READER’S RESTORATION: Prefect 100E
Auction buy that went wrong, then right.
There’s no doubt, Rob Squire has got it bad. To say he’s a serial restorer is putting it mildly because there’s a string of successes under his belt. The last of Rob’s Fords we featured was his gorgeous Mk2 Granada he found on a bloke’s driveway in virtually original condition. All — always an understatement — it needed was sympathetic restoration and to individualise it, Rob slotted on a set of banded steels which really made the car. Also meaning you could easily turn it back to stock if you needed to, which increasingly important these days!
Rob’s a rare breed, because he loves everything classic — even Vauxhalls! But to give him his due, Rob’s main passion is Ford. “After the Granada, I was after something else Ford to restore. The Prefect looked great and I really should have known better, but underneath the gleam, it was far from it!”
“The paint was pretty good and, apart from a bit of local blowing in, it remains, but it was obvious the car had been tarted up for the auction — the outside was great, the seats and inside too, but the underside? Not so…”
In Rob’s defence, the car did have a very attractive history. It had sat in a showroom for 30 years, on display at Gordon’s of Bolton. Very often these are the cars you want — pampered, low mileage and usually, rot-free because they’ve been in a controlled atmosphere for all that time…
“THE PREFECT LOOKED GREAT, AND I REALLY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER, BUT UNDER ALL THE GLEAM IT WAS FAR FROM IT”
Somewhere though, it went a bit Pete Tong. “Lifting the rubber floormats revealed a multitude of patches in the floor and further probing revealed that the suspension turrets were nothing short of shocking. It was going to need a whole load of work to make the inside as pretty as the out. I literally could have cried — it looked like a nice little car but in truth, it was anything but.”
Getting stuck in
When you’re faced with this sort of scenario but you’re stubborn and still want the car, you really have no choice — so Rob did what’s natural and ripped into it. “I stripped out the interior and carefully stored it because, as you can see from the photos, it’s excellent — one serious positive from the whole experience!”
After that, he set about restoring the floors; cutting out all the previous rubbish repairs and fabricating new floor sections before welding them in. The turrets too needed lots of work; the front suspension stripped off and new sections fabricated and welded in place. Naturally, the engine bay’s been blown back in where necessary taking special care to retain all the original features that are so essential to an original car — note the correct script around the turret tops. It’s details like these that set a good restoration apart from an average one.
But there was more: slotted in the engine bay is the original sidevalve motor. One of the real bits of restoration icing is the original engine, transmission and everything else. And the engine sounded sweet — until it was warm and you revved it over 3000 rpm! “Then you heard the death rattle, which you always ignore at first…”
After a while though, Rob realised it was more than something trivial, so out it came and stripped right down. The trouble is, this is an early sidevalve engine which uses white metal bearings — and it seems that these are a dying art, and almost impossible to get done unless you look very, very hard (there are companies such as Formhalls Vintage and Racing that specialise in this sort of thing, making it now, pretty straightforward).
“The initial thought was an engine swap and I could easily have fitted a period Kent engine or even a later sidevalve, but the matching numbers swayed me to keep it original.”
Ever inventive, Rob found there was a simple solution to the white metal quandary, because there are later versions of the same engine, which use shell bearings. Simple then: swap the rods to the later type, which means you still keep the original block crank and everything else. “I took the lot apart, cleaned every single component and reassembled it with new, everything, I think I’ve spent a small fortune with Small Ford Spares!” With hours of detailing too, the engine’s now done a whole 6 miles, but it really is super sweet once more — and minus that death rattle!
“It’s a bit slow though. With a three speed ’box with crash first, and with just 36 bhp, you aren’t going to be breaking any land speed records! With drums all-round, you can’t really push it either, so you learn to ignore the stream of traffic behind you!”
With a head start on the interior and quite a lot of the brightwork already sorted, Rob concentrated on putting the icing on the cake. Stuff that really makes a car, like all-new window rubbers and door seals, along with nice stuff such as a complete new carpet set. “I wasn’t keen on keeping a rubber mat floor!” But he’s kept all the original foibles an old car seems to end up with — things like the aftermarket power outlets, which were a sort of early version of the fag lighter plug under the dash. Personally, I love bits like this, along with the art deco-inspired heater box.
Knowing where to spend the cash is a serious consideration for any car, and especially the interior, as great seats and door cards turn a shabby resto into a great one and luckily Rob had that head start. But the on the outside, great chrome is always going to stand out, too. Both pairs of bumpers have been rechromed, along with detailing of the existing paint — Rob has turned what could have been a right disaster into a proper success story.
“All that remains now is to get some miles on it. It’s not a car to commute in —it’s way too slow because there are so many idiots on the road around you.” Excellent for local shows and Sunday trips out, Rob’s 100E has to be one of this county’s perfect Prefects…