1963 Austin A40 Farina
Discussion
Forgive the slightly unromantic title but this is the story of an Austin A40, and my ridiculous love affair with them as a species over some 28 years (and counting). This isn't just any Austin A40 either, as you will see, but one which actually occupies very fond memories for me.
I suppose I should start with the fact that, in 1968 when I reached the ripe age of 3 years, my Dad turned up at the house with one of these as the "new" family chariot. It lasted two years before rear doors became a necessity (we were a family of five by then) and was replaced by a Wolseley 16/60 Farina saloon. My only memory of that A40, truth be told, was sitting in a wet car park at Croyde Bay in Devon, watching the rain hammer down on some die-hard surfers in the sea.
Then, in 1973, my Mum needed a car, and Dad found a blue A40 Farina in the local paper. Two days later the deal was done and my brother and I have happy memories of being transported in this little car, until Mum sold in on in late 1976, it having given way to a brand new Mini 1000.
And that was it for me and A40's until the heady days of 1989.
By then, I had been driving myself for 7 years, had completed a degree and was in the beginnings of a career (shock horror). However, partly encouraged by my best mate Dennis, I had grown already to love older cars, as opposed to moderns (which I just found functional). By 1989 had already owned the obligatory MG (in my case a Midget), a Triumph Spitfire, a VW Beetle, and an "Auntie" Rover 110.
I used to generally go for a beer with Dennis on a Tuesday evening in those days, and one such occasion he appeared much more excited than usual, and unfolded a classic car mag on the table opened at a page emblazoned with the headline "New Monte Carlo Winter Rally". I read on, but the essence was that the late, great Philip Young, embolden by the success of his summer flagship Pirelli Marathon rally across Europe for classic cars; had decided to run a winter event. It was to be a re-run of the original classic Monte Carlo rallies, starting from Scotland (as they used to back in the day) and down to Monaco via a twisty route including lots of mountain passes, and crews and cars had to be self-sufficient carrying their own spares and tools. Oh, and it was to be held in January 1990, in the snow.
Dennis looked at me as I finished reading and said, "Shall we do it?". "Of course", I replied, "but in what?"
We quickly established that his TR3 (in bits) and my Rover were inappropriate but that we needed a cheap, unfashionable (it couldn't be even remotely sexy as it had to be able to be purchased for nothing - we were skint lads); easy to spanner preferably rear drive car. Back in those days, pre-internet, the weapons of choice were the Exchange & Mart and the Auto Trader. After a quite ridiculous two weeks, during which we very nearly bought the worlds rustiest Wolseley 1500, and a couple of equally near misses with quite horrific examples of the Morris Minor, we began to home in on the Austin A40 Farina.
Den found one in E&M, being sold by an old boy in Sydenham in south London. It was mechanically great but the body was shot. I found a really straight one in a lock up in Aldershot, but it barely moved under its own power. You know what is coming - yes, we bought them both and made one from two by putting the good mechanicals in the good shell; and then scrapping the old shell and mechanicals.
All the preparations were done by ourselves - and not knowing at all what we were doing, we drove up to Glasgow at the end of January 1990 to begin an epic adventure.
More to come.....
I suppose I should start with the fact that, in 1968 when I reached the ripe age of 3 years, my Dad turned up at the house with one of these as the "new" family chariot. It lasted two years before rear doors became a necessity (we were a family of five by then) and was replaced by a Wolseley 16/60 Farina saloon. My only memory of that A40, truth be told, was sitting in a wet car park at Croyde Bay in Devon, watching the rain hammer down on some die-hard surfers in the sea.
Then, in 1973, my Mum needed a car, and Dad found a blue A40 Farina in the local paper. Two days later the deal was done and my brother and I have happy memories of being transported in this little car, until Mum sold in on in late 1976, it having given way to a brand new Mini 1000.
And that was it for me and A40's until the heady days of 1989.
