Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Ray White]

[alastairq]

Sorry. The first 4 wheel Morgan to have an OHV engine was the 4/4 series 1, with the Standard Special engine. This was a cheapo option offered to Morgan by Sir John Black. It used the side valve Standard block as a basis, with an OHV head. Casting and machining was poor. The Standard Special engine replaced the OHOE Coventry Climax motor, as supplies became difficult.
1300 cc, and used same clutch as was later used in the Sprite/ Midget.
The cylinder heads would almost always crack. New heads have been cast in the past, but even those castings had serious faults.
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Dellow Mk2, 1951 built, reg 1952.
Fiat 126 BIS
Cannon special [1996 registered. Built in 1950's]
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Ford Pop chassis, Ashley 1172 bodyshell, in pieces.

[Ray White]

Fitting an aluminium head to a cast iron block may have been a convenient way to increase output... but to my mind it was always a poor choice for production vehicles as anyone who has ever struggled with a stuck head will testify.

[badhuis]

[Rick]

I was reading about that myself the other day, plenty of potential there and quite a rare beast nowadays.

RJ
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[Vulgalour]

Finally moved in at the new house now, happily, so I've had chance to get a proper look around. There's a lot of work to do, nothing insurmountable or hideously expensive, just lots of little jobs. The biggest car related setback is that the garage is actually slightly narrower and shorter than the one at my previous place so you have to choose between car or stuff, there isn't room for both, so we currently have no under cover storage for vehicles until that's rectified. Short term plan is to put a car port on each side of the existing garage, and the long term plan is to see just how large a workshop-garage combination we can fit on the plot within planning regulations. A new an interesting challenge, no doubt, since neither I nor my partner have ever built a garage before.

That Isis above has whatever 'it' is that we're looking for in a car. The condition, styling, colours, everything is what we're after and it's a brilliant example of what I've been attempting to describe. A functional, slightly tired, but nonetheless cherished old vehicle that shows its age with some degree of dignity.

[Vulgalour]

We came pretty close to buying a car recently, it sold before we got a chance to view it, and then some other house bills came along so perhaps it was just as well we didn't go for it. Never mind.

What we also learned is that we can narrow our options down to a very small field of choices and this has made things both a lot easier, and a lot more difficult. We even have a top 4, which is models we coming back to, in order of preference.

Austin A40 Somerset
Lanchester LD10
Austin Sixteen
Morris Ten

The Somerset seems to be a sensible middle-ground. It's modern enough to be familiar to what we know and old enough to feel properly old. Slow, but not impossible to live with, and upgradable. They're relatively plentiful and affordable even for a very good example and, if it turns out to not be for us, should be moderately easy to move on. It's also a good size for our space and has styling inside and out that we both like.

The Lanchester is a bit harder to justify rationally, it's just a car we really like. They seem nicely built and well thought out (from what little experience we've had with them), with styling that makes them look older than they are. Not an expensive car to acquire and they do pop up for sale now and then so hopefully that means they're not too rare.

Austin Sixteen has many of the qualities of the Somerset above, it's mostly the styling of them that we like and them being a good size.

Morris Ten is bottom of our shortlist because it's not one we're crazy about but seems to be a sensible choice. We'd prefer an older Ten, but if the right one came up and was a newer body style that would be fine too.

So, we're now actually looking at cars and setting cash aside and while I don't want to say we'll definitely get one this year, but we'd like to if we can.

[Rick]

It'll be interesting to hear how you get on. Re the LD10s, there are two versions - the Briggs-bodied car is all-steel coachwork, the Barker-bodied examples have an ash frame. The latter looks nicer IMO, but woodworm isn't for everyone

RJ
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[alanb]

The Lanchester is a really nice car the Briggs body is the best bet and they both have that wonderful pre-select gearbox, the Morris 10 all models are good reliable cars and fun to drive, don't forget the Morris 12 of the series versions same body but more power, all have good back up from the Morris register.
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old tourer


Morris 8 two seater

[Vulgalour]

The only experience with wooden bodied cars I have is the one everyone has: Morris Travellers. I'm more comfortable with steel than wood so a Briggs-bodied LD10 is definitely the better option.

I'm hoping that whatever we go for, common sense will see us through most problems the cars might present. I expect replacing worn out components is likely to be the biggest amount of work any car presents us with. Bodywork is a given, but construction seems simple and robust enough for the most part that I doubt that will present too many issues. If nothing else, it will be a great excuse to buy more tools, one can never have too many tools.

