FUZZ’S ALPINE A110 ‘HORROR PROJECT’

Fuzz Townshend reveals how he rescued an Alpine that he didn’t want to restore – and why Brexit turned the show’s latest project into a nightmare

SEE THE EPISODE! NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC THURSDAY, 6 MAY, 8PM

ÔThere is one type of car that one should never consider restoring. No, I’m not showing abject disrespect to the beautiful Alpine A110 – I’m referring to cars that have been dismantled and stored away in crates and boxes, without the labelling of parts and without some sort of grouping of components.

‘When I first went to take a look at Guido Mazza’s Alpine A110, it was stored, dismantled in various nooks and crannies of his chum’s workshop. Yes, work had commenced on the car’s restoration, with a few gleaming parts loosely clinging onto its tubular spine chassis, but the body, which had been placed onto – but not properly attached to – the backbone was in a mess, showing ancient accident damage, as well as some indifferent repairs. The important remainder of the car, including the engine, was in an ad-hoc jumble and a condition that suggested that it was little more than scrap.

‘Given this scenario, I admit that I reported back to the production company that this Alpine was one to avoid so I didn’t expect to see it again. So imagine my surprise when I was informed that, given Guido’s compelling story and the car’s great rarity, that my verdict had been overruled and we were indeed going to be taking this horror project on.

‘The almost-a-car and boxes duly arrived at our SOS Workshop HQ and we began sifting through what we had, giving it some sort of order with the help of UK-based Alpine A110 aficionado, Chris Rabbets.

‘It became clear that although the core of the car’s parts were present, we were going to need to plug a fair few gaps in the inventory, some of which Chris was able to help us with, but the remainder had to be ordered from specialist suppliers in mainland Europe. And this was where the problems began to arise.

‘We had taken delivery of the car not long before Christmas 2020 and what immediately followed the festivities was Brexit and with it creakingly slow delivery times, sometimes due to slow processing at ports, but more often down to uncrossed ‘T’s and undotted ‘I’s on the newly introduced paperwork needed for the import and export of such goods. As a result, work was somewhat piecemeal. Not an ideal situation at all.

‘In addition, it became clear that all was not well regarding work already carried out on the body. The rear screen fitted its aperture neatly, but the front was too small, or the hole too big. It was the latter, of course, and so after a little headscratching, the bodyshop department adjusted the incorrectly fitting roof and associated posts, allowing the 10mm gap to be bridged. ‘Meanwhile, it was apparent back at chassis level that the centre section of the tubular spine had been replaced due to heavy accident damage. On inspecting the interior of the tube using an endoscope, we found that the welds had not penetrated properly and so we had to use spotweld drills to drill through to substantial internal steel bridging inserts and plug weld the chassis tube sections to these, as well as re-welding the original joints.

‘Time ran out for us on this car and so we ended up having to reveal it to Guido with some components temporarily fitted for display purposes only because we didn’t fully overcome the ongoing parts importation problems.

‘Nevertheless, his Alpine A110 looked absolutely beautiful sitting there in the winter sunlight and Guido was able to sit in his gleaming car and enjoy it for the first time ever, something that I suspect he had almost given up hope of ever being able to do.’

Work on remedying the A110’s bodywork proved tricky, with challenges including a windscreen that didn’t fit the shell correctly. Fuzz puts on a brave face as he sets to work rebuilding the Alpine that he’d originally warned had been ‘one to avoid’ – but had been overruled by the rest of the Car SOS team.

Fuzz and Tim struggled to get the A110 up and running again. The engine was described by Fuzz as an ‘ad-hoc jumble’ in poor condition before being re-assembled.

Most of the Alpine’s components had been stashed away, but Fuzz and the Car SOS team still had to source many spares from the continent – a situation made even more difficult by additional charges and delays caused by Brexit.