Practical Classics Classic Car & Restoration Show, Birmingham NEC, March 2018

Doesn’t time fly, it doesn’t seem long since I was wandering the halls of the Parc des Expositions in Paris. This is almost the opposite classic show to Retromobile, it’s real, meant for people like me. I love the Practical Classics Restoration Show, real enthusiasts who have a passion for what they drive and they car for, maintain and fix them themselves. Quite often at the show, I mean given the opportunity for 3 days of working in a warm, dry, well lit building with plenty of helpers in your club, who wouldn’t.

Anyway, as I did my press bit and got in an hour early I went to get some unobstructed shots of what’s on display. I immediately came across this on the Meguiar’s stand:

If you don’t recognise it there’s a good reason, it’s a first generation Ford Econoline Supervan. not something we officially got in the UK, which is a shame as it’s such a lovely looking thing. It’s not too huge either, it’s smaller than a first generation Ford Transit. They were based on the Ford Falcon compact car, and were fairly conventional underneath. There were Mercury versions too, but essentially this formed the start of Ford’s E series vans.

One of the main attractions of the show is the barn finds section, every year all sorts of things that have been languishing in garages, outside or even in barns are dragged along to be displayed. They are projects in waiting and will return to the road at some point.

The Moskvitch 403 is a rare sight these days, having virtually disappeared from UK roads. This one was an old film prop, it’s unusual for a studio to let one go, but I guess they had no more use for it.

I do love old Renaults ans this Dauphine was gorgeous, it’s hard to believe that no-one was using this one, I would certainly like to. Another rare sight on UK roads, no surprise as they succumbed to rust and they had somewhat interesting handling, being rear mounted with swing axle suspension like the 4CV, which it replaced.

The Jensen Interceptor looked pretty much together, which is just as well as they can cost a fortune to restore. This was going to take a fair amount of cash to put right, but it would be worth it, they are lovely cars. This one had most of it’s interior, the dash and gauges looked in good order along with the seats, which may not have been original.

There was quite a rusty Mk2 Ford Cortina on display, I didn’t need to venture underneath, I had an indication as to what it might be like from the body. The A pillars had definitely seen better days…

And now for something slightly tidier, the Volvo P1800 in a fetching 2 tone grey and red oxide. Looking quite nice still, the shape of these is quite striking, it’s not what you’d expect from Volvo and probably their finest hour for style. Early examples, up to 10,000 or so,  were built by Jensen in West Bromwich , Pressed Steel made the unitary constructed body.  This car looked pretty good, and although paint can be expensive it looked a reasonable project.

Lastly from the barn finds was this Range Rover Vogue V8. Even tidier that  the Volvo a recommissioning service should see this car put right. It started to occur to me that many of the cars on this stand were better than what I drive round in. Maybe I could submit them to a driveway finds exhibit….

Of course I was going to find as many SAABs s I could and knowing the club was there I headed over for a look. The usual collection of 900s, 99s, 96s but this year there were a couple of additions.

And a SAAB Sonnett III. Not a common sight at all as this was only intended for the U.S market. It’s certainly unusual, with it’s 96 V4 underpinnings, and long nosed coupe shape. This did achieve a drag co-efficient of just 0.31, not bad for 1970. They made this variant for 4 years but only sold 8,368 of them, the 1973 oil crisis not helping much. It’s not a fast car either, 68 bhp taking it up to a 103 mph top speed, this was helped be the said aerodynamics. 62 mph taking around 13 seconds to reach, this was helped by it only weighing 750kg.

Nestling round the back was a 92 (there were a few of them there this year) complete with 2 stroke triple engine, they aren’t common, but look at the shape, it’s stunning. If there was every a jelly mold car this was it, the aeronautically inspired streamlining. It was SAAB’s first ever car, appearing in 1949. It’s as if they hadn’t seen a car before and made it up from scratch. Striking looking thing with a lightweight power plant up front. If they come up for sale they aren’t cheap, even as projects.

In another part of the show I came across a 900 Carlsson, I had to get a shot from the side as this car’s profile is unmistakable.

And then I found a 9000 Carlsson 2.3 Turbo, rather a good example too I might add.

More non SAAB exhibits were to be found, this Austin 3 Litre was superb. Not a common car, with it’s large straight six engine and Hydrolastic suspension. Another slow seller made from 1967 – 71, it was an expensive car sharing the mid section with the Landcrab models, Austin 1800 / 2200 and their derivatives. It was praised for it’s excellent ride and handling at the time, in deed thanks to the clever suspension.

More from the Austin stable is this, the Allegro. Much, unfairly I might say, maligned. These cars used Hydrogas suspension, a development from the earlier Hydrolastic system used on the 1100 / 1300.

Now this one does look like it was used in an older episode of Top Gear, but it was used to give parts to other cars and apparently was easier to transport to the show in two pieces…

The objective was to show where the worst examples can rust, having said that, it could have been much worse, but sadly beyond economic repair.

More British oddities could be found, and the micro car was certainly one of them, absolutely fantastic.  These were Meadows Frisky’s built by Henry Meadows in Wolverhampton. Usually powered by small Villiers two stroke motorcycle engines, these small cars could be propelled to 65mph if you have the twin cylinder Sport model with 16bhp. Smaller, lower powered singles would top out around 50mph.

They look fantastic fun, but sadly I’ll probably never know the pleasures of ownership as they fetch around £45K in good order. The project car in the last picture around half that. I was chatting to the family representative, they seemed a fun eccentric bunch, I’d fit right in. I’d love to learn more and it goes to show the diversity of the British motor industry, much of it around Birmingham, the NEC being an appropriate venue.

Classic Cars had a stunning one off Jaguar XK120 with Pinin Farina body. This, even more beautiful than the car it was based on.

And of course Practical Classics had a cracking stand, the little FIAT 500 was stunning,

and there was Matt’s work in progress U.S spec TR6

One of the more unusual, and newer, projects on display was a highly modified Rover 75. I don’t mean tuned with big wheels etc, but turned into a 2 door coupe, like Rover did with the 800. Essentially this is the Rover 800 replacement so why not. With the help of some BMW parts, which I thought was appropriately ironic this was the result, some stunning craftsmanship.

I like to find something unusual to finish on, this was it, the 4 door prototype Triumph Herald. They never put this into production, if they did it would have sold well I think, it’s amazing that it’s still around.

Again it was another great show, thanks Practical Classics

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Simon