By then, I had been driving myself for 7 years, had completed a degree and was in the beginnings of a career (shock horror). However, partly encouraged by my best mate Dennis, I had grown already to love older cars, as opposed to moderns (which I just found functional). By 1989 had already owned the obligatory MG (in my case a Midget), a Triumph Spitfire, a VW Beetle, and an "Auntie" Rover 110.
I used to generally go for a beer with Dennis on a Tuesday evening in those days, and one such occasion he appeared much more excited than usual, and unfolded a classic car mag on the table opened at a page emblazoned with the headline "New Monte Carlo Winter Rally". I read on, but the essence was that the late, great Philip Young, embolden by the success of his summer flagship Pirelli Marathon rally across Europe for classic cars; had decided to run a winter event. It was to be a re-run of the original classic Monte Carlo rallies, starting from Scotland (as they used to back in the day) and down to Monaco via a twisty route including lots of mountain passes, and crews and cars had to be self-sufficient carrying their own spares and tools. Oh, and it was to be held in January 1990, in the snow.
Dennis looked at me as I finished reading and said, "Shall we do it?". "Of course", I replied, "but in what?"
We quickly established that his TR3 (in bits) and my Rover were inappropriate but that we needed a cheap, unfashionable (it couldn't be even remotely sexy as it had to be able to be purchased for nothing - we were skint lads); easy to spanner preferably rear drive car. Back in those days, pre-internet, the weapons of choice were the Exchange & Mart and the Auto Trader. After a quite ridiculous two weeks, during which we very nearly bought the worlds rustiest Wolseley 1500, and a couple of equally near misses with quite horrific examples of the Morris Minor, we began to home in on the Austin A40 Farina.
Den found one in E&M, being sold by an old boy in Sydenham in south London. It was mechanically great but the body was shot. I found a really straight one in a lock up in Aldershot, but it barely moved under its own power. You know what is coming - yes, we bought them both and made one from two by putting the good mechanicals in the good shell; and then scrapping the old shell and mechanicals.
All the preparations were done by ourselves - and not knowing at all what we were doing, we drove up to Glasgow at the end of January 1990 to begin an epic adventure.
More to come.....
Yes, this feels like a thread that should be really interesting!
The title caught my eye - I was apparently brought home from hospital when I was born in my Dad's A40 Somerset! Then in 1963 my aunt (Mum's sister) and uncle bought a brand new A40 Farina Countryman in a greenish Turquoise colour - I remember it well!
Looking forward to the next instalment.
The title caught my eye - I was apparently brought home from hospital when I was born in my Dad's A40 Somerset! Then in 1963 my aunt (Mum's sister) and uncle bought a brand new A40 Farina Countryman in a greenish Turquoise colour - I remember it well!
Looking forward to the next instalment.
January 1990 - The First Rally
It is probably first worth quickly recounting what we did to the car on our shoestring budget. The body, as previously mentioned, was very solid. Two tiny holes were welded up underneath but that was it. We would have liked a respray, but didn't have the funds, so I just spent hours with T-Cut and polish and we effected a reasonable finish.
The brakes were naturally fully rebuilt with new shoes, wheel cylinders, master and fluid. The clutch master was re-sealed and the slave replaced and new fluid. The gearbox and axle were removed, cleaned and refitted with new fluids and seals as appropriate. We got a secondhand set of Sprite steel wheels and rubbed down and re-painted them. The engine had a rebuilt balanced bottom end, courtesy of a friend of a friend at mates rates. We put a Cooper head on and twin 1.25 SU's on a Spridget manifold. Another mate lent an original Derrington exhaust manifold, which was rusty but cleaned up well. The exhaust was cobbled together from bits we had in our respective garages. A local motor spares shop had a pair of Cobra buckets that had faded in their front window display, and they sold us the pair for £100. We put in new harnesses. Finally Philip Young, through his Pirelli contacts, arranged for all entrants to be able to buy new Pirelli M+S tyres at trade less 30%.
