Your feedback, insights and anecdotes

I WAS DELIGHTED to read the Ferrari Daytona features in

Octane 175, in particular Bertie Gilbart-Smith’s account of his well-travelled example. I have always thought classic cars are for driving and enjoying as the makers intended when they were new, and it was good to see that Bertie and I share this view.

I bought my 1966 E-type 4.2 Roadster in 1994 and, 65,000 miles and 24 years later, I still have it, making it my second most successful relationship. It was the only car I had ever really wanted since seeing my first one at age seven and I sold pretty much every financial asset I had to buy it.

Destitute but happy, I had little choice but to use it as my only car. It was not exactly in concours condition so for the first few years it was basically a rolling restoration, involving rather more restoration than rolling, which resulted in a lot of trips to work by bike.

A trip to Scotland proved that a good deal of leak-proofing was still required, and clouds of smoke when pointing uphill provided a reminder that the gearbox rear oil seal was well past its sell-by date. I rebuilt the engine and gearbox in a bitterly cold single garage (more bike trips to work), then in 1996 moved to New Zealand and found that it has not only a wonderfully car-friendly climate but also some spectacular roads.

The E-type was pressed into service as my daily driver around Wellington and as holiday transport exploring those fabulous roads in the Southern Alps and fjord land. Luggage space was just enough for a three-week trip, concluding with a visit to the vineyards of the Marlborough region which resulted in my wife travelling the last 50 miles to the ferry with a case of Chardonnay sharing her footwell.

The attached photos show [above left] the E-type looking decidedly grubby on an Auckland hotel concourse after a late-night four-hour crosscountry blat, and sharing parking space at work with an MGB belonging to another owner who believes in using his car as the makers intended.

My ‘E’ has been the default choice for trips of any length, including a recent spell of 350km weekly commutes. Using a classic every day has its hazards and the E-type has come off second-best in several encounters, including on one notable occasion with a railway sleeper. But, as Bertie said, they can always be fixed. It has been remarkably reliable with a total of only two breakdowns, both fuel pump related.

I still get a kick out of seeing the E-type in the garage. Here’s to the next 65,000 miles and all the adventures yet to come. Paul Callow, New Zealand

Five-upmanship

I cannot let Robert Coucher’s comment in Octane 177 on the Isetta bubble car – ‘an Ultimate Driving Machine it was not’ – pass without comment.

When you are 16 years old, it’s youth club night and it’s raining, so no girls want a ride home on any of the other boys’ Vespas, and as a result you have five girls crammed into the back of your bubble car – it is then, without question, ‘an Ultimate Driving Machine’. Happy days. Geoff Enoch, Oxford

I bet you then parked it in front of a wall and claimed they couldn’t get out because the door wouldn’t open. Robert Coucher

Lambo in Lancashire

In response to Keith Houghton’s letter in Octane 177, it is certainly worth restoring an Espada, especially as Keith has had his for a while and probably didn’t pay much for it.

I am currently restoring a Series 3 [right] for a customer and am compiling a Flickr album of the project. The photos may be of interest and you can see the album here: https://www.flickr.com/ photos/mcpheat_automotive/ albums/72157669867321175/ page1.

I am doing the teardown and assembly in my workshop but the bodywork and paint will be carried out by a couple of very talented local guys. I also have a good engine shop that will go through the internals and make it right for assembly. All these people do great work for relatively little money, since we’re based in the North!

If Keith wants to get in touch with any questions he certainly can call or email. I don’t charge for a chat.

From buses to Barris

I recently came across some 35mm transparencies that my father shot on a family trip to Italy in 1960. One box was labelled Savigliano/Fissore and included photos of a very ornately appointed Martini & Rossi promotional bus [above]. There is no doubt these photos were shot at their facility, but that’s not the end of the story…

My uncle, Andrea De Stefanis, was working at Fissore at the time and likely helped to build the Martini & Rossi bus. He later moved to California and spent a number of years at Barris Kustom in Los Angeles as one of its prominent fabricators. For those unfamiliar with Barris Kustom, it is credited with creating some of the most iconic vehicles for television and film, including the Batmobile, and cars for The Munsters, The Green Hornet, The Beverly Hillbillies and Bearcat TV shows, to name just a few.

Andrea passed away in late 2007 and his funeral service was held at a church in Los Angeles. By a remarkable coincidence, the Barris Kustom showroom was just across the street and, while we were waiting for his service to begin, my cousins and I went in for a visit. Well, I must have been speaking a little too enthusiastically to my relatives about family visits to Barris Kustom as a child, because the showroom manager soon got my attention and said there was somebody on the phone that wanted to speak with me.

It was none other than Mr Barris himself, who was in a hospital bed recovering from surgery. He had lost touch with Andrea over the years and was sorry to hear of his passing.

Mr Barris’ parting words to me say it all… ‘He was the best body man I ever knew.’ Greg Badano, California, USA Jumbo-sized problem The arrival of the massive Boeing 747 [Icon, issue 177] brought with it an equally massive servicing issue. How do you efficiently maintain such a big aircraft – and more than one of them at the same time?

My design practice was approached to explore the best solution to servicing two Jumbos simultaneously in a single maintenance hangar. A conventional single-door solution meant that one plane would always be ‘trapped’ inside by the other.

The result was the Diamond Hangar. Effectively a squashed oblong, it created side-by-side triangular-shaped servicing bays accessed by two parallel doors, with a clear-span roof not unlike the geodetic structure used by Barnes Wallis for the Wellington bomber. It was the biggest single-span structure in the UK.

Incidentally, UPS has just placed an order with Boeing for 14 new 747-8 freighters, so retirement for the Jumbo is a long way off! Phil Rech, Derbyshire The odd couple I was thrilled to see two articles in Octane 172 covering both my Matra Rancho X and my genuine Abarth 124 Stradale. W hat are the chances that my two cherished vehicles, both quite rare here in the States, would feature on consecutive pages in your fine publication?

My Abarth is in quite excellent condition, while the Rancho needs some attention. I purchased the Abarth fully restored from Switzerland in 1992 and drove it around Europe for a while before bringing it back to the States. It is a truly superb car, and is exhilarating to drive.

The Rancho was brought to the States by a female US soldier who had been stationed in Germany. Apparently she did not appreciate the finer points of Simca engine maintenance. Her lack of concern resulted in a destroyed engine, and the Rancho’s subsequent abandonment on the streets of Washington DC. By some very dubious transactions it was saved from the crusher, and ended up unattended in a field in Pennsylvania.

It took nearly a decade of my persuasion to get the owner to let me rescue it. I now have all the parts I need to repair the engine and restore the body, so in a few years’ time it will once again prowl the streets. Robert M Farrell Sr, Illinois