How much do I love you all? Enough that rather than watch some goit make a zillion quid proffit "redeveloping" a town house in Brighton and ogling Sarah Beeney's boobies I have been rummaging through the archives and scanning photos for you. These I found in a brown envelope. Say no more.
There is a LOT more Vauxhall junk in the archives, but this is pretty much the creme.
We'll start off with a Finnish (I think) Victor convertible
This beasty was (or hopefully still is) called The Tigress. I know little about it apart from the editor of the club mag - not me at the time - put himself in hot water using a photo of it to ridicule customised Vauxhalls, only to discover the owner was a member and thus recipient of the club magazine.
I love it. I'd not change a thing. Maybe I'd put it on slots.
This beast is that unholy matrimonial concoction - a Vauxhall with a Ford motor... Essex powered FE. Love this too.
Sadly this is the only photo I have of this Ventora FD. So what? you say, its a ropey old FD on slots. Look again... the thing is actually part way through a conversion to a 2 door pillarless hardtop. and the doors were extended about 4" to get the proportions right. The guy building it was a top flight body guy for a vintage restoration place. Then he emigrated and the car was up for sale for £150 unfinished. I suspect it got scrapped.
IIRC this beauty was found in a lockup, unused for years, or something.
I like the wheel treatment
Nice lineup of FD, FE and VX series. No idea whats going on here or where or even when, other than early 90s. I believe that the second from RIGHT is the Styling Department special FD Ventora.
Not sure whats going on here, but I can still sense wives being upset about it.
In the mid 90s Hooleys Ford on Derby road closed down. The elegant purpose built art deco dealership and showroom was bulldozed for some redeelopment project. Graham phtographed his Anglia outside it, and Steve's Victor got in a bunch of shots.
This was a beaut of a car, 1599cc base model with 3 speed column shift, drum brakes and dynamo. Was in superb nick, we brought it up from Kent. Sold it locally and never saw it again.
Ian Bragg's amazing VX490 is based on a Victor 1800. Amazing standard of work on what was only like a 17 year old car at the time. Full Carlton interior was transplanted and trimmed in 1977 Vauxhall old stock VX490 material.
I don't remember the guys name but I do regret not buying this with T&T and a 305 Chevy in it for £2000 ono
I think its been reworked a bit and is still around
Several photos follow of an original unmolested export spec Victor 2000. Note the different lights on it. Sweet details include the early type 2 tone interior.
No idea what happened to it. The Swiss owner wrote to me to try find someone in the UK to buy it as it was unsaleable in Switzerland.
Nobody here wanted it enough to go fetch it.
Wonder what became of it?
'nother Custom FD. One of two similar cars (!!!!) which are often confused. This one has gullwing doors and a supercharged Rover v8.
And SERIOUS slot mag action!
Bromley Pageant of Motoring, 1992
All Vauxhall Rally, Billing 1989
Ah, the Brooklands photo shoot. I organised this for the club with a magazine some of you may remembe called British Classics. A great day out and a huge article was written, to appear in issue 3. Sadly British Classics magazine only ran to the first two issues...
The cars here left to right are Chris Lilley's FE VX 4/90 "The Tasman Terror" (more on this later), Mike Hayman's Victor 2000 which was one of the nicest unrestored FDs out there, but he caught the concours bug and ended up stripping the car and doinga 100% rebuild. Even the rods in the doors for the lock PINs were unused NOS stock he managed to find for it... Madness. Last I heard it was "about finished". That must have been 5 years ago. Mike also ran Classic Vauxhall Opel Spares but closed that business and sold all the stock to Carpenters.
Next along is Mark Bailey's gold Victor 2000SL. This was originally Mike's daily driver, he sold it to Mark and Mark had a full body resto done by the guy who paints Lord Montageu of Beuliegh's cars... it was a stunner. He then decided he wanted a black Ventora he found which was about as mint and sold the gold car for £1250 to Chris Lilley. More on this later...
