Growing Up With Old Cars

Growing up spent many a happy hour coved in paint and oil helping my dad restore his ever growing collection of classic cars, Unfortunately there are very few pictures of the cars and the restoration process, unlike these days with digital cameras and mobile phones every step can be documented

This is the first major restoration we did A 1949 AC 2 litre two door saloon , in the early 80’s we moved to a bigger house with a good sized garage and drive way which allowed us to get more cars

Me and my little brother in the car and my dad eager to get started

My Granddad who being a carpenter remade the wood frame under the aluminium body

My Dad with the finished Car

She has been on loan to the Llangollen Motor Museum for the last 10 years or so

The next major project was a 1951 Lea-Francis 14hp Four-Light Saloon, which came with no engine or gearbox but otherwise a complete car, the body had been stripped to the bare aluminium and the trim was in boxes

Again not many pictures of the restoration but we could not find an engine (no ebay or internet back then) so a old Ford Capri was found and the engine and gearbox was grafted in along with the wiring and some changes to the suspension and brakes

Dad contemplating the newly recoverd interior trim

The last time we saw the Lea-Francis it was in Mouldsworth Motor Museum loaned by the current owner

This was a real wreck when it turned up a half rebuild body shell and the rest in cardboard boxes a 1965 MGB Roadster

Another memorable Restoration was a 1964 Triumph 2000 mk1, We got this car of a friend of mine from work as payment for painting his Landrover for him

The poor thing was in a bit of a mess

We actually have a picture half way through being restored

Being backed out of the garage for its first road test

Me and Dad with the Triumph

Having old cars about the place was the norm growing up like the 1959 BMW Isetta

Even my Grandad got in on the act with his 1976 Triumph 2000 TC mk2 stayed in the family for many years, first it was my Dads and them My Grandad had it till about 5 years before he died,

and I had a 1974 Triumph 2000 mk2 for a while

lol I think we went through a bit of a Triumph faze

but there where all sorts of other cars that never got photographed

And my dads current classic car is a 1970 Triumph 2.5 PI

and looks nice parked next to my Rover 827 Sterling

My Rover 827 Sterling all clean

and Dads little Toyota MR2

The cars all clean

My new little silver Nissan Micra and Rover 827 Sterling in the background and the one in the middle is Lynnes Vauxhall Vectra

My Little Nissan Micra looking better with proper Nissan wheel trims

And in September 2012 Lynne picked up her Toyota

Going through some old photos I found some other cars that where in the family

First up is a Ford Corsair 2000e

next up is Ford Granada Mk1

My Grandad had a Fiat 2300 Estate I have really fond memories of this car and its big shiny,slippy red bench seats lol and I loved my bike

My dads Ford Corsair 2000e in the background

Still to this day don’t know how we managed to go on holiday in this little Datsun 100A all the way to South Wales, the five of us and luggage I’m pretty sure this was taken on Pendine Sands in South Wales

An this was in New Brighton we would have been going to the model boating lake 🙂 we used to love it there as kids

Another holiday we went and stayed in a place called Chwilog in North Wales dad had a silver Ford Granada Mk2 at the time, me and my brothers and dad pictured outside the little cottage

Getting a post holiday clean, lol and my little brother all dressed up as a warrior of some sort

I used to love this Cortina Mark IV 2.3 auto it was very fast a bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing

We had a coup;e of Rover SD1’s First one was a 2.6L with go faster stripes

I loved this beast it was the 3.5 V8 what a fun motor

We went to lots of shows and club events over the years and even we even helped to organise a local show with the Triumph Appreciation Wirral car club

My son Cameron was even photographed for a local newspaper sat on the bonnet on the 10 birthday of our local Triumph Appreciation Wirral car club

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