Survivors: The classic cars they couldn`t kill

Survivors:
The classic cars
they couldn’t kill
For some classics, the end is just the beginning. Replaced, discontinued,
shelved, supplanted or just forgotten, they refuse simply to die.
Andrew Noakes discovers that examples of cars that just
wouldn’t go away are surprisingly easy to find.
FORD GT40
■ After a couple of attempts Ford finally found Le Mans glory
when GT40s finished 1/2/3 in 1966. For 1967 Ford built the very
different MkIV ‘J-car’ at Kar Kraft in the US, while former team
manager John Wyer and partner John Wilment took over the GT40
factory at Slough to make the GT40-based Mirage. But the
original car wouldn’t go away. New rules from ’68 allowed bigger
engines in ‘production’ sports cars, so JW Automotive went back
to its GT40s – and were rewarded with two more Le Mans wins.
LOTUS SEVEN S3/CATERHAM SEVEN
■ Colin Chapman’s simple spaceframe sports car
evolved through three generations between 1957
and 1970, culminating in the Lotus Twin Campowered Twin Cam SS of 1969/70 (white car,
right). The Series 4 Seven was completely
different, with a glassfibre body tub bonded
to a new chassis. As Chapman forced
Lotus upmarket the Seven became an
irrelevance: dealer Caterham Cars bought
the rights in 1973, but made only 38 S4s
before reverting to the classic Series 3.
Essentially the same car is still in
production, though it has changed
considerably in the last 30 years.
Series 4s, meanwhile, are the
least-loved Sevens of all.
FIAT 124/LADA RIVA
■ Clean-cut styling, punchy
performance and an impressive
specification made Fiat’s new
small saloon the talk of the
Geneva show in 1966. Early cars
had five-bearing, 1197cc engines
with a healthy 60bhp, and a
70bhp 1.4-litre followed in the
1968 Special. The Special T of
1970 had another 10bhp thanks
to a twin-cam head, and a further
10bhp from 1972 when the
capacity was increased to 1.6
litres. Disc brakes, an all-synchro
gearbox and a well-located live
axle completed the package. In
the main we Brits couldn’t
understand 90bhp and the best
part of 7000rpm in a family car,
so we stuck with our Minor
1000s and HB Vivas, but the
Italians loved them and Fiat
shifted more than 1.5 million
before the 131 replaced it in
1974. But the 124 design
wouldn’t stay away: in the mid-
’60s Fiat had teamed up with the
Russians to set up a car factory.
The 124-based Lada 1200 was
the result, and by 1974 they were
being imported into Britain and
sold at a knock-down price.
Uninspiring engines and slapdash
build quality make the Ladas
much inferior to the 124s, but
they do prove that the basic Fiat
design had much to commend it –
enough to keep Ladas coming
into Britain well into the 1990s,
30 years after the original car
was launched.
LANCIA MONTECARLO
■ Originally intended to be
badged as a Fiat X1/20 – the
next step up from an X1/9 – the
Lancia Beta Montecarlo had
plenty going for it. Compact,
stylish and with the added kudos
of a proper mid-engined layout the
Montecarlo was Fiat’s idea of
where sports coupés should be
going in the 1970s. US-market
cars (badged Scorpion) made do
“We Brits couldn’t understand
90bhp and the best part of
7000rpm in a family car,
so we stuck to our HB Vivas”
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“The usual story of crises and
changes of ownership then
entered the picture”
VW BEETLE
■ The Beetle would qualify as a
survivor just for its mammoth
production run: a few were built
before the war but production
really got going in 1945, and
Beetle saloons continued to be
made in Germany until 1978
(Cabrios continued until 1980).
But more were to come:
production had started in Brazil
as early as 1953, and it
continued until 1986 – followed
by another run in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, production of Beetles
had started at Puebla, Mexico in
1965 and you can still buy one
new today, complete with a 1.8litre fuel injected engine.
JENSEN INTERCEPTOR
■ The fuel crisis of the early
’70s hit Jensen hard:
production of the Interceptor
stopped in 1976 and the
company turned into a parts
and service operation. The car
returned from the grave when
production of ‘Series 4’
Interceptors began in the early
1990s, but the run was limited
– even the car featured in The
Saint was a dressed up S3…
with a paltry 80bhp, but the
European spec twin-cam four from
the Beta delivered 120bhp –
enough to make the Montecarlo’s
handling and braking a matter of
some importance. Sadly, it failed
on both counts: the lightly-loaded
front wheels locked up early on
greasy surfaces, and if that didn’t
get you the feeble wet-weather
roadholding probably would.
Lancia pulled the plug pending a
rethink in 1978, but that wasn’t
the end of the story; the
Montecarlo returned to the
showrooms a couple of years
later in substantially modified
form. Externally the crisp
Pininfarina lines were largely
unchanged, but there was the
new Lancia corporate grille (also
seen on Betas and Trevis), bigger
wheels and glazed rear
buttresses for improved rear
vision. The servo was deleted to
give the brakes more feel, and
the suspension tweaked to
improve road manners in the wet.
