Innholdsfortegnelse for 30/12/2020 i Classic Car Buyer

We don’t like breaking bad news, but this year seems to have conspired against us somewhat. It’s been difficult to hide from the stormy clouds of 2020 since they have been determined to loom over every facet of our life, and even the few rays of sunshine breaking through now aren’t yet signs of a summer’s day over the immediate horizon. As a nation we’re used to a bit of rain anyway, but it’s nonetheless been inspiring for us to see so many soldiering through the crisis and making do. In fact, there have been positive effects for some, and we’ve found that the classic car industry in particular has had its ups as well as downs – as we cover in our news review on pages 4-7. After all,…

The 1100 Club has purchased the original BMC factory front wing tooling for the 1100 and 1300 range and put it back to work to produce new panels. The new panels are the culmination of two year’s work, prompted by David Kingerley of Longbridge Motor Spares kindly donating the wing tooling he’d acquired when taking over spare parts company Earlpart. At that point it wasn’t known if the tooling could be salvaged as it had been stored outside for a long time, but the club managed to find a traditional family-run engineering firm to painstakingly clean it up and put it back to work. The original intention was to produce the rarer offside wings only, but as the wings are in three parts and part of the tooling produces two…

JAGUAR XK120 (1948-1954) It was the car that stole the 1948 London Motor Show and subsequently many fans around the world. The XK120 was a hugely successful sports car for export, looking great, going fast, and being good value. They were great value in the 1980s, and even once values picked up in the 1990s – for the first time gaining traction ahead of the later XK140 and XK150 models – this iconic Jaguar was still available for around £10,000. The later models have never been far behind though and as values gained serious momentum into the 2000s, the XK120 only had a slight edge. Design purity played against the additional performance, and often it would be a matter of personal taste. Values shot past £50,000 in the early 2010s,…

Triumph rose from humble beginnings as a bicycle maker around 130 years ago to become a major force in the British car industry. Its models in the mid-20th century were simultaneously sporty and stylish, with more than a hint of luxury and by 1970, its range arguably rivalled that of BMW today. How then did such a promising car marque start, flourish and ultimately fail, all in about 60 years? In our three part series, we reveal Triumph’s story, its cars, its sporting achievements and the people behind its highs and lows. ON TWO WHEELS The journey began in 1887, when German immigrant Siegfried Bettmann founded the Triumph Cycle Company in Coventry with business partner and fellow countryman Mauritz Johann Schulte. With meagre financial resources, Bettmann and Schulte cashed in…

Launched back in 1996, Ford’s Ka was one of the first products to herald the brand’s reinvention of itself as a driver’s favourite and Group Ed Wager recalls the assembled hacks on the press launch cackling with laughter as they careered round Sardinia flat-out. Sadly, rust prevention wasn’t the equal of the handling and the original Ka is one of those once-common sights which has suddenly disappeared. Which is why the assembled CCB editorial team were stopped in their tracks by this well preserved example at the British Motor Museum recently. At first we thought it was the Millennium edition on account of its yellow paint, but the black bumpers and hubcapped wheels give the game away.…

The law is being changed to prevent any vehicle constructed after January 1, 1980 from being able to display the black and silver number plate, despite being recorded in the DVLA’s historic tax class. Information from the DVLA reported by the FBHVC reveals the previous rule permitting any vehicle over 40 years old and registered in the historic tax class to display an old style black and silver number plate was an “unintended consequence” of the change in the definition of a historic vehicle for vehicle tax exemption purposes in 2015. Previously, all vehicles first registered after January 1, 1973 could only display reflective white and yellow number plates with black characters. Those vehicles with a construction date prior to January 1980 will continue to be able to legally display…

SAAB 96 (1960-1980) The 96 crosses the bridge between two-stroke and four-stroke engines, with the Ford V4 being introduced in 1967. It also saw the Saab’s visual character develop with a new headlight and grille treatment that would come to define many subsequent models. Today it has a relatively small following, but such is its rarity particularly in the UK that values are around £5000. Since numbers whittled down to a certain point and the 96 became collectible, at least to a few, values have remained just above its contemporaries but not by much. Inflation has been the major influence on values since the early 2000s, while in the last few years we’ve noticed only a few exceptional examples break the trend. An early car in concours condition might demand…

Writing this as the news was still full of ‘last ditch’ Brexit talks it seemed appropriate to have stumbled across this photo of cars being exported from Britain back in the days before our industry was all foreign-owned. The location is Cardiff Docks, the year 1958 and the cars have all come from Coventry factories, with Canley Car Deliveries transporting the Triumphs and Rootes cars arriving on another Coventry firm’s Karrier Bantam, the Karrier brand by then a Rootes product. Later Bantams like this one used the unusual Commer TS3 engine, a two-stroke opposed-piston diesel which was compact enough to be fitted below the cab floor in the days when driver comfort was rather less of a priority. The UK wouldn’t join the EEC until five years later and as…

The value of the historic and classic motoring industry to the UK has been reiterated by new research commissioned by HERO-ERA, organiser of the epic Peking to Paris classic rally, which found the sector turns over £18.3bn a year and employs 113,000 people. The 60-page report, entitled ‘The Economic and Environmental Impact of the Historic and Classic Motor Industry in the UK’, covers the impact of the industry on the economy, jobs, skills, heritage and the environment. It was conducted on behalf of HERO-ERA by Cebr (Centre for Economics and Business Research Ltd) and the findings are separate to those released by the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs in November. The new report acknowledges and utilises some of the FBHVC’s information, and the Federation’s chairman, David Whale, was present…

Historics scored its best sale rate of the year as it held its season finale at Ascot Racecourse on December 12. In common with all 2020 Historics auctions, it was once again a live, open-to-the-public affair, with a full-to-capacity, socially distanced auction hall supported by record online bidding. In all, 450 visitors attended the three pre-sale viewing days, with 750 present on auction day. An impressive 192 varied classics were offered, of which 159 sold – a sale rate of 83 per cent and achieving a gross revenue of £4.67m. Although 118 sold in-hall and to phone bidders, 74 went to online bidders – a rate of 43 per cent that further demonstrates how the classic auction world has opened up to those logging on from afar. The headliner was…

As we’ve said before, nobody needs to have 12 cylinders in their car engine… but it’s nice to know you can. There had been 12 and even 16-cylinder engines before of course and there would be more of them afterwards, but it was Jaguar which popularised the V12 engine and for three decades would be pretty unique in offering it in a mass production car. Until that is, BMW decided to join the fray in 1987, not so much to challenge Jaguar but to make a gesture of intent in the general Stuttgart direction where Mercedes could muster only a V8. BMW’s M70 engine would first appear in the 750i saloon but shortly afterwards formed the basis of a new range-topping coupe to replace the much-loved 6-Series and suddenly the…

Mazda MX-5 If you want your MX-5 with just two pedals it’ll have a Eunos badge as the car wasn’t offered as an auto by Mazda UK. It’s a surprisingly engaging drive though. BMW Z3 BMW offered an auto option on all the Z3s, a four-speed GM on four-pot cars and a ZF five-speeder on six-cylinder models. Somehow it needs the bigger engine to feel right. Triumph TR7 An automatic TR7 is a rare beast but they do exist. Another three-speeder, performance is on a par with the automatic MGB.…