[Epic Restoration]
Restoring a Vauxhall 30-98 from a bent chassis and a box of bits would be a tall order for any expert, let alone an apprentice restorer in his twenties. Would Piers Trevelyan be up to the challenge of this pre-War legend?
Vauxhall 30-98
Essentially it was a chassis with engine, gearbox, back axle, steering gear and one wire wheel,’ says Piers Trevelyan of his now-prize-winning 1921 Vauxhall 30-98. It might be an unlikely candidate for a 26-year-old apprentice restorer to take on, but the seeds had been sown back in the mid-Nineties, when a young Piers watched his father competing at Prescott Hill Climb. As these noisy leviathans hurtled up the hill with crash gearboxes shrieking and the air heavy with oil and exhaust fumes, the spectacle became a core memory for a five-year-old Piers. It was 1995 but it could have been 1925. Vowing one day to own a similar beast, Piers recounts the odyssey which was to follow.
‘I’m Vauxhall obsessed. I’d always admired the 30-98, which I thought was somewhat overlooked because people tended to favour Bentleys. There’s always been a romantic appeal about the 30-98, the underdog – but I think it’s just as good as a Bentley. Many founder members of the Vintage Sports-Car Club had 30-98s. My friend in Worcester, Mike Lemon, knew I was smitten with these cars and kindly allowed me to help him look after his three 30-98s. Now I’ll never forget this; on 11 March, 2016 Mike invited me for tea to discuss his fourth 30-98 which was in pieces. To my amazement, he offered to sell it to me. I have a photograph of that moment. You can see the engine block on the chassis, but the rest is dismantled. It seemed the car was complete in terms of bits, but the body was just matchsticks. It needed substantial repair – but I wasn’t put off in the slightest, plus Mike would let me pay in instalments. The chance of a lifetime for a 26 year old.’
Epic restorations need experts. Piers is a chartered surveyor; however, following his passion for vintage cars he’d changed careers just three years earlier to train as a vintage car restorer. ‘Ashton Keynes Restorations, where I work, allowed me use their premises for the restoration and as part of my training over the next four years. Believe you me, I learnt a lot. I mostly worked on the car outside of work hours – often long into the night. I kept the radiator under my bed because it’s incredibly expensive, about £20,000. The car’s provenance is sketchy; it had returned from Australia many years earlier. It’s rebuilt to colonial export specification with the larger 880 x 120 wheels. Originality is vital, hence I’ve adhered to the colonial spec.’
Technical drawings were a godsend
Piers was forensic in his quest to carry out t
