29 Jun 2015 – Driven To Write

A New Jerusalem

XJ40 : 1972-1994: Was this the last Jaguar?

They said it couldn’t be done, but he’d heard that before. Nobody had presented a car at London’s prestigious Institution of Mechanical Engineers and certainly no complete vehicle had ever broached the main entrance of number One, Birdcage Walk, Westminster. This hallowed society of engineers, founded by Railway pioneer, George Stephenson in 1847, had already hosted some of the finest technical minds over its 140-year history, but on August 28 1986, it would host its first ever motor car.

As Jim Randle surveyed the lecture theatre, with the still-secret new Jaguar, now back on four wheels inside and safely under wraps, Jaguar’s Director of Vehicle Engineering cast his mind back for a brief moment to the voices of doubt, the intense debates, to his insistence that a way would be found; the hours of calculations and re-calibrations, the ingenuity, improvisation and intellectual rigour which saw the construction of a purpose-built, detachable rotating metal cage which enveloped the car as it was painstakingly inched on its side through the ImechE’s narrow portal only a few hours previously^[1].

What time did Randle Continue reading “A New Jerusalem”

1976 Triumph Toledo

This is what I have in mind when I think of a Toledo/Dolomite: one in flat burgundy paint parked outside a damp Victorian house.

There are lots of houses like this in Dublin.

It’s 1983 in the inner suburbs of Dublin and these are parked on every other street. You know the owner hates it and the next car will be a Corolla. The image is from aronline, of course.

The Alvis Continuation Series

My intention was to ask readers which extinct car brand they would like to see back in production. My preference is for Alvis. Interestingly, Alvis is not as dead as I thought.

2015 Alvis 4.3 litre Continuation series.

My one caveat was that it ought to be a brand dead for more than 20 years so we can avoid regretting Rover, Pontiac, Austin, Morris and Oldsmobile, Citroen**, Lincoln**, Saab and Saturn. For example. Alvis are back in the business of car production. They have hit upon the wheeze of completing an unfinished run of cars from 1940. “There is evidence from the 1938 Alvis Board Minutes that 77 of the 4.3 Litre chassis that were officially sanctioned for production were never completed because car manufacturing had to be suspended in 1940. As a result the new 4.3 Litre “Continuation Series” will be limited to the production of these remaining 77 chassis, thereby fulfilling the original intention of the Alvis Board,” write Alvis at their nice website. Continue reading “The Alvis Continuation Series”

Our cars: 1975 Ford Granada 2.0 L

Run by Myles Gorfe. Total Mileage: 299,918. Miles since May 30 2015: 3. Latest costs: £169 for removing carburettor, £89.01 for installing the carburettor. £23 for repairing bonnet insulation, £12 for loosening the rear parcel shelf to find a rattle, £19 for new oil and adjusting the second air filter, £40 for two punctures and £310 for a new heater matrix, £50 for the flat-bed truck, £490 for cutting, welding, filling and painting of b-pillar rust problem.

It’s been a busy month for the Grannie. Len Gudgeon at the Granada Garage has got the carburetor sorted out finally and revealed a fuel tank problem. Gavin Chide has been paid and that matter is now closed. The rust spot on the outside of the B-pillar turned out to Continue reading “Our cars: 1975 Ford Granada 2.0 L”