Practically Classics Forum

I found myself trying to work out what the blue vehicle is in the background of the first picture - is it a cut down Escort van to make a pick-up with big wheel arches and wide wheels . . . . ?

Mike

Hmm, the eBay seller thinks Wolseley was bought out by Austin in the 1970s... Perhaps it is wise to avoid that car!

Yes Mike, it's a "custom" conversion - there used to one or two around these parts, so it may be more common than you realise! A garage near Penrith was run by a former BL worker (I suspect sheet metal!) and he made a fantastic Marina pick-up from a van (just after BL started making the vans) in 1973 or so. The only downside of it was that, because the van had two back doors, the pick-up had two small back windows. Otherwise, you';d have thought BL had made it - but the paint was too good! He even arranged it so that there was a space behind the seats for tools etc.

I think he may have got the idea from here

Was there a factory-built Marina pickup? I'm thinking that there was but maybe I dreamt it. Some brave soul made a very solid looking pickup out of a Dolomite Sprint a few years ago. It was roundly panned by the less broad minded members of the club forum a few years ago but came as close as anything I've seen to being some sort of small scale El Camino. Nearly.

I have never seen the point in any of these pickup conversions where the person doing it doesn't bother with a tailgate.
Mind you this is the most pointless conversion ever. It started life as a Granada, then was converted in to a 6 door limousine, then someone with more grinding discs than sense got hold of it and turned it in to a "pickup". The most obvious flaw in this is they have riveted the bed cover on :S

I'm pretty sure there was a Marina Pick-up, but they came out a year or two after the van and had a one-piece rear window! I fear BL missed the market though - the old A55-style pick-up sold by the dozen (there were three in our village!), the Minor pick-ups were handy, but a bit small for a lot of things and, by the time the Marina version came out, people were looking at Japanese stuff (eg Subaru and Toyota), which were more refined - even if a Scooby would rot within three or four years.

The ex-BL feller said he used the old A55-style machine as his inspiration,though added a lot of neat things that made it look a lot better than the later BL offering!

There is a difference between the "Custom" machine and something people can actually use! Though I think it was the El Camino had a side-hinged tailgate that looked nice - but must have been a PITA in real life!

JPB wrote:Was there a factory-built Marina pickup? I'm thinking that there was but maybe I dreamt it.

According to Wikipedia there was.

How about keeping the existing light units and fitting LED bulbs instead? Use coloured bulbs for the tail, stop and indicator lights. For the indicators you will need to use load resistors for each bulb or fit a suitable electronic relay.

Toledo Man wrote:How about keeping the existing light units and fitting LED bulbs instead? Use coloured bulbs for the tail, stop and indicator lights. For the indicators you will need to use load resistors for each bulb or fit a suitable electronic relay.

Make sure you read the new PC that came through my letterbox yesterday before doing this though! There is an artical on Type approval threshold dates. in some cases fitting LED may be illegal!

Entirely by chance I obtained a set of alternative rear lights that I'm awaiting delivery of. They are not LED, are not new, are older than the car and are none of the ideas played with digitally. They should work, but they take me in a different direction.

I also like the idea of satin paint but having had it on a car in the past, I don't want it again. It's a devil of a thing to keep looking nice compared to shiny paint. No further progress has been made on either of my cars at the moment, I have instead been helping out at JMP Classic Restorations of Thornaby with this lovely 1977 Alfa Romeo Spider. Disappointingly, I need to have my knees and a good 4" of my legs removed to be able to drive this car, and some of the jobs that needed doing my hands were physically too large to do. I can only assume it was built for/by people with very small hands and very short legs.







Being distracted by people visiting in things like this purple GTV.


Some time ago, JMP acquired a 1964 Lancia Flavia Coupé, which as some of you will know is an incredibly rare car in the UK, especially as this one is an original RHD model. It's in for a full restoration including interior and paint, and while it runs and drives it appears that the brake master cylinder is in need of a rebuild, a job whose cost brought the previous owner to bring the car off the road. After fifty years of seemingly continuous use, the car isn't without fault, but most importantly it is complete and rust is minimal, exceptionally so for a Lancia. Sometimes you encounter a car that you adopt, that resonates, and this is that sort of car for me. It's not conventionally beautiful but I rarely like conventionally beautiful things.

Here's a picture from Bring-a-trailer (http://bringatrailer.com/2012/07/25/bar ... ina-coupe/) and this is pretty much as the car looked when it arrived at JMP.



I'd be happy to start a new thread for the goings on at JMP, but updates would likely be quite sporadic and slow and less involved than this thread. Alternatively, if you use Twitter you can find us on @jmpclassicresto