1960 Frogeye Sprite
Discussion
I don't recall setting up a topic on this car before, so thought it might be useful to document it somewhere before I forget bits. Hopefully Kitchski will add some more details and pics later.
So here is the car, a 1960 Frogeye Sprite, in leaf green. Fitted with a 1275cc engine rather than the traditional 948cc.
The story behind this car starts in 1973 when my step mother was 19 (she is 64 now). She purchased the car when it was 14 years old, along with a donor car. XRK 661 was orange at the time.
The car was in use during the 70's and 80's and as it wasn't worth much at the time just had enough done to it to keep it going. I believe it had a new floor during the early 80's. Some time in this period it did undergo a restoration and changed to British racing green. I specifically remember my dad dropping me home in the late 80's in it (I was born 83) but by 89 it was in need of another restoration. There were holes in the floor. My step mum was pregnant with my brother at this time, so it was placed in a barn they own, where it resided until 2003.
One sunny day a friend (Kitchski) and I had been drifting a Volvo 740 round a field (before drifting was cool) when I asked him if he'd like to see a sprite. He wasn't quite sure if I meant a little green goblin type creature or a bottle of drink, but agreed anyway. We went into the barn and there it was, having not moved in 14 years. A true barn find (except it wasn't lost). We then thought it would be a great idea to pull it out the barn using said Volvo 740, and triumphantly trundled down the field in tandem and gave it a wash. It didn't look too bad, or so we thought.
Said Volvo
Here it is being removed from the barn, only image I have, although Kitchski might have more?
We managed to get it moved to a garage, and we set about stripping it down. It soon became apparent it was a mess. More holes than a block of swiss cheese. Undeterred we got a bloke to weld it back together over the coming years, and dropped the bonnet off somewhere else to be repaired, never to be seen again. The original 948cc engine was solid, so we thought at the time it would be a good idea to replace it with a 1275cc, and purchased one from a scrapyard.
A few pics from the garage
I ended up getting a fiberglass bonnet for the car, which came home on the roof of a BX
It then went off to be painted
Then life got in the way. It sat like this for quite a few years. Sometime around 2009 it was sent off to a Healey specialist garage to be finished and it was finally put back on the road in 2012, but hadn't been brilliantly done. It soon became apparent the new gearbox we had purchased was rubbish, it wouldn't hold first and generally made an awful noise. It was also quite hesitant whilst driving, like it was misfiring. I mentioned this on my first passenger ride but my parents don't have a mechanical bone in their body. I'd assumed they'd take it back to the garage that did the work, but they didn't, and continued to use it like this until last summer when I was able to take it out for the first time, 12 years after we'd pulled it out of the barn, and the first time I was able to take control of its destiny again.
In the interim years, Kitchski had started working at Southways and built up extensive knowledge of interesting cars. There was only one place for it to go so in July '15 it went to have the gearbox removed and and repaired, and I asked him to work out why it was running so badly. He found out that the carbs were so full of crap they were blocked as the previous specialist hadn't fitted a fuel filter! It was also converted to Evans Waterless Coolant at this time and serviced.
The difference once these jobs were done was night and day!
Fast forward a year (I hadn't driven it again in this time) and the car was due another MOT. It had only covered 400 miles, but my parents advised me the speedo was over-reading and the fuel gauge wasn't working, which is why they'd not used it much! FFS! Back down to Southways it went and after passing the MOT it had a new fuel sender fitted and the speedo calibrated. I then had the pleasure of driving it home from Fareham to the other side of Romsey on Saturday in glorious sunshine. As you can imagine this car isn't ideal on the Motorway so I took the back roads. It took nearly 1.5hrs, and it was utter bliss.
Whilst my step mum has a sentimental attachment to the car I think they find it a bit of a chore running a classic car due to their lack of mechanical knowledge. She often remarks they might as well get rid of it as they don't really use it. This is compounded by the fact it lives in a garage away from their main home so it becomes a chore to get it to go out in it, but when they do use it they enjoy it. They are only 64 but I personally cannot see them driving it for many more years. They'd rather have something like an F-type, modern top down motoring. We've agreed this weekend that once they've had enough of the car I shall be the next owner. I might need to remortgage but it will be worth it.
Mini S10 sat in it this weekend, and was quite taken with it
And a few other images
NB.Edited to fix photobucked images
So here is the car, a 1960 Frogeye Sprite, in leaf green. Fitted with a 1275cc engine rather than the traditional 948cc.
The story behind this car starts in 1973 when my step mother was 19 (she is 64 now). She purchased the car when it was 14 years old, along with a donor car. XRK 661 was orange at the time.
The car was in use during the 70's and 80's and as it wasn't worth much at the time just had enough done to it to keep it going. I believe it had a new floor during the early 80's. Some time in this period it did undergo a restoration and changed to British racing green. I specifically remember my dad dropping me home in the late 80's in it (I was born 83) but by 89 it was in need of another restoration. There were holes in the floor. My step mum was pregnant with my brother at this time, so it was placed in a barn they own, where it resided until 2003.