The yellow VX is a VX490 5 speeder and is a rare swedish export spec which includes such stuff as headlight wipers. IIRC it was also ne of the original fuel injection cars which Vauxhall had to convert back to carbs... It was (and I think still is) owned my Mike Nash who used to write for Cars & Car Conversions at one point. He got a Bill Blydenstein head on it, 4 branch and bunch of other mods. The car is one of only a handful painted Cashmere Yellow before Vauxhall discovered that it made orphans go blind so they stopped doing it and replaced it with another colour which only made girl guides vomit.
Here's Chris in the Tasman Terror in action
Only a few Vauxhalls were painted Tasman Orange for 20 minutes one weekend in 1972 by mistake, or something. This beasty was also one of the earliest FE VX 4/90s made. You see more L reg FDs then K reg FEs.... Probably built pre-launch or something. It was mint. Chris spent some huge sum getting the engine bay as tidy as the outside and then it was used on a Lands End to John o'groats charity run in the mid 90s. Whereupon it was sideswiped by an uninsured driver... No problem thinks Chris, I have agreed value fully comp, however the insurer then decided that the "copilot" who was driving at the time of the accident was not insured for some bizrre technical reason I forget now. So the car was written off and Chris got nothing.
He sold it to a guy from the Viva Outlaws IIRC but it was up forsale as a spares or repairs £50 about a year later.
Chris bought the Gold FD of Mark, and then managed to sieze the cam on the 2000 mile recon engine. Not having the best of luck he bought another FD with a rebuilt 0 miles engine and swapped the two over. he pulled the motor on my drive and left me the rest of the car it came out of, which had been the subejcy of a £6000+ worth of parts alone resto, +labour I dread to think what was invested in it. But they left it in a barn for a couple of years and the sills rotted out so bad they didn;t touch the floors. I scrapped it after pulling the good stuff of it. I got the siezed cam engine from the gold car for one of my own projects who's engine had blown its rings, we fitted the cam and carrier from the ringless lump to the recon one and I managed a week before the oil pump failed and I swapped it for a Viva HB 1199cc automatic with a guy in Scotland. I sold the Viva to Steve who had sold me the estate I put the gold car engine into in the first place.
Small world.
better pic of the gold car.
Anyway Chris emegrated and I dunno what became of the car.
edits: because I can;t type
There is a LOT more Vauxhall junk in the archives, but this is pretty much the creme.
We'll start off with a Finnish (I think) Victor convertible
This beasty was (or hopefully still is) called The Tigress. I know little about it apart from the editor of the club mag - not me at the time - put himself in hot water using a photo of it to ridicule customised Vauxhalls, only to discover the owner was a member and thus recipient of the club magazine.
I love it. I'd not change a thing. Maybe I'd put it on slots.
This beast is that unholy matrimonial concoction - a Vauxhall with a Ford motor... Essex powered FE. Love this too.
Sadly this is the only photo I have of this Ventora FD. So what? you say, its a ropey old FD on slots. Look again... the thing is actually part way through a conversion to a 2 door pillarless hardtop. and the doors were extended about 4" to get the proportions right. The guy building it was a top flight body guy for a vintage restoration place. Then he emigrated and the car was up for sale for £150 unfinished. I suspect it got scrapped.
IIRC this beauty was found in a lockup, unused for years, or something.
I like the wheel treatment
Nice lineup of FD, FE and VX series. No idea whats going on here or where or even when, other than early 90s. I believe that the second from RIGHT is the Styling Department special FD Ventora.
Not sure whats going on here, but I can still sense wives being upset about it.
In the mid 90s Hooleys Ford on Derby road closed down. The elegant purpose built art deco dealership and showroom was bulldozed for some redeelopment project. Graham phtographed his Anglia outside it, and Steve's Victor got in a bunch of shots.
This was a beaut of a car, 1599cc base model with 3 speed column shift, drum brakes and dynamo. Was in superb nick, we brought it up from Kent. Sold it locally and never saw it again.
Ian Bragg's amazing VX490 is based on a Victor 1800. Amazing standard of work on what was only like a 17 year old car at the time. Full Carlton interior was transplanted and trimmed in 1977 Vauxhall old stock VX490 material.