We both knew nothing about rally navigation or "tulip diagrams" or anything. I was (and still am) quite handy with a map, but we did read that it would be useful to have a device called a Halda Speedpilot for regularity sections. Investigation revealed that these units were way beyond our means financially, so we instead purchased one of the very last new Halda Tripmaster units and calibrated it for kilometres as all the rally instructions were to be in metric.
I ran the car for work for three weeks to give it a thorough shake-down (I was commuting 90 miles each way in those days). I found we were losing oil pressure at sustained high speed (i.e., over 60mph
), so we fitted a small oil cooler. After running it for about 1,200 miles I had it rolling loaded and re-jetted and tuned and was delighted to find that our somewhat humble efforts had yielded 56bhp as opposed to the standard 38bhp. We dropped the oil out, packed our spares and tools and headed for Glasgow.
Upon arrival, two things quickly dawned on us.
Firstly, that the A40 was clearly a decent choice as two others were running in the event. The first was an older couple, who were seasoned historic rallyists, and were charming but kept themselves to themselves. Their car was a Mk1 A40 and looked largely standard. The other one was run by a historic rally stalwart, Don Pither and his wife, Margaret. This car was a Mk2 like ours and sounded and looked rather fruitier. Don was something of a legend in the Reliant Scimitar fraternity, having written several definitive books on the cars, and been the spares officer for the owners club for many years. He had a number of valuable classics, including a genuine ex-works Sunbeam Tiger, and had been one of the early supporters of the classic rally movement. I will return to him and his A40 later in the thread.
The second thing that dawned on us both was that we were somewhat out of our depth financially. All the competitors were (with a couple of very notable exceptions) rather older than us, and there was a conspicuous whiff of money. Cars were immaculately and expensively prepared compared to our amateurish effort but, nobody looked down their nose too much - in fact the opposite - folk were gently encouraging of us.
We were only given the road book and route the night before the start, so after a couple of pints, I retired to the hotel room to plot the route on the map. We had a stopwatch and a set of average speed tables for the regularity sections (neither of us really even knew what this phrase meant), and that was the sum total of our navigational expertise.
The next day dawned early, with scrutineering at 7.00am and then, with that successfully behind us; at exactly 9.06am, car number 66, a red Austin A40 Mk2 went gingerly through the start gate, up through the gears, and into the streets of Glasgow. At first, to our utter surprise, the roads were lined with many hundreds of people (the Rally had been heavily publicised - we were to find this common along the route later on); but gradually, as we left the City behind the crowds cleared and we headed off into the low morning sun, direction Peebles; and Time Control Number 1.
It is probably first worth quickly recounting what we did to the car on our shoestring budget. The body, as previously mentioned, was very solid. Two tiny holes were welded up underneath but that was it. We would have liked a respray, but didn't have the funds, so I just spent hours with T-Cut and polish and we effected a reasonable finish.
The brakes were naturally fully rebuilt with new shoes, wheel cylinders, master and fluid. The clutch master was re-sealed and the slave replaced and new fluid. The gearbox and axle were removed, cleaned and refitted with new fluids and seals as appropriate. We got a secondhand set of Sprite steel wheels and rubbed down and re-painted them. The engine had a rebuilt balanced bottom end, courtesy of a friend of a friend at mates rates. We put a Cooper head on and twin 1.25 SU's on a Spridget manifold. Another mate lent an original Derrington exhaust manifold, which was rusty but cleaned up well. The exhaust was cobbled together from bits we had in our respective garages. A local motor spares shop had a pair of Cobra buckets that had faded in their front window display, and they sold us the pair for £100. We put in new harnesses. Finally Philip Young, through his Pirelli contacts, arranged for all entrants to be able to buy new Pirelli M+S tyres at trade less 30%.
We both knew nothing about rally navigation or "tulip diagrams" or anything. I was (and still am) quite handy with a map, but we did read that it would be useful to have a device called a Halda Speedpilot for regularity sections. Investigation revealed that these units were way beyond our means financially, so we instead purchased one of the very last new Halda Tripmaster units and calibrated it for kilometres as all the rally instructions were to be in metric.
