Atempted car modifications?

[D2LTA]

After being hammered with program after program coming from the States about Choppers/Hot Rods it only makes me wonder what the future has in store for us.... More recently there has been documentarys showing some of their tricks like how to fabricate metal and hand beat to form... anybody here attempted anything adventurous or thought about it? Thanks to eBay i now have a welder and a spraygun/compresser, grinder in my garage.. thou still in the box! I did chop the roof off an old Fiat 126 with the intension of makin it a bit wild but a baby came along, my lancia got rusty and so had to get rid of the wee beasty....

[Matra et Alpine]

After being hammered with program after program coming from the States about Choppers/Hot Rods it only makes me wonder what the future has in store for us.... More recently there has been documentarys showing some of their tricks like how to fabricate metal and hand beat to form... anybody here attempted anything adventurous or thought about it? Thanks to eBay i now have a welder and a spraygun/compresser, grinder in my garage.. thou still in the box! I did chop the roof off an old Fiat 126 with the intension of makin it a bit wild but a baby came along, my lancia got rusty and so had to get rid of the wee beasty....
Given the price of forest arches for mk1 Escorts, we used to hand beat our own many years back.

it was VERY common back then to do lots of mods, but not quite in the insane way of Monster Garage and all that cr@p :)

Removing the complete rear floor from Mini for racing was common. Replacing it with VERY thin Ally and then painting it so scrutineers coudlnt' tell it had been lightened was nother common trick As was welding 2 inch tubing up the INSIDE of the door pillars on Hillmans - Andy Dawson admitted to doing this AFTER he retired from international rallying :)

Cars and Car Conversions ( aka Triple CCC ) USED to be the best mangazine for tuning and competing and had lots of real fabricationa to be done. Sadly they closed their daoors a couple years aback as sales dwindled to nothing as nobody today wanted to do the effort. To easy to buy the bits and fit them than make them :(

The best you'll see nowadays in the Uk is the thriving classic and post-historic racing and rallying. As nobody makes the bits anymore then you have to fabricate lots yourself ( unless it's MG they seem well caterd for ).

RetroCars is a good example with articles on fitting modren engines/suspension etc to clasic cars. All generally requiring a good bit of seat-of-pants engineering :)

[D2LTA]

Yeah I bought a few copies of RetroCars.... seems to be one of the few mags worth buying nowadays... put a set of boxed/flared arches and a set of wide 13" rims on any seventies motor and it will look super cool.... There is a bloke in the Stirling car club who runs an orange Mk2 Manta berlinetta (chrome bumpered one) that was a front page feature in Retro. I have seen his car a few times at various shows, 2.0 16v carb conversion, its in really nice condition.... yes please.... always fancied a 1602/2002 moded up, the turbo's look great but are pricey and unreliable.

I was speaking to a mate last weekend who had been around to a guy we go mini-moto racing with called Gus. He stays near knockhill. Thought you may know him, he has a bit of a whacky taste in motors as well, got an A110 and another Alpine? dont know which one, bl@@dy good on a mini-moto, probably just as handy in a car.

[Matra et Alpine]

I was speaking to a mate last weekend who had been around to a guy we go mini-moto racing with called Gus. He stays near knockhill. Thought you may know him, he has a bit of a whacky taste in motors as well, got an A110 and another Alpine? dont know which one, bl@@dy good on a mini-moto, probably just as handy in a car.
Yeah he races a red A110 1300 and his wife has a road A110.
he used to have a GTA but was thinking of getting rid of that - at the time he was trying to coax the A610 from me :)