• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Some real nice "Barn Finds".

Share this page

All depends on what needs to be done. If the car is intact, with body panels already fitting, with just a few replacements and repairs to make, then I say repair. In retrospect, I should have bought a new chassis. Even with that admission, the repair process was very satisfying. I bought the car for the experience of restoration, not just for having a cool car to drive. It's really neat to replace crossmembers, etc., and get a good result. Pride in accomplishment is important to me. My regret is not the time and expense, but the uncertainty about the oondition of the frame rails that I didn't replace. Of course I cut back to what appeared to be good metal for the replacement outriggers, crossmembers, and the like, but those frame rails are for the most part invisible. Seems solid now, so we'll see.
 
Restoring a car is like birthing a baby. I have done it before. I own a machine shop and a aftermarket race car business. We make anything, we cast 455 Pontiac motors and cylinder heads. We machine parts for Lockheed too.

I can weld in all of the frame rails in a day or two. I can rebuild the motor and trans myself. But that is the easy part. Finding the time to do the restore may be the biggest problem. I know that it will take a year of my time. Yes it is fun to do a restore. It seams the closer you get to finishing a project, the longer it takes. You make the most progress in the beginning and the fine detail work takes the longest.

I may just fix the frame rails and floor pans and put it up for sale and let some one take on the other work. If I do I will be using this form to get advice. It seems that you guys know your stuff.

I restored a 74 TR6 and was going around a turn and lost control and flip the car many times and don't remember the accident at all. I broke my back in three places and ribs and breast bone. I am a 1/4 inch from being paralyzed. But still drive a drag race car over 160 mph @ 8.60 sec 1/4 mile times.

I have a road race Tiga that I restored and I am going to sell it soon to.

Only time will tell what I will do with this car. if anyone is in Richmond VA. that wants to see the car can e-mail me. You are more then welcome.
 
Lancia is the Marque of the Year at Pebble Beach. That model looks very familiar. A customer of mine was installing an interior in one that looked very similar and it was supposed to go to Pebble. I doubt that it will be there. It wasn't all together when I saw it, so I can't definitely identify it as being the same model as the one pictured. It was supposed to be one of three in the U.S. and a very low production number, 300 sounds close. This guy was supposed to have two of them. The one I saw was a driver at best.
The craftsmanship on the interior was excellent. The car was very well made. Unfortunately, his example looked so bad that I just couldn't make myself look at it for long.
 
RobertmarkIII, with your capability, I'm either your long lost cousin (the one you like) or your new best friend!
 
Back
Top