I ran the car for work for three weeks to give it a thorough shake-down (I was commuting 90 miles each way in those days). I found we were losing oil pressure at sustained high speed (i.e., over 60mph
), so we fitted a small oil cooler. After running it for about 1,200 miles I had it rolling loaded and re-jetted and tuned and was delighted to find that our somewhat humble efforts had yielded 56bhp as opposed to the standard 38bhp. We dropped the oil out, packed our spares and tools and headed for Glasgow.Upon arrival, two things quickly dawned on us.
Firstly, that the A40 was clearly a decent choice as two others were running in the event. The first was an older couple, who were seasoned historic rallyists, and were charming but kept themselves to themselves. Their car was a Mk1 A40 and looked largely standard. The other one was run by a historic rally stalwart, Don Pither and his wife, Margaret. This car was a Mk2 like ours and sounded and looked rather fruitier. Don was something of a legend in the Reliant Scimitar fraternity, having written several definitive books on the cars, and been the spares officer for the owners club for many years. He had a number of valuable classics, including a genuine ex-works Sunbeam Tiger, and had been one of the early supporters of the classic rally movement. I will return to him and his A40 later in the thread.
The second thing that dawned on us both was that we were somewhat out of our depth financially. All the competitors were (with a couple of very notable exceptions) rather older than us, and there was a conspicuous whiff of money. Cars were immaculately and expensively prepared compared to our amateurish effort but, nobody looked down their nose too much - in fact the opposite - folk were gently encouraging of us.
We were only given the road book and route the night before the start, so after a couple of pints, I retired to the hotel room to plot the route on the map. We had a stopwatch and a set of average speed tables for the regularity sections (neither of us really even knew what this phrase meant), and that was the sum total of our navigational expertise.
The next day dawned early, with scrutineering at 7.00am and then, with that successfully behind us; at exactly 9.06am, car number 66, a red Austin A40 Mk2 went gingerly through the start gate, up through the gears, and into the streets of Glasgow. At first, to our utter surprise, the roads were lined with many hundreds of people (the Rally had been heavily publicised - we were to find this common along the route later on); but gradually, as we left the City behind the crowds cleared and we headed off into the low morning sun, direction Peebles; and Time Control Number 1.
Even by Peebles, there were a couple of retirements from the field. The weather was unseasonably mild, with no sign of snow or ice, so cars were maintaining quite high average speeds. This especially suited the bigger more powerful machines, when the Monte has traditionally favoured small lower powered models (remember the Mini dominating in the 1960's?), because of the winter conditions.
Nonetheless, we settled into a bit of a routine. I would drive the boring straight bits and navigate the twisty bits, and Den would do vice versa.The car was running well, if considerably down on power compared to some of the other entries. We got into the habit of arriving at a time control a few minutes before our allocated time, and then waiting for the clock to tick over to "our" time, before presenting our road book to the marshal for stamping. The rally turned south and we dispatched the controls at Peebles, Barnby Moor Hotel (Notts), and then did a bit of M25 and the Dartford Crossing, before heading down the A2 into Kent. The final UK time control was at the Rochester Holiday Inn hotel.
As Dennis and I were both south east Londoners, we had arranged for any friends and family to see us at Rochester before we disappeared to the ferry at Dover. It was a real thrill to drive into the car park at Rochester and see so many people that we knew there, in the cold, just to cheer us on. We grabbed a cuppa, chatted with friends, and then back in then trusty A40, roared off into the night air for the Port of Dover.
The last piece of UK action was an auto-test, conducted in the harbour at Dover docks (imagine trying to organise that nowadays). A course was laid out in cones and it was straight race against time, with penalties for any cones knocked over or dislodged. Cars started in the reverse order of their positions at this stage - so the last placed car went first and so on, until the first placed car went last.
We had improved from 66th place (our car number at the start) to 51st by this stage, and we were the first A40 to go at the course. Dennis drove. He was frustrated that we could neither get the car to handbrake turn, nor did it have enough power to break traction with the rear wheels and swing the back end round. Nonetheless, we were reasonably happy with our run, and moved up another couple of places. We watched the other cars go round the course, being treated to a master-class in drifting by a very powerful Healey 3000, and then Don Pither went in his A40 - by now up into an astonishing tenth place overall.
