Classic Motor Monthly
- On-line!
[ Classic-fied Ads On-Line | On-line
Events Diary | CMM Links Page | CMM
Subscriptions | Search this Site | CMM
Readers Letters | CMM News Items | From
the CMM Archives | CMM Clubs Listing | CMM
Motor Museums Listing | CMM Homepage
| Special Offers in CMM]
THE
NEW LOOK 2010 ALMANAC IS HERE!! NOW FULL COLOUR!
THE APRIL ISSUE OF CMM WILL BE MAILED TO ALL SUBSCRIBERS FRIDAY MARCH 26!!
OFF-LINE - In the March 2010 Issue, No. 252;
MARCH 2010 ISSUE: OUR 21st year of publication, CMM is changing,
becoming bigger, bolder, brighter, now MORE PAGES, now FULL COLOUR THROUGHOUT
- and the 2010 Almanac, the 'bible' for enthusiasts is HERE! 
Subscribe now and you can get Britain's most comprehensive events booklet -
the 2010 Almanac - from just
£1.50 extra; a genuine bargain for this essential publication!
For more details on this super diary - worth up to £7.95 plus p&p alone,
click here. Going to trade at an event
this year? Need the proper insurance cover? Click here.
As usual, in our latest issue - in the year where we celebrate our 21st
Anniversary - we've a run down on all that's best in the classic car
world! On Your Marques looks at news from the clubs,with the spotlight
this month falling on plans on the Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society's
new facilities, The P6 Rover Owners Club's change of direction and
more, Magpie looks at A Sign of The Times, and in the Spannerman
column the old boy's subject is Spannerman & Spring Cleaning. Plus,
our column by former National Motor Museum Curator, Michael Ware, David Landers
has a new column looking at significant engines - Engine Room - ,
while Peter Love gives us another Love Steam and Commercial Break.
Plus there are news snippets galore, readers competitions to win some great
Hammerite prizes and tickets for the Detling Kit & Car Builder
Show, Michael Ware's column The Professionals, a chance to win
a great Revell Model in our Letters column, and our very own 'autogrumbler'
has a go in Russell's Ramblings, we look at a rebuild of one of the
last Manchester built Ford Model 'A's, and we have show reports from the Bath
& West Tractor Show, Bremen Classic Motorshow, and the new Great Western
Autojumble. Look out for all the news and snippets; no better
time than now to think about that subscription
than the March issue!!
Our letters page has, as usual, your views on the
issues of the day and more. We feature more services and spares than ever in
our ads section, a look out too for Klaxon's Readers Problems, the ever-informed
and controversial 'Jumblin' column, the CMM Crossword from Owain
and Alvina, On Your Marques, club news, Get Set, news snippets,
our fascinating 'All You Wanted to Know' column with Minerva,
and the biggest events section of any publication in the U.K., featuring
all the events, autojumbles, auctions and collectors swapmeets that YOU want!
Why not order your copy today and the 2011 Almanac
free next year!* CMM makes the ideal gift! For
subscription info., click here!
Why not download a sample page (download is in Adobe Acrobat PDF file format
- 150kb) of CMM? If you wish to download the sample page, click here
PLUS, this and every month, 1000s bits, 100s of cars,
loads of essential services for you in our Classic-fieds
to wade through in our Classic Motor
Mart & Autojumbler sections, and the biggest Events
Diary section of any publication in Britain. Another good reason to subscribe
now!
You'll find a selection of last months ads, a sneak preview of this months ads,
PLUS the latest ads On-line, by clicking here.
AND...subscribe NOW - using our Secure Server Form - you can
get FOR JUST £1.50
EXTRA , our Year 2010* Events Diary and
Almanac that's worth £7.95 plus p&p!!
Be sure of getting the 2011 Edition FREE by staying on our mailing list*
Click here
to go to the secure subscriptions order form now, and don't forget to visit
our events page and send us YOUR
events dates. Want to know more about CMM? Get the facts here.
