Anteater

Almost as if this place is populated by Gen X and Boomer blokes, isn't it 😀 The thing about Capris is that I've found the experience to be wholly defined by the engine. I had a couple of 2.8 Injections in quick succession nearly 25 years ago but I tried various examples before settling on the big V6. The marginal saving that a 2.0 or 1.6 presented at that time just wasn't worth it. These days a 1.6 is still half the price of a V6 but it's a ten grand gap rather than a grand. The 2.8 feels like more than double the car though; better noise, nearly twice the power, longer legs and the wonders of quick power steering. Occasionally I imagine I could buy a 1.6 and ask an adult to drop a Zetec in, which would doubtless improve matters but it would still be missing 2 cylinders. Maybe the answer is to buy one with no engine at all and just sit in it while humming the theme tune to The Professionals.

I'd have my Corolla AE86 back. I only owned it for a few months so it feels like unfinished business. Almost uniquely for one of my old cars, it's still around despite me selling it around 20 years ago! From the many others that are missing in action, my old 1990 Mazda 323F was an agile thing that went well enough and most importantly had supercool pop-up headlamps. The chances of finding another one are slim as they were never exactly common. More conventionally, I'd have either of my 2.8i Capris back but preferably if I could still buy one for £2,000 instead of adding a nought. I've not owned many cars that were complete rubbish but the Mk3 Golf runs the definition close. It wasn't even that old when I had it but it was stodgy and dimwitted, not a patch on the Mk2 Golf it replaced. It blancmanged its way around the Nurburgring and generally went to pot when attempting to press on down the back roads. In a moment of inattention one morning I smacked it into stationary traffic but disappointingly didn't manage to write it off. The insurance repairers did a decent job and it didn't receive a marker but I seemingly couldn't give it away after that. The upwardly mobile social climbers of the Essex commuter belt inexplicably found my well priced 5 year old German hatchback about as attractive as two weeks in Jaywick. I should have been beating them off with a stick but it just wasn't happening and I eventually took a low bid through Chelmsford car auctions just to get shot of the thing. Much later, in the days when I had company cars I mistakenly ordered what Google tells me was a 6th generation Golf. It was comfortable enough but also sprung using blancmange. Being a company car and therefore not my problem, the best technique for undulating roads was to just run at stuff and get the rear springs changed on an annual basis. One year up on Mull I must have skimmed the ground a couple of hundred times in a week, it was that soft. Perhaps the time I loaded it with nine large and very heavy antique Belfast sinks didn't help...

Two weeks from start to finish is incredible. Cool colour, very tidy.

Generally speaking, works built or works outsourced competition cars normally have undersides painted body colour or white. Unlike a clubman car, they're starting from a brand new bare shell so everything is being painted for the first time. Underseal isn't required and adds weight, and having the underside in a colour other than black makes it easier to spot any problems.

Thanks all. I've just updated the photo set with two better shots of the underside, which is what the build was really all about. Jag IRS conversions aren't unknown under early Mustangs, either using genuine Jaguar parts or aftermarket kits. Anything to do with inboard brakes would be a faff but I suppose the rears need changing less often than the fronts would. Mustang purists, look away now!

Great photos, thanks for sharing. I had no idea there was a still a heritage operator in business. That London looks very different now than even 20 odd years ago. I rarely go these days so maybe I notice the changes more.

It's done:

Here it is from the WIP. I bought this kit very cheaply at an autojumble last summer with the idea it could be an engine donor for something else. Instead it ended up as a build in its own right with the addition of a Motobitz resin Jaguar rear end. As we've had terrible wet weather for months on end and gloss painting has been all but impossible, I've gone for the used look with a good coating of road grime. ANTEATER.

The first car I ever drove was a tupperware white Escort XR3i, but there were no such luxuries when it came time to take lessons. I started out in the depths of winter with an instructor who had a fusty old Mk2 1.0 VW Polo that I just couldn't get on with. The Polo didn't seem easy to drive, all rubbery, vague and a ponderous. Thinking about it, the instructor was rubbery, vague and ponderous too. After a few months of getting nowhere fast I changed instructors to an ex-policewoman who had one of the very first K11 Nissan Micra 1.3s. The car was a vast improvement and her teaching style soon secured me a clean pass. On the way back from the test she taught me how to take proper lines through the bends and demonstrated changing gear without using the clutch. It's all been downhill from there.

Just my feeling but I suspect the kit glass will look way too thick when doubled up, so you're probably better making off them from thin acetate instead.

Keep at it, it's looking very sharp and that paintwork looks really lovely and deep now.

@Davi: interesting that the same decals reacted to a Tamiya product too. In the meantime I painted the strut brace and it looks a lot better. I could make a bespoke one but it didn't seem worth it in the end. I've also got the rear bumper and separate rear valance glued in place. You can just see the evidence of a bit of dry brushing on the bottom of the stripes in this shot. I've been round the car to give it some signs of use without it being presented as a hanging old heap. Remember, it's got fancy Jaguar IRS after all. For anyone not familiar with Mustangs, those things that look like exhausts exiting from the rear valance are in fact reverser lamps, and always have been.

Just lovely, it's great to see something saved for a while longer, carbon footprint in minus numbers 🙂

@Spiny: I'll slap a coat of paint on the brace and see what it looks like. I tend towards the tired look because I live in that sort of world, but I can do shiny on occasion. Weathered Beetle vs shiny SportsBeetle: Paint finishes are a seasonal thing. My paint booth is an upturned cardboard box in a derelict room within a derelict building. Due to altitude, we get nine months of winter followed by three months of bad weather. Fog is a frequent hazard, both outside and inside. Mice nibble anything that's in their eye line, but weasels will make off with the remainder. The ducks are a bit nesh but mess with the owl at your peril. Once the red kites start circling, you best get indoors. All of which means, it's often easier to go for the weathered look than strive for a showroom finish. They reckon we might get a weather window in the third week of July though, so fingers crossed...

That is quite a carpet... I love the turned metal firewall, quite an unusual detail that will really lift the whole look.