We watched gobsmacked as Don's little car span its wheels up, handbrake beautifully and went round about 30% quicker than we had. Naturally, there was much discussion afterwards with him about what he had done to his car....
And so, to the ferry at 11.30pm - some 18 hours after we got in the little car in Glasgow. The ferry was to provide a chance for a vital one hour kip, as the rally then continued through the night, and the next day. We locked the car in the ships hold, went up to the lounge and went fast asleep. Next stop, Calais.
Nonetheless, we settled into a bit of a routine. I would drive the boring straight bits and navigate the twisty bits, and Den would do vice versa.The car was running well, if considerably down on power compared to some of the other entries. We got into the habit of arriving at a time control a few minutes before our allocated time, and then waiting for the clock to tick over to "our" time, before presenting our road book to the marshal for stamping. The rally turned south and we dispatched the controls at Peebles, Barnby Moor Hotel (Notts), and then did a bit of M25 and the Dartford Crossing, before heading down the A2 into Kent. The final UK time control was at the Rochester Holiday Inn hotel.
As Dennis and I were both south east Londoners, we had arranged for any friends and family to see us at Rochester before we disappeared to the ferry at Dover. It was a real thrill to drive into the car park at Rochester and see so many people that we knew there, in the cold, just to cheer us on. We grabbed a cuppa, chatted with friends, and then back in then trusty A40, roared off into the night air for the Port of Dover.
The last piece of UK action was an auto-test, conducted in the harbour at Dover docks (imagine trying to organise that nowadays). A course was laid out in cones and it was straight race against time, with penalties for any cones knocked over or dislodged. Cars started in the reverse order of their positions at this stage - so the last placed car went first and so on, until the first placed car went last.
We had improved from 66th place (our car number at the start) to 51st by this stage, and we were the first A40 to go at the course. Dennis drove. He was frustrated that we could neither get the car to handbrake turn, nor did it have enough power to break traction with the rear wheels and swing the back end round. Nonetheless, we were reasonably happy with our run, and moved up another couple of places. We watched the other cars go round the course, being treated to a master-class in drifting by a very powerful Healey 3000, and then Don Pither went in his A40 - by now up into an astonishing tenth place overall.
We watched gobsmacked as Don's little car span its wheels up, handbrake beautifully and went round about 30% quicker than we had. Naturally, there was much discussion afterwards with him about what he had done to his car....
And so, to the ferry at 11.30pm - some 18 hours after we got in the little car in Glasgow. The ferry was to provide a chance for a vital one hour kip, as the rally then continued through the night, and the next day. We locked the car in the ships hold, went up to the lounge and went fast asleep. Next stop, Calais.
. Love it.So, back to the Rally.
The route was deliberately designed to avoid motorways except where pretty much absolutely necessary. Arriving in northern France at 1.45am on the back of circa one hour of sleep is testing enough; but then having to follow a complex twisty route is another thing again.
Thus we somehow took about six hours to enter Rheims and thereon into Belgium and the town of Ypres.
One of the hardest things was keeping fatigue at bay and not missing a turning as the time allowed for sections just did not permit errors.
Still, we were pretty pleased with our progress as absolute rookies, and even the first regularity section felt like it went okay. The result showed that we were slightly too slow over the section, but it was close enough that I, as navigator was quite chuffed.
The little Austin continued to take all the punishment we could throw at it. In truth this was quite a lot, because the anticipated bad weather conditions remained absent, with unseasonably dry and mild weather being the norm. As the field thinned out, we began to have regular little dices with the same group of cars, which kept things interesting; and the A40 acquitted itself well.
