BOLD BEEAUTY PERFECTT POISE 1973 DODGE CHARGER
1953 LINCOLN CAPRI
FREE 332 PAGE
SUPPLEMENT 1963 GALAXIE
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No.336 April 2019
THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION
ONE MAN'S FANTASTIC FLEET!
Ben Klemenzson
Viewpoint
I
100% AMERICAN
t seems seismic shifts are currently taking place in the UK car industry; Brexit has played its part in this, but so too has the changing face of the global car industry and also the recent free trade deal between Japan and the EU which effectively negates the need to manufacture in the UK as an inroad to European markets. Donald Trump’s sabre rattling about slapping tariffs on European cars sold in the US (i.e. German cars) presented the rather startling – tantalising even – prospect of American-built cars making their way to European shores in larger numbers, should he have his way… However, they might not be American cars in the sense we know them. BMW, Honda and many other Japanese manufacturers have plants in the US and not that long ago American-built Hondas were on sale here in the UK (primarily Accord Coupes and estates). Would one consider those American? What about Mexican-built Dodge Calibers – or Jeep Renegades, which are built in Italy? It’s a funny old world, in terms
of what we might call an American car. Is it a car built in the US? Is it an American brand? Brands such as Cadillac and Buick are going gangbusters in China where they are manufactured and sold, but would we consider these American? Probably not... No danger of any lines being blurred in this month’s Classic American; we’re celebrating Detroit’s halcyon days with pure American metal in the shape of such hallowed nameplates as Galaxie, Charger and Lincoln. And American automotive legends don’t get any bigger than John DeLorean, whose life we celebrate starting this month in an exclusive xclusive serialisation. serialisation Enjoy!
B Ben Kl Klemenzson, editor dit bklemenzson@mortons.co.uk
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Stars & Stripes 2013.
Classic American
News CAR OF THE YEAR TAKES OFF!
Following on from last month’s confirmation of Kingstown Shipping and RH Insurance as sponsors of this year’s Car of the Year competition, Classic American is delighted to confirm the following American car shows as heats of this year’s competition. Good Friday April 19 Wheels Day, Aldershot, Hampshire
June 1-2
American Speedfest, Brands Hatch
June 16
Prescott 2012.
AACI, Billing 2011.
Hot Rod & Custom Drive-in Day, Beaulieu, Hants
July 6-7
Stars & Stripes, Tatton Park, Cheshire
July 14
Rally of the Giants, Blenheim Palace, Oxon
July 21
Damn Yankees, North Weald, Essex
August 2-4 AACUK 2011.
6 classic-american.com
Mopar EuroNats, Santa Pod Raceway, Northants
A winning car is picked at each heat, with the winner receiving a cheque for £200 and a unique hand-cast brass trophy and each of these heat winners will be invited to bring their car to display on the Classic American stand at the Classic Motor Show held at Birmingham’s NEC in mid-November. Over the NEC show weekend the cars are judged, usually by two to three independent judges. One overall champion is picked, winning a cheque for £500, an even bigger prestigious hand-cast brass trophy – and their car will be featured on the front cover of February’s issue. Any American car is eligible and formal entry is not necessary; the only criteria are that cars have to be stock and either original, or sympathetically restored. So what are you waiting for? Mark those heats down on your calendar and you could be making a date with one of the biggest stands in the American section at the Classic Motor Show this coming November!
GETTING TO THE ROOTES
Why a book on British cars in an American car mag? Well, this new book by respected writer and Classic American contributor Geoff Carverhill takes an in-depth look at one of Britain’s most important manufacturing groups, one that was influenced greatly by the US automotive industry. Rootes copied many of the marketing and manufacturing methods used by GM, Ford and Chrysler. They were one of the first companies to distribute GM cars in Britain, even before Lendrum & Hartman, but it was British manufacturers they had their eyes on and so built a product range similar to that of Alfred Sloan’s concept of a car for every budget. By the mid-1950s, with Hillman, Singer, Humber and Sunbeam, as well as their truck range, they had a complete vehicle range for most markets. Even their stylists created Trans-
Atlantic designs; the big Humber Hawk and Super Snipes of the ‘50s and ‘60s echoed the styling of ‘50s Chevrolets and Buicks. The 1955 Sunbeam Rapier was styled in co-operation with the Raymond Loewy studio, its pillarless roofline and wraparound rear window being a direct copy of Loewy’s ‘53 Studebaker Starliner. Containing more than 400 archive quality black and white and colour photographs, it’s published by The Crowood Press at £40, but is available from The Rootes Archive Centre Trust at £32. Email press@ rootesarchive.org or see Amazon and independent book retailers.