I don't remember the guys name but I do regret not buying this with T&T and a 305 Chevy in it for £2000 ono
I think its been reworked a bit and is still around
Several photos follow of an original unmolested export spec Victor 2000. Note the different lights on it. Sweet details include the early type 2 tone interior.
No idea what happened to it. The Swiss owner wrote to me to try find someone in the UK to buy it as it was unsaleable in Switzerland.
Nobody here wanted it enough to go fetch it.
Wonder what became of it?
'nother Custom FD. One of two similar cars (!!!!) which are often confused. This one has gullwing doors and a supercharged Rover v8.
And SERIOUS slot mag action!
Bromley Pageant of Motoring, 1992
All Vauxhall Rally, Billing 1989
Ah, the Brooklands photo shoot. I organised this for the club with a magazine some of you may remembe called British Classics. A great day out and a huge article was written, to appear in issue 3. Sadly British Classics magazine only ran to the first two issues...
The cars here left to right are Chris Lilley's FE VX 4/90 "The Tasman Terror" (more on this later), Mike Hayman's Victor 2000 which was one of the nicest unrestored FDs out there, but he caught the concours bug and ended up stripping the car and doinga 100% rebuild. Even the rods in the doors for the lock PINs were unused NOS stock he managed to find for it... Madness. Last I heard it was "about finished". That must have been 5 years ago. Mike also ran Classic Vauxhall Opel Spares but closed that business and sold all the stock to Carpenters.
Next along is Mark Bailey's gold Victor 2000SL. This was originally Mike's daily driver, he sold it to Mark and Mark had a full body resto done by the guy who paints Lord Montageu of Beuliegh's cars... it was a stunner. He then decided he wanted a black Ventora he found which was about as mint and sold the gold car for £1250 to Chris Lilley. More on this later...
The yellow VX is a VX490 5 speeder and is a rare swedish export spec which includes such stuff as headlight wipers. IIRC it was also ne of the original fuel injection cars which Vauxhall had to convert back to carbs... It was (and I think still is) owned my Mike Nash who used to write for Cars & Car Conversions at one point. He got a Bill Blydenstein head on it, 4 branch and bunch of other mods. The car is one of only a handful painted Cashmere Yellow before Vauxhall discovered that it made orphans go blind so they stopped doing it and replaced it with another colour which only made girl guides vomit.
Here's Chris in the Tasman Terror in action
Only a few Vauxhalls were painted Tasman Orange for 20 minutes one weekend in 1972 by mistake, or something. This beasty was also one of the earliest FE VX 4/90s made. You see more L reg FDs then K reg FEs.... Probably built pre-launch or something. It was mint. Chris spent some huge sum getting the engine bay as tidy as the outside and then it was used on a Lands End to John o'groats charity run in the mid 90s. Whereupon it was sideswiped by an uninsured driver... No problem thinks Chris, I have agreed value fully comp, however the insurer then decided that the "copilot" who was driving at the time of the accident was not insured for some bizrre technical reason I forget now. So the car was written off and Chris got nothing.
He sold it to a guy from the Viva Outlaws IIRC but it was up forsale as a spares or repairs £50 about a year later.
Chris bought the Gold FD of Mark, and then managed to sieze the cam on the 2000 mile recon engine. Not having the best of luck he bought another FD with a rebuilt 0 miles engine and swapped the two over. he pulled the motor on my drive and left me the rest of the car it came out of, which had been the subejcy of a £6000+ worth of parts alone resto, +labour I dread to think what was invested in it. But they left it in a barn for a couple of years and the sills rotted out so bad they didn;t touch the floors. I scrapped it after pulling the good stuff of it. I got the siezed cam engine from the gold car for one of my own projects who's engine had blown its rings, we fitted the cam and carrier from the ringless lump to the recon one and I managed a week before the oil pump failed and I swapped it for a Viva HB 1199cc automatic with a guy in Scotland. I sold the Viva to Steve who had sold me the estate I put the gold car engine into in the first place.
Small world.
better pic of the gold car.
Anyway Chris emegrated and I dunno what became of the car.
edits: because I can;t type