On a fast D road run towards Aix-Le-Bains, we came round a corner to find a small rockfall had partially blocked the road. Despite taking evasive action, one lump passed under the car and tore the exhaust clean off. Luckily, that was all it did. We limped into the next village, and a friendly little garage actually opened up for us and allowed us to peruse his exhaust selection. We settled for a Renault 9 front box and pipe and cobbled it on at the next time control, earning us an entry in Motorsport magazine.
Another brown trouser incident occurred on a steep descent into Chambery, when the brake pedal gradually got lower and lower until we had no brakes at all, and were still descending - fast. We managed to bring the car to a halt using the handbrake in a small run-off area, but could see nothing immediately wrong, until we heard the distinct hiss of boiling brake fluid. Once it had all cooled down we had brakes again.....
By the final overnight halt at Chambery we were well pleased with our progress. We were lying 38th - no great shakes but amazing to us as rookies with a self built car and no previous experience at all. From thereon, it was an all-day section with two regularities, then straight into an all night section including a number of famous alpine passes with a further final regularity test. A descent into Monaco as dawn broke to the finish in the harbour, where a concours was to be held, as per the original rally.
As we climbed intro the Alps, the first ice and snow was encountered
Into the night and the Austin's good traction and rear drive predictability kept us going well
We finished the time control at the summit of the infamous Col du Turini; and then there was a very fast descent to the village of Sospel, with daylight breaking. Another time control and then up and over again for a more relaxed descent into Monaco.
It was all looking good, but then so near to the end, there was a disaster. We should have probably known that complacency on the last stretch could be a horror; but by then we were surviving on adrenalin pretty much, and were very tired.
I remember rounding a bend and the lovely little Alfa Romeo Guilia SS had lost a wheel. We stopped to assist but in reality could do nothing other than offer sympathy, so we carried on and no more than two turns later hit a patch where a melt water run-off across the road had turned overnight to black ice, which hadn't melted yet. After what seemed an eternity, we hit the rock wall. Very hard indeed.
The force of the impact pulled my seat out of the floor, but the harnesses did their job and (other than bloody sore shoulders) we were unscathed. The little Austin was not however. The crash had put the fan through the radiator and had broken the offside stub axle forcing the front wheel and suspension pan backwards into the footwell. We were going nowhere and our rally was over.
Our RAC European cover swung into play and, after what seemed like an eternity, a breakdown truck arrived from Sospel, recovered the remains of the car and drove back to the village, where we watched the garage doors shut on the little car, grabbed our belongings and waited for a taxi to Monaco.
We managed to make the prize giving but it was all a damp squib for us to be honest. The RAC provided a hire car, which we drove back to Calais and then ferried back as foot passengers. Another hire car at Dover got us home.
We had no idea whether we would see the A40 again at that stage, but as reality dawned on what we had achieved, a sense of pride replaced that of disappointment. It had been quite a week.
The route was deliberately designed to avoid motorways except where pretty much absolutely necessary. Arriving in northern France at 1.45am on the back of circa one hour of sleep is testing enough; but then having to follow a complex twisty route is another thing again.
Thus we somehow took about six hours to enter Rheims and thereon into Belgium and the town of Ypres.
One of the hardest things was keeping fatigue at bay and not missing a turning as the time allowed for sections just did not permit errors.
Still, we were pretty pleased with our progress as absolute rookies, and even the first regularity section felt like it went okay. The result showed that we were slightly too slow over the section, but it was close enough that I, as navigator was quite chuffed.
The little Austin continued to take all the punishment we could throw at it. In truth this was quite a lot, because the anticipated bad weather conditions remained absent, with unseasonably dry and mild weather being the norm. As the field thinned out, we began to have regular little dices with the same group of cars, which kept things interesting; and the A40 acquitted itself well.
On a fast D road run towards Aix-Le-Bains, we came round a corner to find a small rockfall had partially blocked the road. Despite taking evasive action, one lump passed under the car and tore the exhaust clean off. Luckily, that was all it did. We limped into the next village, and a friendly little garage actually opened up for us and allowed us to peruse his exhaust selection. We settled for a Renault 9 front box and pipe and cobbled it on at the next time control, earning us an entry in Motorsport magazine.
