The Verdict

A week later I heard from Richard Tuthill.

I was really expecting a $25,000 phone call to tell me that the car was disastrously rusty/made out of three cars loosely welded together. 

To my great relief the good news was that the car was basically sound - certainly worth using as the basis for a decent road car. Tuthills had followed their usual practice; once the car was running it was taken down to the local MOT station for a once over. 

To no-one's surprise it didn't get a ticket first time around, but encouragingly the failures were minor, amounting to various non-functioning lights, and wear in the anti-roll bar mountings. Easily sorted.

The good news shared, Richard then let me have the downside. Like a lot of cars from the US, it needed a lot of work needed to bring the car up to a decent standard, and most of my budget was going to be consumed before we got to the exciting stuff. Even as he spoke I could feel my dreams of a hot engine disappearing into the far future. 

So this was the provisional job list:

- A full service, including work on the fuel system to try and resolve some running problems

- Fit UK specification headlights, indicator lights, and sort a functioning screen wash system

- Take out the vintage air-conditioning system, change the bodged single (and irredeemably knackered) battery for two correctly sized jobs located in the boxes either side of the luggage compartment, and tidy up the rat's nest of a loom

- Change the previous owner's approximate attempt to fit the front and rear fibreglass bumper's with a more permanent solution

- Undertake a full suspension refresh include new Bilstein Sport dampers, and a fast road specification torsion bar at the rear ( hollow 29mm affairs from Elephant Racing) and new bushes and ball joints as required

- Replace all the flexible brake hoses, pads and fit an adjustable bias pedal box

- Fit a Wevo external gated gear lever and linkage

- Replace the perished tyres with Continentals suitable for the 7" and 8" rims.

- Change perished side an rear window seals

Furthermore, it was clear that the interior would really benefit from new door cards, 3rd gear's synchromesh was long gone, and I needed to find some suitable seats and a steering wheel.

SS7