As the year rolls on, the projects continue.
Alun’s 1976 Chev Malibu is back again. Those who follow these reports know that we have been constantly evolving this car for years, and the latest modification is having a custom hood lining fabricated. Most customers would be happy with a simple fabric hood lining, but we want to do something a bit different. This will consist of multiple parts: the centre section will be an alloy panel with bead rolled patterns taken from the front hood ornament painted in the blue body colour. On either side will be buttoned velour panels that match the seat trim, featuring recessed blue side lighting. The pièce de résistance, however, will be the blue transparent sun visors with hidden blue side lighting. It’s about as far from building Lotus 7s as you can get but we love having fun with it!
Fraser number 349 is off to the painters this week, and the trim is underway. It won’t be long before we can hand it over to Jules so he can begin the assembly.
Harry has entrusted us with his beautiful Jaguar E-Type V12. It was running pretty poorly when it arrived and Tim worked his magic to get the old girl humming. We also noticed it is not driving as nicely as a Jag should so we will give the suspension a good going over to bring it back to its former glory.
Geoff’s BMW 2002 Restomod now has side skirts, which is a big milestone. As the car is a road car we did not want a full roll cage so to gain some chassis rigidity, we had the side skirts CNC folded from 2mm steel. This allows them to brace the car up a bit while also looking the part. There will be a transition piece in front of the rear guard but this will be built later taking its styling cues from the front splitter.
Peter’s 1958 Mk 1 Jag is also in the shop currently. This car was modified in Australia before Peter emigrated, so we have been tasked with getting everything LV certified and repair certified. A bit of digging has uncovered some rust behind the rear bumper and the seatbelts and steering rack conversion will need looking at. Other than that it is a very nice car.
Work has begun on Simon’s Ford Anglia. This will be powered by a Toyota 2ZZ on throttle bodies and mated to a Toyota J160 6 speed transmission. While the build will be fairly radical, requiring a new firewall and tunnel to squeeze it in. However, the back seats must remain so Simon can take the whole family with him. We look forward to seeing this progress.
Another new job in the shop is Jose’s Morris Minor, one that will take a lot of thinking to make it work. This Morrie will be a bit different from most, with an electric motor from a Nissan Leaf silently pushing it along. This is a bit of a learning curve for us, we have worked on a few EVs but this will be our first full conversion, so we are excited to see how this pans out. One of the first parts we need is the reduction gearbox to turn the motor to rear wheel drive. Unfortunately this is 10+ weeks away so we have 3D printed one which we can use in its place to allow us to continue fabrication until the real one turns up. This wouldn’t have been possible 10 years ago!
Damn, only one more report until Christmas! Where does the time go?!