Another brown trouser incident occurred on a steep descent into Chambery, when the brake pedal gradually got lower and lower until we had no brakes at all, and were still descending - fast. We managed to bring the car to a halt using the handbrake in a small run-off area, but could see nothing immediately wrong, until we heard the distinct hiss of boiling brake fluid. Once it had all cooled down we had brakes again.....
By the final overnight halt at Chambery we were well pleased with our progress. We were lying 38th - no great shakes but amazing to us as rookies with a self built car and no previous experience at all. From thereon, it was an all-day section with two regularities, then straight into an all night section including a number of famous alpine passes with a further final regularity test. A descent into Monaco as dawn broke to the finish in the harbour, where a concours was to be held, as per the original rally.
As we climbed intro the Alps, the first ice and snow was encountered
Into the night and the Austin's good traction and rear drive predictability kept us going well
We finished the time control at the summit of the infamous Col du Turini; and then there was a very fast descent to the village of Sospel, with daylight breaking. Another time control and then up and over again for a more relaxed descent into Monaco.
It was all looking good, but then so near to the end, there was a disaster. We should have probably known that complacency on the last stretch could be a horror; but by then we were surviving on adrenalin pretty much, and were very tired.
I remember rounding a bend and the lovely little Alfa Romeo Guilia SS had lost a wheel. We stopped to assist but in reality could do nothing other than offer sympathy, so we carried on and no more than two turns later hit a patch where a melt water run-off across the road had turned overnight to black ice, which hadn't melted yet. After what seemed an eternity, we hit the rock wall. Very hard indeed.
The force of the impact pulled my seat out of the floor, but the harnesses did their job and (other than bloody sore shoulders) we were unscathed. The little Austin was not however. The crash had put the fan through the radiator and had broken the offside stub axle forcing the front wheel and suspension pan backwards into the footwell. We were going nowhere and our rally was over.
Our RAC European cover swung into play and, after what seemed like an eternity, a breakdown truck arrived from Sospel, recovered the remains of the car and drove back to the village, where we watched the garage doors shut on the little car, grabbed our belongings and waited for a taxi to Monaco.
We managed to make the prize giving but it was all a damp squib for us to be honest. The RAC provided a hire car, which we drove back to Calais and then ferried back as foot passengers. Another hire car at Dover got us home.
We had no idea whether we would see the A40 again at that stage, but as reality dawned on what we had achieved, a sense of pride replaced that of disappointment. It had been quite a week.
The Aftermath - February 1990
Going back to work was a bit ordinary after all that. Then the phone calls began. I had never left an accident damaged car in a foreign country, and to be honest, didn't really know where to begin.
We had specialist agreed value insurance cover with Footman James, who were a main sponsor of the Rally. The FJ cover included an add-on to cover the Rally itself. So, I started with them. The problem was that, in those days A40's were almost worthless, so even a "Rally" model with (now) something of a history was probably worth, at best, £2,500. I began to sense a general feeling when on the phone to FJ that they were moving towards a write-off and payout scenario.
Back in those days, Peter James was still the head honcho at FJ, and had not yet sold the business and started again in his own name. I decided to make one last-ditch call to Peter himself. He was courtesy personified, said that he would look into our case, and would then get back to me.
Four days later, sitting at my desk at work, I received a half irate, half surprised telephone call from my mother, who had been hauled out of the bath by the doorbell ringing, only to find a low loader depositing what she eloquently described as "some sort of wreck" in the middle of her driveway. The Austin was back!
I wrote personally to Peter James to express our gratitude, and then because (a) the shell was so badly damaged it could not be repaired and, (b) my parents had said the remains of the car had to be off their driveway within a fortnight; Den and I set about stripping everything off it that we thought might reasonably be useful to us. It was to all intents and purposes a bare shell that was dragged onto a different low-loader ten days later bound for the scrappy. We had removed all the running gear, the interior, the lights, windows, rear axle, fuel tank and wheels and this lot was all transported to one off my lock-ups.