It all added up to a much more
convincing package. Yet the
Montecarlo still has a reputation
for being tricky in the wet – a
reputation which, in Series 2
form, it does not deserve.
FIAT X1/9
process: Bertone-badged X1/9s
continued to delight drivers until
the end finally came with a ‘Grand
Finale’ special edition in 1989.
MINI
only proper Mini was the original.
The Clubman and 1275GT were
dropped, and a new HL-spec car
(later renamed the Mayfair)
introduced in their place. The
original shape Mini soldiered on
mostly unmolested until
production finally ended last year.
MINI MOKE
■ Bertone’s idea for a baby
sports car was a blinder: take the
front-drive Fiat 128 engine and
gearbox, mount it amidships in an
attractive wedge-shaped body.
The resulting X1/9’s road
manners were marvellous, and it
could clearly handle more power:
even the 85bhp 1.5-litre used
from 1978 didn’t tax the chassis
much. Bertone always built the
bodyshells, and Fiat assembled
the car up the road at Lingotto
until they cleared the factory and
ended X1/9 production in 1981.
But Bertone had other ideas, and
took over the whole production
■ The Mini we know and love
nearly died 30 years ago. Leyland
decided it needed an update and
in October 1969 they grafted on
the ghastly square Clubman
nose, dropping in an 1100 engine
at the same time to counter the
new body’s extra weight and bricklike aerodynamics. Clubmans
were the poshest Minis of the
’70s, the original shape being
retained for the poverty models.
But by 1980 the gloss had worn
off, and everyone decided the
“Clubmans were the poshest Minis of the ’70s,
the original shape being retained for poverty
models. But by 1980 the gloss had worn off”
■ Conceived as a light military
vehicle utilising the Mini’s 848cc
engine and rubber cone
suspension, the Moke was dealt
a cruel blow by Customs &
Excise, who decided it was not a
commercial vehicle and slapped
Purchase Tax on it. So it was fun,
but a bit pricey, and production
ground to a halt after four years
in October 1968. It wouldn’t die,
though, and the tooling went first
to Leyland Australia and then to
Portugal, where production
restarted in 1982. Tim Dutton of
kit car fame started importing
Portuguese Mokes into the UK in
1984, since when there have
been other import attempts, but
only of the odd few cars.
58
2001 October ~ CLASSICS
ASTON MARTIN LAGONDA
■ William Towns’ design for an
Aston Martin DB6 replacement
was conceived as both a two-door
coupé and a fastbacked four-door
saloon, but it was the two-door
that went into production, as the
DBS, in 1967. One four-door was
built, predictably for Aston boss
Sir David Brown, and it was
registered as a Lagonda –
reviving a marque dead since the
unloved Rapide had bitten the
dust in 1964. The usual Aston
Martin story of crises and
changes of ownership then
entered the picture, and it wasn’t
until 1974 that a ‘production’
version of the four-door appeared
FIAT 124 SPIDER
■ Pininfarina styled the 124 Spider and made the
bodies: when Fiat finally ended production in 1980
there could be no better manufacturer to take it
on. The car was reborn in the US (where most of
the Fiat Spiders had gone) as the Pininfarina
Azzura (right) and in Europe as the Spidereuropa.
The last cars were built in 1985.
LOTUS 72
■ Lotus’ front-line Formula 1 car from 1970 to 1973 won Grands
Prix in the hands of Jochen Rindt, Ronnie Peterson and Emerson
Fittipaldi, taking Fittipaldi (above) to the World Championship in
1972. For ’74 Colin Chapman planned a ‘lighter 72’, the Type 76.
But it proved such a failure that Ronnie Peterson gave up on it,
and went back to the 72 – which remained competitive until the
tyres it needed became obsolete at the end of 1974.
after the first run of cars, brought
it back in the form of the Clio
Williams 2 of 1994 – to howls of
protest from owners of the first
cars, many of whom had bought
them as an investment. Adding
insult to injury Renault
resurrected it yet again in 1995,
with a Clio Williams 3 – though
neither of the two later versions
carried that dashboard plaque.
CLAN
■ The Imp-engined Clan Crusader appeared in 1971 but financial
troubles saw production end in 1974 after around 350 cars were
made. The body moulds were sold to a Turkish businessman,
while in the UK Brian Luff made new moulds, which ended up
with Peter McCandless in Northern Ireland. McCandless made
new Imp-engined Clans and an Alfasud-powered Clan Clover until
the company ceased trading in
1987. The moulds then passed to
Clan Club members Dave Excell
and Dave Weedon, who are
developing the design for use
with many different engines.
