Alvis 12/40
1923 Alvis 12/40
Owned by Nigel Boothman
Time owned Two years
Latest/total mileage 60/unknown
Latest/total costs £50/£1740
Previously Scimitar broke down on driveway
Iam in the middle of what would be called a ‘program of works’ if the Alvis were being cared for by a posh specialist, but it’s not, so we’ll make do with ‘list of minor faults taken in no particular order’. The first of these was a leak from the top radiator hose and a swollen, elderly look to the lower one. Like a chump I assumed lengths of straight hose could be bought from any motor factor so, with help from my son William, I whipped off the bonnet, drained the coolant, loosened all the hose clips and withdrew the two bolts that secure the base of the radiator in its brackets.
On phoning the local factor I discovered they no longer hold stocks of inch-andthree-quarter hose and indeed no-one does... bar trade-only suppliers. On to ebay, which looked more promising, but I’d planned to get the car mobile the following day. I phoned a friend who runs a garage and he managed to order a metre of the stuff for delivery to a local tyre and exhaust place the same day, so off I went to fetch it. Thanks Andrew! Oh, and the Alvis Register holds the correct bits in stock for about a tenth of the price I ended up paying. That’ll teach me.
Next on the list was the speedometer. It was making a noise like a randy locust and the needle danced about all over the place. I removed it from the dash and examined the instructions in the Vintage Alvis Manual. Forcing off the bezel for the first time in 98 years looked really scary so I settled for lubricating it with a very light Ptfe-based spray. With a battery drill spinning the input, it read smoothly. Back on the car and out for a drive, it still made a noise and read nothing at all. We’ll come back to that some other time.
At this point, my pal Richard Hamer texted to ask if I had any female Bsf-threaded brake master cylinder pushrods 8mm thick and 100mm long. For some reason I did not, but I went round to his place and ended up welding a BSF nut to the end of his new not-quite-right brake rod so it allowed some braking for his 1934 Morgan Super Sports. This, plus many other endeavours by Richard that kept him up until midnight on a Tuesday, allowed us to attend an excellent Wednesday morning classic car meet outside Edinburgh organised by Nick Gould, a lynchpin in the local scene. I’m used to being the centre of attention in a 1923 Alvis, but if you arrive with a noisy three-wheeled Morgan and park next to a Mclaren-mercedes SLR, no-one gives you a second look.