Accidental 916 Spider TS

Hi all. I’ve just accidentally bought a 916 Spider TS.

Just sold the TVR Griffith and am looking for a supercharged Jag XKR. However they are all such boring white, grey or blacks. And my car history suggests I need a red, blue or green. So I’m determined to wait until the right car come along.

Thus, as Father Ted said, I had some money resting in my my account and the weather is so nice. So I need an interim convertible for some summer fun. I did test a 916 Spider back in ‘97, when they first cam out as they looked otherworld then but bought a TVR Chimaera. Now they are a classic car! So this seemed a good opportunity and they are really cheap.

It’s all about timing or fate, so I saw a Victoria Metallic blue with tan and 70k miles available. Speaking to the owners of 22 years, which is always a good sign, I headed to see it. Not perfect but new hood, radiator, exhaust and 2” thick file of stuff, all the keys, tool kit, AR tyre inflation kit of unknown age etc. You get the idea.

Lots of work done by a friend, who ran a local garage, for mate’s rates cash so new parts evident but light on paperwork evidence. This included cam belt but having spoken to the garage, it seemed worth a punt. And a deal was done with £500 off for the unknowns.

Back 180 miles to Somerset with nil issues.





(Apologies for the rubbish pics but the drive is resembling an NCP currently)

It is a Lusso (incorrectly advertised as Turismo) with a manual hood, which is a bonus! Stuff to do includes:

Change the oil as they proudly told me they only use Mobil, but I think is is too thin a grade.
Replace the thermostat as the temperature drops at speed, had this on my GT and new part ordered.
Clean and feed the seats etc as very dry and will need a small repair on drivers side bolster.
New stereo as fitted one not working. Have one but the connectors are too new for the old 14 pin AR original. Ordered.
Change the old, hard, square cheap Linglong ditch-finder tyres. I find that this is a common issue with older cars owned by older people, garage kindly stick cheapo tyres on as the owners don’t know or realise but think the garage is doing them a good deal.
And address the cam belt unknown. I suspect it has been done, they thought last year, looking at the other expenses.

However I want to use is as a DD in this lovely weather and it is off to Le Mans in a week so having covered a thousand miles a year for the last half dozen years, it is going to get a bit of a shock. I expect this should also shake out some lack of use issues.

More to follow, I expect. As an aside, I did use Car Vertical to hpi. Normally use a cheapie £10 one but have been watching High Peak Autos and fell for the advertising charm. But it does give quite a lot of extra info, including the original extras ordered on purchase, manual hood, type of alloys etc, which is quite useful to see how original the car is. Definitely use it again.

Nice little accident there.

They look great with the roof down and think the twin spark is a sweet engine even although not driven one in a 916 before.

Good to hear you’re going to put some miles on it. In my experience the 916 runs better and has less issues when used regularly, I used mine (gtv) as a daily and it kept rust at bay, regardless of the weather.

Solid car for its ages if looked after

I accidentally bought one last week myself!

Got a Cybox stainless one on mine (bought second hand from eBay too), they aren't too noisy and don't drone at 70mph on a motorway. Pretty good VFM versus some of the other products out there.

Made it without an issue, including sat in traffic in the heat. Back at Roscoff ferry terminal:



600 miles with the bigger boys, 2 x Vantage, db 9, xjs and a modded M3. Often in the lead and without any of the worry of the more valuable cars.

Still leaking oil so the next thing is to do the cam cover gasket, which has arrived. And definitely need the seat lowering, so Pipers Trimmers can remove the spaces when they do the bolster.

Apart from that, it was remarkably comfortable as a mini-gt, not fast but nippy even 2 up with a fair amount of kit. And half the number of fuel stops needed.

Shiny stuff. Picked up a rear and centre section of an Alfaholics stainless system for £300. Rear is used but centre new with the odd dent.



Only missing the short front section than fits after the cat. It has a small expansion box from AR but Alfaholics appear to do a delete. However Gary at TotallyAlfa suggests it can be a bit boomy so I think I’ll run it with the oem small box and if it is a bit quiet, I can always add the delete later.

Need to get use of a ramp now. However next job is oil and filter change. Previous owners had been using Mobil 1, which is a bit thin. So I’ll replace with 10w 40 as recommended. It might help quieten the noisy on start variator. Also got a new seal for the block / oil cooler take off, which appears to be leaking and I think can be accessed once the filter is removed.

Mmmh, unfortunately not. There appear to me a couple of mod states. The later cars have a longer bit of flexible hose joining the solid cooler pipe work to the solid pipes mounted to the block, which would allow as you say.

The ‘99 year ones have a 30mm length making the join, where the 2 solid ends almost touch. Thus need to drain coolant and undo the 4 couplings and remove the hoses to allow enough movement of the oil cooler mount from the block. B****r, which is why later ones were a different design, I guess. So another job pushed back to when I do the belts etc.

On a brighter note, MOT-ed and only failed on one cv boot. Which is £14, I would have settled for that when I rolled the dice back in May. The first MOT of any new car, to me, is always a bit nerve wracking. On the downside, my village garage is short staffed for the next week so can’t fix within 10 days. Until the boss suggested I do a few days for him and we come to an arrangement. So on Tuesday, the world’s oldest garage apprentice starts.