Visit www.quotelinedirect.co.uk an insurance broker with over 35 years of experience for cheap
car insurance quotes
Car
Insurance Quote
*CMM Year 2010 Edition Almanac
was mailed free to every paid up subscriber (as of Jan. 27 2010) with the bulk
mailing of our February 2010 issue; You can still make sure of your copy
- from only £1.50 extra - when you subscribe to CMM
today. Alternatively, the 2010 Almanac will be made available separately at
£7.95 plus 55p p&p (U.K.), add £1.75 postage for Europe, £2.75
Rest of the World. All those on our mailing list as of Jan. 26, 2011 get the
2011 edition FREE. For more details click here.
AUSTIN'S '16'
- TAXI!
"...AS
WORLD WAR TWO DREW
to a close, car company chiefs were planning their post-war ranges. There
was a widespread view in the industry at the time that British customers
would follow America’s example and start buying bigger cars.
It was thought that, once peace returned, engine sizes of around two-and-a-quarter
litres would become the norm for UK family saloons. That belief was reinforced
when the Attlee government abolished the old RAC horsepower system, and
brought in flat-rate road-tax.
The prediction turned out to be quite wrong - the 1100-1300cc class would
provide Britain’s best sellers for decades to come. And the prosperous
peace-time utopia took an awfully long time to arrive. The country was
effectively bankrupt; there were hardly any new cars in the showrooms,
regardless of size. ‘Export or die’ became the new slogan
- luckily, the new, larger-engined models turned out to be just the job
for export markets. By the 1950 Motor Show, all the major manufacturers
had at least one engine in the 2.0 to 2.5-litre category.
Ford, Vauxhall and Morris went for six cylinders. The last of these was
an ohc design shared with Wolseley, while Nuffield also had the pre-war
Riley ‘Big-Four’ in its line-up. Austin, Standard-Triumph
and Rootes offered four-cylinder engines - each producing a conventional,
side-camshaft, ohv unit of ‘two-litres-plus’ capacity. This
series of articles is going to concentrate on that trio. They enjoyed
long and varied lives - powering, between them, everything from tractors
and taxis to record-breaking sports-cars.
First to appear was the Austin, fitted to the 1945 ‘Sixteen’.
It was never subsequently dignified with a BMC type-designation, so we’ll
refer to it here as the ‘16’. This was Austin’s first
overhead-valve car engine, though it traced its ancestry back to an earlier
lorry engine.
In the late 1930s, Leonard Lord had taken the Austin Motor Company into
the commercial vehicle sector by the simple expedient of copying the market
leader: Bedford. In fact, the similarities were so strong (right down
to the 3.5-litre ohv ‘six’) that Austin’s new lorry
was often described as the Birmingham Bedford! It appeared just in time
for war service; a four-cylinder version of its engine was then created
at the behest of the military. And this 2,199cc ‘Jeep’ engine
was the one chosen to power the postwar 16hp saloon.
A three-bearing, cast-iron unit, with a bore:stroke ratio of 1:1.4, the
‘16’ had an obvious influence on the design of the later Austin/BMC
‘A’ and ‘B’-series engines - including their siamesed
inlet ports and heart-shaped Weslake combustion chambers. Featuring a
single Zenith carburettor and a lowly, pool-petrol compression-ratio of
6.8:1, it produced 67bhp @ 3,800rpm - respectable enough for the time.
Its main drawback was the long 111.1mm [4.375"] stroke, which limited
rotational speed to around 4,700rpm in fully developed form..."
Engine Room. Read the full article in the current issue out now!
|
SPANNERMAN...
"...THERE’S
BEEN LOTS OF FUN
to be had talking about driving on snow in the last few weeks. A few people have
reported their experiences of driving on snow for the first time, and I guess
there’s one or two budding rally-cross drivers out there!
There was also plenty of feedback about last month’s MYTH OF THE
MONTH relating to the question of what tyre pressures to run if we’re
driving in snow. We’ve received an e-mail from Alan Davies, who describes
himself as “An avid reader”. Have a look at his letter in the Classic
Torque Readers Letters page. The gist of what he had to say can be summed up with
one of his lines: “In fact reducing pressure could in fact have the effect
of closing the tread pattern together thus rendering it useless.” His thoughts
on narrow wheels and tyres will also get people talking, I’m sure.
