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<mstenning@tiscali.co.uk>
848MHA was bought by my father in the early '70s - he had always wanted a 7 and spotted this one for sale. At the time it had been modified to look like a S2 (Flared front wings, large back wings) it had a Ford engine & gearbox and the dashboard and transmission tunnel had been re-modeled. (We have a photo of it like this somewhere - will send when we find it) When my father first got the car it was a mixture of colours - Blue, Yellow and bare ali. Early memories of mine as a child include not being able to breath while blasting along the country roads & being reversed into while being dropped off at school because the other car couldn't see us in the rear view mirror ! My father decided to paint the whole car British racing green, and that's the way it stayed until the mid 1990's. Unfortunately it was off of the road for virtually the whole of the '80s and '90s. My father gave me the car as a graduation present in 1990 on the condition that I fully restore it. While researching the history of the car I discovered that instead of being a S2 as we had believed for so many years, it was actually a S1. Plans for the restoration had to change as so much had been modified before my father got the car. Fortunately I loved the look of the polished S1 and set about restoring it to (close to) original condition. The restoration has taken a little longer than I had hoped (13 years so far !) I had hoped to use it for a friends wedding in 1995 - but didn't make it, I had hoped to use it for my wedding in 1998 - but didn't make it, it was however ready to take my father to his wedding in 2002 and its already penciled in for my brother-in-laws wedding next year) I use it all year around (provided its dry) What still needs to be done...
Nothing major I guess, but it does cause my wife to pass comments like "that car will never be finished" and "working on that car again !" One day I'll get her in it and she'll understand |