One sunny day a friend (Kitchski) and I had been drifting a Volvo 740 round a field (before drifting was cool) when I asked him if he'd like to see a sprite. He wasn't quite sure if I meant a little green goblin type creature or a bottle of drink, but agreed anyway. We went into the barn and there it was, having not moved in 14 years. A true barn find (except it wasn't lost). We then thought it would be a great idea to pull it out the barn using said Volvo 740, and triumphantly trundled down the field in tandem and gave it a wash. It didn't look too bad, or so we thought.
Said Volvo
Here it is being removed from the barn, only image I have, although Kitchski might have more?
We managed to get it moved to a garage, and we set about stripping it down. It soon became apparent it was a mess. More holes than a block of swiss cheese. Undeterred we got a bloke to weld it back together over the coming years, and dropped the bonnet off somewhere else to be repaired, never to be seen again. The original 948cc engine was solid, so we thought at the time it would be a good idea to replace it with a 1275cc, and purchased one from a scrapyard.
A few pics from the garage
I ended up getting a fiberglass bonnet for the car, which came home on the roof of a BX
It then went off to be painted
Then life got in the way. It sat like this for quite a few years. Sometime around 2009 it was sent off to a Healey specialist garage to be finished and it was finally put back on the road in 2012, but hadn't been brilliantly done. It soon became apparent the new gearbox we had purchased was rubbish, it wouldn't hold first and generally made an awful noise. It was also quite hesitant whilst driving, like it was misfiring. I mentioned this on my first passenger ride but my parents don't have a mechanical bone in their body. I'd assumed they'd take it back to the garage that did the work, but they didn't, and continued to use it like this until last summer when I was able to take it out for the first time, 12 years after we'd pulled it out of the barn, and the first time I was able to take control of its destiny again.
In the interim years, Kitchski had started working at Southways and built up extensive knowledge of interesting cars. There was only one place for it to go so in July '15 it went to have the gearbox removed and and repaired, and I asked him to work out why it was running so badly. He found out that the carbs were so full of crap they were blocked as the previous specialist hadn't fitted a fuel filter! It was also converted to Evans Waterless Coolant at this time and serviced.
The difference once these jobs were done was night and day!
Fast forward a year (I hadn't driven it again in this time) and the car was due another MOT. It had only covered 400 miles, but my parents advised me the speedo was over-reading and the fuel gauge wasn't working, which is why they'd not used it much! FFS! Back down to Southways it went and after passing the MOT it had a new fuel sender fitted and the speedo calibrated. I then had the pleasure of driving it home from Fareham to the other side of Romsey on Saturday in glorious sunshine. As you can imagine this car isn't ideal on the Motorway so I took the back roads. It took nearly 1.5hrs, and it was utter bliss.
Whilst my step mum has a sentimental attachment to the car I think they find it a bit of a chore running a classic car due to their lack of mechanical knowledge. She often remarks they might as well get rid of it as they don't really use it. This is compounded by the fact it lives in a garage away from their main home so it becomes a chore to get it to go out in it, but when they do use it they enjoy it. They are only 64 but I personally cannot see them driving it for many more years. They'd rather have something like an F-type, modern top down motoring. We've agreed this weekend that once they've had enough of the car I shall be the next owner. I might need to remortgage but it will be worth it.
Mini S10 sat in it this weekend, and was quite taken with it
And a few other images
NB.Edited to fix photobucked images
Edited by S100HP on Monday 1st July 09:57
S10GTA said:
Nice story. My Mum and Dad had one of these as their first car, before kids came along in 1963 and they had to buy a proper family car (obviously, a Mini). My Dad's liked open top cars ever since, although he's just had to get rid of his Mk1 MX-5 at the age of 83.
TotalControl said:
Your last picture really shows how much cars have grown over the years.
Not as much as being sat next to the wheel of an XC90 on Saturday! It really is tiny and you do feel quite vulnerable in it, however the positives of driving it far outweigh the negative. I defy anyone to get out of one without a massive smile on their face.Edited by S10GTA on Monday 8th August 13:03
Galsia said:
That is a really pretty car. The colour suits it so well.
Veeayt said:
Great choice of colour! Kudos to you chaps
Thanks, but we can't take the credit. Whilst we were stripping the British Racing Green from the car we uncovered leaf green, the cars original colour. It was agreed to paint it in its original colour again. I absolutely love it and think it really complements the car but step mum isn't sold on it. She ideally wanted BRG again but it wasn't an option in 59 so I didn't let her 
Edited by S10GTA on Monday 8th August 18:42
Kitchski said:
carinaman said:
I never knew they had a longtidunal leaf spring at the front like that.
That's because they don't 
Splendid choice by the way, but I just might be bias...
p.s. you appear to be missing the bonnet badge?
Edited by wibble cb on Tuesday 9th August 04:42
wibble cb said:
Kitchski said:
carinaman said:
I never knew they had a longtidunal leaf spring at the front like that.
That's because they don't Splendid choice by the way, but I just might be bias...
p.s. you appear to be missing the bonnet badge?
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