OPINION
Modified cars creating more interest than originals!
The massive success of one stand at the recent Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show was a surprise to a good many people, not least the club running it. Forming the centrepiece were two Morris Oxford MOs and a Wolseley 6/80. Three postwar classics which even a devotee such as myself has to admit don’t normally have a mass appeal to young people driving around in their woke wagons with heaters and everything. In this case, however, enthusiastic youth were gathering around like at a Take That concert.
Sadly, this wasn’t all due wasn’t all due to these cars being magnificent examples of Nuffield organisation, later British Motor Corporation, magic. I have to reveal that substantial bits of Mercedes Benz, Chevrolet, Ford ‘and, oh my giddy aunt, Subaru have been attached to respective cars.’ Each was finished to the highest standards and were truly labours of love, much more difficult than putting a car back to original. All had really nice, enthusiastic owners very happy to talk about their project.
Unique Oxford
Howard Riddell’s 1954 car is the newest MO known to the club, whose show stand we were on. Under the bonnet lurks a new Chevy V8 with Holley carb and three-speed auto ‘box. Top specialists including NAMCO did the work. The car has been finished in its original Empire Green as part of the three-and-a-half-year project. Howard wonders if the car’s RFF*** registration stands for ‘Riddell’s Financial Folly.’ But he adds: ‘My teenage dream is a reality and I look forward to enjoying many years with my unique Morris Oxford V8.’
Brian West has been modifying and restoring classics for the past 30 years. He discovered the truly bizarre fact that the Morris Oxford MO and the Subaru Impreza had the same track and wheelbase. So why not mate the two? Brian did 95 per cent of the work himself for his ‘dream project,’ making every effort to make the MO-buru appear as original as possible.
Though there are at least 20 other cars snapping around its heels, the Wolseley 6/80 remains my all-time favourite classic. In 1988 I purchased SPF 426, a 1952 car a little on the tatty side, and with the help of far more competent folk restored it. I reluctantly parted with the car in the Nineties as a frien