For me, attention the turned back to work and my career. It was a difficult time for the property industry. The UK was about to enter a massive depression, as we tumbled out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Somebody called John Major was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and somebody else called Margaret Thatcher was ditched by the Conservatives in favour of Major later that year. Within three months I was out of work; and things were pretty rough.
After a while out of work, I managed to get a new job at much lower pay, but it was a job and it was local. It was still in housing, so my career got back on the rails, if at a lower level. I considered myself lucky.
It was about then that, on one of our regular Tuesday nights, Dennis noted that entries for the 1991 Monte event were opening. We looked at each other and knew instantly what the other was thinking. We had everything needed to make a good car (except a shell itself); it couldn't be as expensive as last time as we had all the bits. Could it?
We didn't know or care, and agreed immediately that we were doing it all again. Now we needed another A40. More frantic scouring of the classifieds, of Auto Trader and Exchange & Mart. As it happened, a few weeks later I noticed a small ad in the local free newspaper advertising an A40. It was less than two miles away and I was there looking at it by 5.00pm the same day. A price was agreed (after much haggling - the seller was a "trader from home" who had taken it in PX and wanted his pound of flesh). Eventually £200 in cash changed hands and we had another A40.
Off we go again......
Going back to work was a bit ordinary after all that. Then the phone calls began. I had never left an accident damaged car in a foreign country, and to be honest, didn't really know where to begin.
We had specialist agreed value insurance cover with Footman James, who were a main sponsor of the Rally. The FJ cover included an add-on to cover the Rally itself. So, I started with them. The problem was that, in those days A40's were almost worthless, so even a "Rally" model with (now) something of a history was probably worth, at best, £2,500. I began to sense a general feeling when on the phone to FJ that they were moving towards a write-off and payout scenario.
Back in those days, Peter James was still the head honcho at FJ, and had not yet sold the business and started again in his own name. I decided to make one last-ditch call to Peter himself. He was courtesy personified, said that he would look into our case, and would then get back to me.
Four days later, sitting at my desk at work, I received a half irate, half surprised telephone call from my mother, who had been hauled out of the bath by the doorbell ringing, only to find a low loader depositing what she eloquently described as "some sort of wreck" in the middle of her driveway. The Austin was back!
I wrote personally to Peter James to express our gratitude, and then because (a) the shell was so badly damaged it could not be repaired and, (b) my parents had said the remains of the car had to be off their driveway within a fortnight; Den and I set about stripping everything off it that we thought might reasonably be useful to us. It was to all intents and purposes a bare shell that was dragged onto a different low-loader ten days later bound for the scrappy. We had removed all the running gear, the interior, the lights, windows, rear axle, fuel tank and wheels and this lot was all transported to one off my lock-ups.
For me, attention the turned back to work and my career. It was a difficult time for the property industry. The UK was about to enter a massive depression, as we tumbled out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Somebody called John Major was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and somebody else called Margaret Thatcher was ditched by the Conservatives in favour of Major later that year. Within three months I was out of work; and things were pretty rough.
After a while out of work, I managed to get a new job at much lower pay, but it was a job and it was local. It was still in housing, so my career got back on the rails, if at a lower level. I considered myself lucky.
It was about then that, on one of our regular Tuesday nights, Dennis noted that entries for the 1991 Monte event were opening. We looked at each other and knew instantly what the other was thinking. We had everything needed to make a good car (except a shell itself); it couldn't be as expensive as last time as we had all the bits. Could it?
We didn't know or care, and agreed immediately that we were doing it all again. Now we needed another A40. More frantic scouring of the classifieds, of Auto Trader and Exchange & Mart. As it happened, a few weeks later I noticed a small ad in the local free newspaper advertising an A40. It was less than two miles away and I was there looking at it by 5.00pm the same day. A price was agreed (after much haggling - the seller was a "trader from home" who had taken it in PX and wanted his pound of flesh). Eventually £200 in cash changed hands and we had another A40.
Off we go again......
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