Fuzz Townshend takes you behind the scenes of the restos on the latest series of Car SOS. This week, sunrise follows sunset after a dark night for this lucky classic Japanese survivor
There is a smattering of sometimes disparate tin lovers throughout the classic car enthusiast world, who find themselves attracted to cars to which they have no direct historical link. I’m talking about cars that pre-date the enthusiast’s birth and that have no direct familial connection.
Adam stumbled, slack-jawed and smitten, across his Datsun 240K Skyline way back in 1999 when he was a student and the car was a three hundred quid quirky tin fossil for the transportation of the beautiful young folks of the ‘Big Beat’ generation.
Perhaps astoundingly, Adam and his Datsun managed to remain together, but neither spent much time enjoying full, unfettered health during the following quarter century.
The car had previously been owned by a person with a love for fresh air. Perhaps the car’s ‘Skyline’ name had provided the inspiration for a ‘T-bar’ roof conversion, complete with removable glass panels. Such a conversion is a brave move and this example was far from seamless, rather like when opening a can of Spam goes horribly wrong.
Indeed, the vehicle structure had been removed above the door, eliminating the steel hoop that provided much of the shell’s integral strength.
This might have been alright had the car’s sills been reinforced and clearly Adam had realised this, having begun to insert longitudinal strengthening tubes, but these had not yet seen gussets inserted along their lengths, adjoining them to the sill assemblies. As a result the body began to droop once Team Car SOS – this time working out of our friend, Syd’s workshop – raised the car on atwo-post lift and was only held in check by the sliver of thin roof panel remaining between where the removable glass sections fitted.
Adam’s wife and brother agreed that we could attempt to restore the car back to its original sp