AND THE REST…
■ There are plenty more
examples of cars that just
wouldn’t die. The Shelby Cobra
(below) was very much a car of
the 1960s, developed from AC’s
gentlemanly Ace into a V8-
powered animal that was
successful on the track and
spawned huge numbers of kit car
imitators. The real thing is still
available from Shelby American,
Inc and AC Cars build something
similar in the UK. Just about the
most sought-after Aston Martin is
the DB4GT Zagato, of which only
19 were produced between 1961
and 1963. But more than two
decades later the car was back,
Aston boss Victor Gauntlett
authorising specialist Richard
Williams to build a run of four
more, known as ‘Sanction II’ cars
and continuing the original cars’
chassis number sequence.
They’re almost indistinguishable
from the earlier Zagatos. At the
other end of the scale, the
closure of Citroën’s Levallois
factory could have meant the end
for the 2CV, but Deux Chevaux
enthusiasts were overjoyed to
hear that production would
continue in Mangualde, Portugal –
until they found out that the
Portuguese-built tin snails
succumbed to rust even more
quickly than the French ones…
BMW 3.0CSL
■ Ford and BMW fought a legendary battle in European Touring
Car racing in the early ’70s, BMW’s works and Alpina-run CSLs
taking on the RS2600 and RS3100 Capris. The CSL bowed out as
a production model with the advent of the new 6-series coupé in
1976, but the race cars – by this time sporting 3.3-litre
engines with four-valve cylinder heads – carried on
racing in private hands: the famous Gössersponsored CSL was built up from new parts
as late as 1979.
“Deux Chevaux enthusiasts
were overjoyed to hear that
production would continue”
– now badged an Aston Martin
Lagonda and carrying the twoheadlamp front end (shown)
instead of the David Brown car’s
DBS-style four-headlamp nose.
Only seven cars were built before
its razor-edged replacement
appeared in 1976.
TVR S
evolved it had its edges softened,
but still some customers
hankered after the old-style cars –
so in 1986 curves came back
with the TVR S. The new model
was in truth a very different car,
combining lessons learnt with the
wedge-shaped cars with
throwback styling and a (slightly)
more modern Ford Cologne V6.
While the wedge-shaped cars
petered out the curves continued:
with the Chimaera and Griffith,
TVR hit the road to the big time.
MGB/RV8
■ TVRs sported curvaceous and
attractive coupé styling which
evolved slowly from the late-’50s
Grantura to the hatchback Taimar
of the late 1970s. A one-off softtop built for TVR boss Martin
Lilley led to a production roadster,
the Ford Essex V6-powered
3000S, in 1978. Just over 250
were built before TVR threw away
its curves and startled the world
with the sharp-edged wedge that
was the Tasmin. As this new car
Chapman’s march upmarket: the
last cars were built in 1973. That
was that, until George Robinson
of VeganTune realised that there
was still a market for the Elan, in
a developed form. His car
(powered by VeganTune’s own VTA
engine) became known as the
Evante, and a new company,
Evante Cars, was formed to make
it. Sadly Evante Cars didn’t last
long, but VeganTune still handles
Evante parts and servicing.
RENAULT CLIO WILLIAMS
ELAN/EVANTE
■ The MGB was underdeveloped,
outdated and irrelevant by the
time it was finally allowed to die
in 1980. But plenty of MGBs
survived, so many in fact that
there was a good market in
spares – serviced by British Motor
“TVR threw away its curves
and startled the world with the
wedge that was the Tasmin”
60
Heritage at Faringdon, near
Oxford, who had sought out all
the old MGB body tooling. By
1988 complete shells were being
made, and the idea of making a
whole car was born. Rover
Special Projects developed that
idea into the RV8 – based around
the MGB shell, but with revised
wings, bonnet and bumpers and
fitted with a 3.9-litre Rover V8
and better-located rear axle. RV8
shells were built at Faringdon at
the rate of 15 a week, and a total
of around 2000 cars were made,
many of them ending up in Japan.
Neither fish nor fowl, the RV8 was
more than a ’70s MGB, but less
than a new MG roadster for the
’90s – yet prices now are healthy.
■ The Lotus Elan was the
ultimate sports car of the 1960s.
Peerless handling and fine
roadholding combined with a
cossetting ride, and sparkling
performance thanks to Lotus’
own Twin Cam engine. Sadly it
became a victim of Colin
■ One step on from the
phenomenally successful Clio 16valve, the Clio Williams was built
partly to give Renault a rally
contender and partly to cash in
on the Williams-Renault F1
connection. At the Geneva Motor
Show in 1993 it was announced
that just 2500 of the Williams
Blue, 2.0-litre cars would be built,
each one carrying a number
plaque on the dashboard. But
Renault realised it was onto a
good thing, and instead of killing
off the Clio Williams for good
2001 October ~ CLASSICS
TRIUMPH TR3A/B
■ In 1961 Triumph was very
pleased with its new TR4, but
US dealers believed many of
their customers would prefer
the outgoing ‘sidescreen’
TR3A. So Triumph restarted
production. The first cars were
virtually identical to the TR3A,
but later ones had 2138cc
engines and TR4-style allsynchro gearboxes. All
became known as ‘TR3Bs’.