I’ve decided that this month I’m going for a combined BACK
TO BASICS and TIP FOR THE MONTH. Now why might I be
doing that? It came to mind when I realised that the topic I had for a
TIP FOR THE MONTH was very much a case of getting BACK TO BASICS.
Quite simply, it’s an object lesson in how to assess for a solution to a
problem. And finding solutions to problems is very much a skill that the classic
motor enthusiast needs.
So where does this tale start? As many of these tales do, it was a chat down at
the Chequered Flag that got things going. A regular at the pub, but not
one of our group of car enthusiasts, collared me one evening and asked if he could
pick my brains over a problem he had with his car. I said I’d be more than
happy to help if I could, and I asked him what was the problem. He started by
telling me that he’d bought a Hyundai i10 back last autumn. Straight away,
I started to panic. What on earth would I know about something as modern as that?
I chipped in and told him straight away that it was probably best if he took the
car back to the dealer. After all, it was going to be under warranty.
He replied by saying that he obviously knew that, but he was worried that the
dealer might think he was a bit daft. I asked him why on earth he thought that.
He then started to explain his problem, and I began to see what he meant. The
problem was that he’d been driving his car, and particularly when the car
was travelling fairly slowly, every now and then he would hear what he described
as a buzzing noise. I asked him for more details. Did the noise vary with the
speed of the car? Or did it perhaps vary with the engine speed? Oh no, he assured
me. The noise was always the same intensity, whatever the speed or whichever gear
he was in.
Well what about when he heard it, I enquired. Was it only at slow speeds, or could
perhaps it be happening all the time, and he just couldn’t hear it at higher
speeds because of the increased noise from the car as it travelled faster? That
was quite possible, he agreed..."
Spannerman & Spring Cleaning. Read the full article in the current issue
out now!
THE PROFESSIONALS
"...VISITING
MANY FIRMS IN the old car business as I do, I am continually amazed at
some of the specialisms and the size of the firms involved.
Sometimes its one man and a dog working in a shed or in the case of this months
organisation, one employing some 60 people: who also have a dog! Burlen Fuel Systems
might not sound as if it’s concerned with the old car market but when I
tell you it holds the right to manufacture SU, Amal, Zenith and Solex carburetters
you might take a bit more notice.
Started in 1971 as a garage business in Salisbury, including a Morgan agency,
they had many requests during the 1974 fuel crises to obtain more m.p.g. from
customer cars.
They were appointed SU agents as well as Zenith and Solex also Weber. It’s
gone on from there. I spent a morning talking to Mark Burnett son of the founder
about the services which he can offer the classic and earlier car owner.
On a small trading estate on the edge of Salisbury (appropriately next to Jan
Speed) they have three large warehouses and a production facility. Many of the
older type SU carburetters are in production from the beginning of the last century
up to that for the Rover Metro of the 1990’s. Unless you have actually stripped
down a carburetter you might not realise just how many parts are involved, often
80 or more. The core of the business is selling spares kits for carburetter overhaul.
Most of the parts are produced and assembled in house. The kits are made up and
put together by two full time employees. Mark said that some 50% of these kits
went to professional restorers. SU and others used to advertise tuning kits for
certain makes, Burlen have replicated a number of these kits also.
The new carburetters are normally a straight forward copy of the old, where it’s
sensible to do so some more modern materials may be incorporated, but they look
correct. For example those that were made of Mazak are now made from modern aluminium
mixes. Where a customer wishes strict originality there is a restoration department
of two full time and one part time engineers undertaking the overhaul of units
sent in to them. In some cases it’s not economical to remanufacture a particular
carburetter so restoration is the only alternative. The quality of the finish
on these restorations is first class.
One of the staple products is the SU petrol pump. You have the choice of two,
one with the original electrical contact points and the modern one with electronic.
Both look identical. The demand for these pumps is insatiable, some 3 –
4,000 pumps for MGB’s alone being sold every year and like all the other
products they are exported all over the world. Every carburetter and every pump
is flow tested before being passed for sale.
Burlen’s customers are the trade outlets such as Moss, professional restorers
and private owners. Some of the one make car clubs will buy stock from Burlen
to keep on their shelves...."
Michael Ware's The Professionals column. Read the full article in the current
issue out now!