CLIVE SUTTON BESPOKE
The Sutton Bespoke stand at this year’s London Classic Car Show (for a full report, turn to page 8,) displayed a very special 1967 Sutton Mustang GT500CS. This contemporary interpretation of the original GT500 is truly unique and provides a full ‘resto-mod’ specification, with contemporary highperformance upgrades. Alongside it was a Sutton Bespoke GT700CS – a modern UK-spec Mustang, with a selection of Sutton Bespoke and official Ford Performance upgrades. Sutton Bespoke fits a Ford Performance supercharger, active exhaust and Recaro sports seats among many other upgrades. The price of the Sutton Mustang GT700CS is £95,000 on the road. Sutton will also upgrade customer Mustangs to their
specification using Ford Performance parts. The mighty Mustang CS800 displayed in 2018/19 model guise featured an all-new enhanced Whipple supercharger, which means the car now produces a massive 850bhp and 660ft-lb of torque and the show-spec CS800 is priced at £115,000 on the road. Also on display at its first UK debut was the right-handdrive Sutton Monster Raptor CS520 off-road performance pick-up truck. The CS520 is remanufactured with an uprated intercooler and a remap, helping it produce 520bhp and 515ft-lb of torque. The truck is re-engineered in right-hand drive and distributed by Sutton in the UK, Australia and across South East Asia. The on-the-road price of the vehicle is between £107,000 and £125,000 plus VAT, depending on options.
Sutton Mustang GT500CS.
Sutton Monster Raptor CS520.
classic-american.com 7
Classic Corvette Club stand.
Classic American
News Words and photography: Ben Klemenzson
THE LONDON
CLASSIC CAR SHOW ExCeL, London
F
or several years now The London Classic Car Show has been a popular fixture on the classic car enthusiast’s calendar. Held at the ExCeL exhibition centre in London’s docklands, it’s easily accessible by car or public transport and as it’s held indoors, it means the weather can’t spoil things (which in February is not unlikely!). This year’s event was held in just one hall, a very big hall, but in previous years there had been two halls, the second of which had variously held motorsport and club exhibits. This year there was a motorbike show on in the other hall, although tickets for this had to be bought separately. Club stands were dotted around the show, the most prominent from an American perspective being the Classic Corvette Club UK’s stand and relatively recently established Corvette Appreciation & Preservation Society (CAPS). Probably the most unique aspect of the show is ‘The Grand Avenue’, which is sponsored by ERS classic car insurance and is effectively a road that runs down the centre of the hall, along which cars at various points during the day are paraded up and down.
UK and US Rover SD1s.
8 classic-american.com
February 14-17 1950 Oldsmobile 88.
1886 Benz patent motor wagen.
1938 Buick.
Blower Bentley.
1967 GT500CS ‘restomod’ Mustang.
Corvair in the ‘paddock’.
This year visitors were treated to the sights and sounds of one of the earliest combustion engine vehicles ever built, an 1886 Benz which looked more like a penny-farthing bicycle than a car, as well as a Ford Model T and TV presenter and mechanic Edd China driving a Thirties Cadillac. Plenty of American metal was on show. Extremely rare and valuable cars included a 1938 Buick wearing a British-crafted body by Carlton Carriage which was heading to auction and a truly stunning dual cowl 1937 Packard 12 with a 473cu in V12 engine which had
been restored by Trevor Hirst. Classic American advertiser Clive Sutton was on hand with a large stand displaying a 1967 GT500CS ‘restomod’ Mustang and Sutton Bespoke Mustang GT700CS as well as Sutton’s very own Super Raptor truck. Over on DT Vintage’s stand was a truly stunning black 1950 Oldsmobile 88 convertible. This immaculate example was absolutely spotless underneath and in fantastic original condition. Apart from clubs and car dealers, there was just about every automotive business on hand, as well as plenty of weird and wonderful vehicles of every era ❯❯
“You’re only supposed to...” The Italian Job display had to include doors of some kind!
Edd China driving Cadillac on The Grand Avenue. Vaughn Watkins with stunning C2 Corvette.
