In the Beginning....

“First the earth cooled.  Then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil…..”

I can’t remember exactly when I started getting interested in cars, but it seems to me like it was most of my teenage years.  Certainly long before I learned to drive and way before I had any experience of working on cars (or experience of how much they cost!!).

This was the early 1980s.  Being slightly influenced by Starsky and Hutch on TV, my first automobile hankering was in the form of a Ford Cortina GXL.  It was going to be red, with wolfrace chrome slot mag wheels and jacked up rear suspension (all the rage at the time). 

Photo courtesy of Leake Auctions

TV then brought the Dukes of Hazzard which introduced me to the world of American Muscle cars.  There was a guy in my home town who had a “General Lee” look-a-like Dodge Charger and another guy who owned a silver Pontiac Firebird Formula 400; a car which I fell in love with instantly and pined over for many years!

Photo courtesy of Catawiki Auctions

 

Photo courtesy of Classiccarseller.com

Even with the arrogance of youth I realised that trying to insure a LHD, 350 cubic inch, American car at the tender age of 17 was going to be a complete non-starter (although I did get some quotes just to be sure!!!). 

It was about that time, that another boy at school introduced me to the world of kit cars and I started buying any kit car related magazine I could find.  At this time there was a large number of kit car manufacturers out there; all the usuals, Caterham, Dax (and a large number of other cobra kits), Dutton, Ginetta but also a whole host of VW based kits, many of which were supposed to resemble the more exotic sportcars of the time (VW based Countach anyone?).

I’ve never really been into the Caterham / Lotus 7 type cars, and although I did like the Cobras, a 4-cylinder Ford engine was never going to cut it and the V8/V12 options were going to run into the problem of insurance again.  Some of the VW kits however looked quite reasonable  This was coming from a teenager with no money, no knowledge of building a car whatsoever and the ignorance that the basic kit price was literally only (in most cases) the body and the final price was going to be way more than the basic kit price.  That didn’t stop me looking, fantasising, and planning though!!

The first plan was to build a beach buggy (metal flake paint, big chrome rims, shiny engine bits – class!), the kits seemed reasonable and did not appear to require much in the way of additional work / bits to complete a running vehicle.

But this was to change when I discovered the Nova kit car.  To a 16/17 year old this car was the definition of cool.  It had a sleek, swoopy, sporty shape but for added coolness, it had no doors, the top of the cockpit lifted up on hydraulic rams, like some sort of jet fighter on the road.  I think I spent hours gazing over the manufacturers brochure, coming up with different options for build and spec (all hopelessly unaffordable).  But in my mind’s eye this was the car I was going to have. 

Photo courtesy of carandclassic.co.uk

Of course I didn’t – at some point I came to the conclusion that this was never going to be a realistic prospect, out of my price range (and I had no where to undertake any sort of project of this nature – my parents had a single garage, a single drive and two cars!!).

By this time I had moved on to Street Machine and Custom Car magazine and rekindled my love of American muscle although I love all kinds of hot rods, custom cars, and street sleepers.  Ford Pops with V8 and chromed Jag IRS, Ford 32/33 coupes, 1949 Ford Mercury leadsleds, in fact anything with a large V8 engine has figured on my wish list at some point over the years.

It is ironic then that my first ever car was a Mini 1000.  Not quite as exotic or powerful as anything on my fantasy car list but I cut my teeth on working / maintaining and modifying cars on my Mini.  I fitted adjustable suspension, I replaced the subframes, I fitted the obligatory RC40 long branch exhaust manifold and sports exhaust and I even resprayed it (and most of my parents garage) in Porsche Guards Red (it was definitely not the best spray job ever).  I learnt some valuable lessons along the way (for example the 1 inch diameter bolts in the engine bay that needed to be removed to adjust the front suspension height do not just seal the hole in the bulkhead, they actually hold the front subframe in place – the mechanic who serviced my car told me he was surprised the engine had not driven itself out of the front of the car…..).

I had a couple of years zipping around in the mini before I decided a new set of wheels was required.  A mate of mine had a gold Ford Capri 2.0S which I found that I quite liked so started looking for one for myself.  I eventually bought a 3.0S with the Essex V6 engine (and yes the insurance was more expensive than the car!).  It was gold with a brown vinyl sunroof and I equipped it with a set of neon green fluffy dice hanging from the rear view mirror  I had some great fun with this car, including attending a number of car meets as a member of the Capri Club International.

When the rear leaf springs eventually cracked (coinciding with graduating from university and entering the real world of work, home renting / ownership and eventually marriage and family) I began a period of ownership of slightly more mundane Ford cars (a Fiesta XR2, a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth look-a-like, and a Sierra 4x4).

I eventually did fulfil my dream of owning an American muscle car – not quite from the late 60s / early 70s era which produced some of the most iconic models – but I bought a 1979 Pontiac TransAm, which I owned for around 10 years.  I ended up doing quite a lot of work on the car myself (improving my mechanical skills and knowledge in the process).  Eventually I decided I could not devote enough time to keeping the car serviceable (not helped that I had to store the car at a lock-up some distance from my house) and reluctantly sold it in 2012.

I always said I would replace the TransAm with something else - but family life, lack of space and more importantly lack of funds meant that I never got round to doing anything about this.

Until now......