your weekend hobby a daily thing, then there are plenty of ways to do it. Just check out our feature here if you don’t believe us.
Perhaps we’re already preaching to the converted. In which case, we want to hear from you. Email me : keith.moody@cslpublishing.com with your tales and bravery and dare do.
|
March 11th, 2008 |
by Keith Moody
7287pwkr
If you had £5000 to spend on a classic, which one would you buy? It’s a question that we often debate here in the CCM office, and this month it’s a question that throws up a wide range of answers.
While it might not be the world’s sexiest classic, the Hillman Minx is a damn fine daily driver. Too often this respectable Rootes-mobile is overlooked in favour of Ford or various BL offerings. So this month we decided to redress the balance a bit buy covering it in our Buyer’s Guide.
Of course, if you’re not after a daily driver and fancy something a bit more exotic then there’s plenty here to keep you busy. If a summer classic is what you’re after, then be sure to check out our Six Of The Best feature on the best soft-tops for under the magic £5k figure.
So, what classic would you buy for £5k? Maybe you already own one of the cars mentioned – or maybe you’ve got lots of different ideas. Either way, we’d love to hear about it. Email: keith.moody@cslpublishing.com.
|
February 27th, 2008 |
by Keith Moody
7287pwkr