Incidentally, recently I found an advert for a pair of cars that could have been useful, especially since they were only about 30 miles away. The first was an Austin Princess with what looked to be terminal rot, that car would have offered quite a few useful spares for mine and others. The other vehicle it came with was an A40 Devon pick up, which looked in an equally degraded state. Available as a brace for under £500, but not much information on where the cars actually were and the pictures made it look like they were at the end of an overgrown patch of farm land. We were still tempted, all the same, but the logistics of recovering two cars and then trying to store and work on them while also getting the new house sorted out meant that we let them go. Again, probably for the best since I know what work is involved in stripping a car down for parts and how ugly a job it can look and I'm quite sure the Devon was a mountain of work all on its own, even if it wasn't terminally rotten.

We're not discounting any possibility, all the same. It can be surprising what you find when you keep your eyes open and are patient. It will be gardening season again soon and my other half will be letting his customers know that he's on the lookout for a Somerset, no doubt. All it takes is for one of them to mention "an old car my neighbour has in a garage" and it can lead to something interesting... or sometimes a car that isn't particularly old that the neighbour has no interest in selling.

[Vulgalour]

Car hunting has taken a serious back seat just lately, every time we think we're nearer to acquiring something an expense pops up from somewhere else. However, I've been keeping an eye on the market anyway just to keep abreast of things.

What this has meant is that I've been finding listings in various places for separate chassis, rolling chassis, and bodies and that, in turn, led to some confusion over vehicle ID.

Up until recently we'd considered purchasing a whole vehicle to use straight away. Lately, we've been toying with the notion of making a bitsa, for the fun of it, from whatever we could find that went together. We had been of the understanding that it was always the chassis that provided the vehicle's identity and that the body was, effectively immaterial to this. As long as the chassis was present and you kept a sufficient proportion of the mechanical components one could always register and insure the vehicle as what the chassis said it was.

However, we've also seen several listings for vehicles that appear to have the identity attached to the body rather than the chassis and that's led to confusion rather than clarity. Legally speaking, if we were to build a car from a collection of parts - probably not cost-effective, but certainly fun - do we need to find a body or a chassis with identification? If a collection of parts has no paperwork, how does one go about acquiring that?

One consideration for this was that while we would still both like a saloon car of some description, a pick-up truck would be just as feasible for the both of us to enjoy and would be considerably more suitable to create as a bitsa from disparate parts. It's not a route we'd previously considered because it is a lot more work and likely a lot more money to build, but in theory it certainly seems like it would be a lot of fun to build and we'd learn an awful lot about how the vehicle went together.

[Rick]

I don't have recent firsthand experience of dealing with DVLA and registrations, but I know they've been tightening up a lot on this kind of thing (significant modifications). I've read of people say converting a saloon into a pickup running into trouble, ie when changing the style of bodywork from original to a.n.other, so I'd be wary of going down the home-build/bitsa/special route without checking it out thoroughly in advance of shelling out £££.

RJ
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[Vulgalour]

The uncertainty in the build is precisely why we've not bought, even on very tempting project parts. I have a basic understanding of the points system for the kit cars but I don't believe this falls under that category since we're looking to build a car composed entirely of original components, just not from one vehicle. Rather like taking four like vehicles that are all broken in different ways to create one vehicle out of all of them.

[mikeC]

I would be very wary of taking on a project like that; the DVLA has become very awkward over cars with, shall we say, dubious provenance. In my own sphere, Austin Sevens that are basically original bar a re-body have fallen foul of the DVLA, and at least two built up from parts - all Austin Seven, but from different cars - have been required to pass the current IVA inspection, which they have been unable to meet.

Last year I nearly bought a Morgan-style kit car which was built and registered in the 1990s but which had been the subject of a cherished number transfer. For some reason DVLA had not issued a replacement number at the time, and were now refusing to re-register it ...
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in the garage: 1938 Talbot Ten Airline
Recently departed: 1953 Lancia Appia, 1931 Austin Seven, 1967 Singer Chamois, 1914 Saxon, 1930 Morris Cowley, 1936 BSA Scout, 1958 Lancia Appia coupe, 1922 Star 11.9 ... the list goes on!

[Vulgalour]

I posted on another forum https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/213557/pre-war-bitsa that I use a lot and we've decided not to pursue this route further.

MikeC's comment also supports what I found in the other thread from two users whose knowledge on these things I trust implicitly.

While it is possible to build a bitsa, it's an added layer of complication and potential frustration that could ruin the enjoyment of the project. It's more sensible to spend less money (the bitsa will certainly cost more to acquire all the parts and construct) on something tatty with paperwork and enjoy fixing that as we go.

However, it has also made us consider non-running vehicles now, which we hadn't been so keen to take on before. Paperwork seems to be the most important item with whatever we take on and providing the vehicle we buy has an identity and is recognised by the DVLA it will be something we can work with.