LAST MANCHESTER FORD ‘A’ REBUILT FOR ANNIVERSARY...
LAUNCHED IN
AMERICA DURING December 1927, on the back of one of the biggest
advertising campaigns the world had ever seen, the Ford Model A was an outstanding
automotive success, with more than five million built by the time production
ceased. Even today, it is regarded as one of the most popular collectors
cars in the world, some half a million thought to have been restored, customised
and preserved in the States, although comparatively rare in this country.
The recently restored Model A owned by John Falder, MD of Manchester paint
manufacturer HMG Paints, holds a special place in the history of the company
and the city itself. Dating back to September 1930, it is amongst the last
Model As to have been built at Ford’s Trafford Park, Manchester plant,
before production was transferred to Dagenham, and it first took to the
road during the very same year that HMG was founded by Harold Marcel Guest
and John’s grandfather, Herbert Falder. It also featured a unique
contemporary ‘hatchback’ design, with a rear opening door to
facilitate its use as a commercial traveller’s car.
“With our 80th anniversary coming up later this year, we thought we
would restore it to its former glory and showcase our traditional-style
automotive paints,” says John Falder. “We first acquired the
Model A over 30 years ago and used it for family outings, often for commuting
to work over the years, and it earned a special place in our hearts. Even
its seemingly personalised numberplate, JF 525, was originally fitted to
the car, while its vintage and Manchester origins fitted in perfectly with
our company history.”
The painstaking restoration work, which involved manually rebuilding virtually
every pressed steel panel, was undertaken by Macclesfield coachbuilder,
Norman Isles, who first met John 30 years ago and uses HMG cellulose finishes
when refinishing such classic marques as Rolls Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin,
Ferrari and Porsche.
The second of three generations of panel beaters and restorers, Norman worked
with his sons Craig and Simon on the Model A over a number of years, a job
that he describes as one of the most challenging ever.
But first, a brief automotive history lesson. The Model A was introduced
as the successor to the previous Model T and differed entirely in styling
and engineering from its predecessor, with a choice of 50 body styles and
40 paintwork colours, but not initially black. It was the first Ford to
use a conventional set of control pedals, with three-speed sliding gear
transmission, and featured hydraulic shock absorbers and welded steel-spoke
wheels. With sales booming, Henry Ford decided to establish his first factory
outside of North America and acquired a disused tram works south of Manchester,
at Trafford Park, and by 1913 the plant boasted Europe’s first moving
assembly line. By 1925, Trafford Park had built Britain’s 300,000th
Ford and it continued to produce the Model A and other vehicles, until the
Dagenham, East London plant opened in October 1931..."
Read the full article in the current issue out now!
|
Starting Grid -
Now in its 22nd year, Classic Motor Monthly is published on
the first Saturday every month, and delivered directly to 1000s of subscribers
worldwide in the week prior to that. It contains the best diary of events in
the UK, with hundreds of auctions, shows, swapmeets, autojumbles and club meets
featured in every issue - a selection of just some of them are featured by clicking
here. In every issue, you'll find a news round-up,
features, readers letters PLUS 1000s of Autojumbler
Classic-fieds© ads with vehicles for sale and a massive selection
of car spares, useful services, literature, automobilia and ephemera both for
sale and wanted. You will discover a selection of this month's Classic-fieds
by clicking here.
Yearly subscriptions (CMM is not available in newsagents!)
to CMM are from just £15 (U.K.) and include
a FREE Readers Classic-fied ad!
We mail overseas too - currently to 29 countries. For full details of subscription rates world-wide click here.
Get the facts on CMM now - click here to visit our Factsheet Page
Comments, letters, suggestions; post your E-mail to; The Editor, Classic Motor Monthly, postmaster@classicmotor.co.uk
Snail-mail; Classic Motor Monthly, P.O. Box 129, Bolton, BL3 4YQ, Lancashire, United Kingdom.
Tel (01204) 657212;
International +44 1204 657212 
Fax
(01204) 652764; International +44 1204 652764
Site constantly under construction.
Copyright © 1996 - 2010 CMM Publications. Special illustrations
by ©Dave Iddon. All Rights Reserved.
Error. Count file "/www/docs/classic/welcome.count" not writable or non-existant.
