‘Working alone, I had to invent a way to split the body from the chassis’
‘I finished on the railways on the Friday, March 15, 2013 and started on Ian Ball’s Corvette on the Monday. Since then I’ve not looked back.’
Right place, right time
Ian Ball’s timing was spot on, unlike his Corvette’s. ‘It was my uncle’s car,’ says Ian, ‘and he had it for 20 years before it passed to me. I’m very fond of it and while I have some other, more modern sports cars, this one has major sentimental value.’
Just as well, because it ended up needing a huge amount of expenditure. It was running rough, the body was banging on the chassis because the mounts had rusted through and there was a crack right through one crossmember. Chris stripped it entirely and began the process of refurbishing or renewing every single moving part, and quite a lot of stationary ones too.
‘The 350 cubic-inch V8 was rebuilt with a stroker kit to 383 cubic inches,’ he says. ‘The auto transmission went to a specialist, Dave Billadeau, and then it all came together here with fresh paint. As it was my first customer restoration it would be something of an advert so I put everything into it.’
Sure enough, the gleaming end result started picking up trophies, most recently at the Doncaster Roadrunner show where it scooped Best Classic Car amongst 350 to 400 top-notch rivals.
The Prodigal Charger
When Chris built his enormous shed, he intended it for his friends’ project cars and his own Dodge Charger, bought in 2011 from Liam Howlett of British electronic band The Prodigy. It looked rather different then, in black paint and hiding an unhinged 8.2-litre engine under the bonnet. ‘I spent £450 in fuel during the first weekend I owned it,’ says Chris. ‘I ran it for a couple of years but it started going off the boil. I had an idea what was wrong: I stuck my finger inside the rocker cover and felt that the exhaust valve on number eight cylinder wasn’t moving much – the cam lobe had rounded off.’ Then began the familiar snowballing that many of us have been through. While the engine’s out, I’ll take out the gearbox. While the gearbox is out I’ll just do the back axle. While the back end’s off, I might as well smarten up the front suspension as well. And for Chris, this finished with a full-on body restoration, a change back to the car’s original turquoise paint, a correct 1968 engine block built up as a stock 440 cubic-inch unit with bigger valves and MSD electronic ignition… and so on. ‘It’s not far off being finished, really,’ says Chris, ‘though some of it seemed impossible at first. I had to invent a way to split the body from the chassis by myself during the restoration – it’s the downside of working alone. But I came up with a neat jig.’ It’s on the four-poster still. With the car raised on the lift, the chassis fixings can be removed and the box-section pieces of Chris’s clever jig are slid underneath the body, resting on fixed beams front and rear as the platform on each side of the ramp is lowered. Down comes the chassis with everything fixed to it, resting on its wheels, while the body remains up
in the air. Total cost: £280 in steel and two days’ labour. Chris also built a rotisserie jig and a 1.5-ton wheelie crane, ideal for heaving bits of large car around single-handed. And speaking of large cars, there’s another Corvette in pieces at our feet.
Chevette to Corvette
This car’s owner bought it with the insurance money he received after a telegraph pole leapt out in front of his Vauxhall Chevette. Don Banham is a Canadian ex-pat who saw some of Chris’s handiwork at a car show in Doncaster. ‘There was Ian Ball’s beautiful Corvette at the show, which I thought was just stunning,’ says Don. ‘When I met the guy who restored it, he seemed a great choice for the work I wanted to do on my Corvette.’
Don has owned the car since 2001 but it had been imported in 1989, giving it plenty of time on UK roads in which to deteriorate.
‘The bushes, suspension, mounts, steering and so on will be totally refurbished with GM parts to keep it as stock as possible,’ says Chris. ‘Don is going to tackle the engine rebuild himself.’
Don clearly loves his car but has no illusions about its true nature. ‘The build quality is crap,’ he says, ‘and that 350 V8 only put out a claimed 165bhp at the flywheel when it was brand new.’
Nonetheless, it has desirable attributes: it’s a 1975 car and the last full convertible made in the C3 or Stingray shape. As we go to press it’s been painted and reassembly has begun.
While Chris’s fondness for American cars has led to word-of-mouth work on others, he’s delighted to be swinging spanners on any variety of old or interesting cars. The fact that a giant man-cave became a thriving restoration business with nothing more than a spot of redundancy money and a friendly push from his buddies is inspiring.