Mustang workshop Mustang.
classic-american.com 9
1958 Packard Golden Hawk.
Electric MG... but why?
and description imaginable. A display of vehicles that were either in or copies of the four-wheeled stars of the Italian Job was tremendously popular. So too was a stand that had a display of aero-engined cars, including Babs, aka the Higham Special, a world land speed record holder which achieved more than 171mph in 1926. The following year it crashed at Pendine Sands and was buried there, only to be dug up 42 years later and restored, a feat which apparently took 2750 hours! Power is from a 1917 600bhp 27-litre Packard Liberty aero-engine. Now you may not think Rovers would be of any interest to American car fans, but on display on one stand were two Rover SD1 models from the same year, both with the Buick-derived 3.5-litre aluminium V8. However, one of them was an American
spec version built for the US market, as witnessed by the odd headlights and park bench federal bumpers. It was interesting to compare the two cars and sobering to think it was these Rovers that finished off the company’s reputation in North America. When Rover returned to the US to sell cars there two decades later, they had to be badged as ‘Sterlings’ as Rover had become such a toxic brand to American car buyers! One theme that did seem to emerge was the number of ‘electrified’ classics – there were stands offering electric Minis, MGs and even old-school style Defender Land Rovers. While certainly being ‘interesting’, the thought of gutting classic cars and installing electric drive trains seems an odd one and probably not something that would appeal to most classic car enthusiasts! ★
Period light-up signs.
David Van Haarens 1963 Sting Ray on the CAPS stand.
Clive Sutton Monster Raptor.
Thunderbird 2 based on a Japanese minivan.
The infamous drriving sofa.
27-litre Babs.
1937 Packard V12.
10 classic-american.com
Presenter Quentin Willson.
Classic American
News TRIED & TESTED Clarke Jump Start 40000 Cost: £149 Available from: Machine Mart stores, or order online at www.machinemart. co.uk. See website for local store info. Finding a battery pack that’s powerful enough to jump most American cars – and that doesn’t cost a fortune – is quite a challenge. For many of us, taking our cars off the road for the winter and storing them somewhere else for six months is an annual reality. Chances are you still go and check on the car periodically and even start it up, to keep everything working and ready for its release in the spring. And if you have to store your car away from home, then there’s nothing more irritating than schlepping all the way to your pride and joy to find there isn’t enough juice in the battery to coax the engine into life… It’s frustrating for those of us that take our cars off the road for the winter, that even regular starting up and running of your car’s engine or a short run in dry, salt-free conditions cannot combat the reduction in power of your battery when the mercury really starts to drop. Jump-starting from another vehicle is not always practical, so a jump start pack like the Clarke Heavy Duty Jump Start 4000 is ideal. Priced at a very reasonable £149 (we’ve seen packs for use on up to 7.0-litre engines for more than a grand!) it’s capable of jump-starting vehicles up to 5.0-litres, it offers 1500 Amps peak output and 700 Amps boost at 12 volts. It also features a battery condition and charge level indicator, as well as an integral worklight for roadside repairs or emergency situations. The battery pack can be recharged from 230 volts mains or in-vehicle via a 12-volt adapter. Weighing an impressive 17kg, it also has heavy-duty 1m long leads and heavy-duty battery clamps. Rating:
12 classic-american.com
VHRA BACK TO THE ’POD The Vintage Hot Rod Association will be returning to Santa Pod on April 12 and 13 for the third running of the VHRA Vintage Nationals. Racing is only for the members and their VHRA-eligible hot rods and customs, but spectating is open to all. The VHRA will descend on Santa Pod on the Friday and, while not racing that day, there will be plenty of hot rods arriving ahead of the evening’s bash in the Fueller’s Bar. Headlining the party this year are the incredible Fuzillis, with their raunch ’n’ roll sounds bound to raise the roof. Saturday is Raceday, and it’s traditional hot rods and customs all the way, with pre-’49 historic cars tearing up the strip from beginning to end. With classes for various engines and body styles, competition is closely fought to take home the prizes from the event sponsors. You can buy
Last year’s event was scorchio...
tickets for the two days, race day, or even just to party on the Friday night. Full details can be found by going to www.vhra.co.uk and clicking on ‘events’.
... More of the same this year please!
MIRKA’S NEXT GEN ABRASIVE Mirka is bringing the next generation of abrasives to the ART sector with the launch of WPF Next Gen, its new waterproof paper abrasive. This range has been developed to provide users with durable abrasives, specifically for wet sanding applications. The new range uses aluminium oxide grains in grits P60-P180, P240-P1000 and P1200-P2500, delivering an even scratch pattern. The abrasive’s innovative design ensures that it has good resistance to clogging, less suction and an excellent cut. In addition, the aluminium oxide grains have a smoother, finer surface that enables them to be used on fresh clear coats, leading to easier polishing and increased versatility.
Aluminium oxide grains feature on Mirka's latest papers.
Steve Smith, Mirka’s national sales manager, says: “Mirka’s aim is to provide its customers with the right product for the job at hand and Mirka’s R&D team has done this with the development of WPF Next Gen. We believe
the range adds value by taking waterproof abrasive technology to the next level and we look forward to users reaping the benefits by improving efficiencies and increasing productivity.” Find out more at: www. mirka.com/uk/uk/
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