Welcome to another month of Fraser factory happenings.
Before we get into the builds, a milestone worth mentioning: this month marks 20 years since Scott and Ida took the wheel of Fraser Cars. Twenty years ago, we set out not knowing quite where the road would lead. What we’ve learned along the way is that the real richness has been in building a community, building a very special team, and the cherry on top: getting to build people’s dreams, some of which have been lifelong. With our sights already set on the 40-year anniversary in 2028, there’s plenty more to come. Thanks to everyone who’s been part of the journey so far.
We are pleased to be starting the build of Fraser 349 (aka nearly 350!) this week for Jules. This is another tried and tested Honda F20c powered Fraser Clubman S and will be residing in Auckland. Over the next few months we will be head down building the chassis and fitting the body before it goes to paint and has the trim made before the hand it over to Jules for assembly.
Steve took ownership of his mental Fraser a few weeks ago and as of today, he still hasn’t crashed it! Powered by a turbocharged Toyota 3sge, it makes somewhere around 400+ hp but is surprisingly relatively easy to drive. Modern turbo tech has smoothed out the power delivery into what can almost be described as linear. We look forward to hearing how it goes as Steve continues to dial in things like traction control to really make the most of it.
Geoff’s BMW 2002 restomod is still plugging away with the rear guards almost complete. We took a bit of a detour after finding rust under previous repairs in the rear of the sills on both sides but we’ve dealt with that, and progress on the fun stuff can continue. We reached a cool milestone in the project recently of placing it on the ground for the first time and being able to step back and gain an appreciation of how wide, low and small it is. The 3D printed wheel arch flare patterns are giving us a good idea of what the final product will look like.
Ray’s Chev C10 is back from the painters and looks great. Tim has been madly reassembling it and it won’t be long before it’s back up to being a daily driver again.
Denzil’s VW Karmann Ghia now has a cooling system for the Subaru engine in the back. A bit of head scratching was required to come up with this as the body never allowed for it being an aircooled engine format, but we think our solution will work well and doesn’t impact the look of the car in any way.
Greg’s Noble N400 is well underway; completing the LVV design application requires a huge amount of measuring and drawing. NZTA and LVVTA treat these cars as scratchbuilt vehicles because they were produced in such low numbers. This means we must present the vehicle’s design to the LVVTA, including all critical information, so they can make an informed decision about whether it meets all regulations or if any aspects need changing.
Don’s 1935 Ford is pretty much done and just going through the final stages to get it road legal. We thought we were there until it randomly stopped on a test drive – further investigation led to the only part of the car we hadn’t been into, the fuel tank. Being a 90-year-old car, you’d expect a bit of residue in the tank, but nothing prepared us for what we found. There was 50mm (2 inches in 90-year-old car speak) of rust and god knows what sitting in the bottom of the tank – how it had been running up until then is beyond us – but a new fuel tank later and we are back up and running again.
Thanks for following along with us for another month of builds, restos, and the odd rusty surprise. If you’ve got a build of your own in mind, or just want to talk cars, drop by the workshop or flick us a message – we’d love to hear from you.
