“BEING SAT FOR SO LONG, IT OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T RUN, BUT IT LOOKED LIKE A NEW CAR”
then, as soon as the day was over, the car was once again abandoned in his garage.”
Some 17 years passed and the Corsair didn’t turn a wheel, until Paul enquired as to whether Lance would be prepared to part with the car. Feeling as though it was being wasted just sat dormant, Lance was keen to let Paul take the reigns as it would also mean that the car would stay in the family.
“When I went to collect the car in May 2019, it was only showing around 2800 miles on the clock and still had the wedding ribbons attached,” recalls the 50-year old HGV driver. “Being sat for so long, it obviously didn’t run at the time, and there were a few small areas where a drip from the garage roof had caused the paint to blister, but apart from that it was like a new car!”
Luckily on closer inspection, the paint blistering had not lead to any rust and the car was completely corrosion-free, meaning Paul could focus his attention on getting the car up and running again.
Getting hotter
“After replacing the spark plugs, tyres and the brake servo, fitting a new condenser and points and refreshing all of the fluids, I turned the engine over by hand to get the cylinders lubricated,” says Paul. “Thankfully, all went smoothly and soon the engine was firing on all four cylinders, however, it soon became apparent that there was a problem with the engine overheating.”
After flushing the cooling system a few times to no avail, Paul finally conceded that it was a head gasket at fault and took the car to TD Autos in St Neots for the work to be carried out.
“They were happy to work on the car, but didn’t think they’d be able to source the appropriate gaskets for such an old vehicle,” laughs Paul. “Luckily, I had a full set of new original gaskets at home that did the trick.”
The overheating issue sorted, Paul can now get to using the car like he intended.
“It may still only have 3008 miles on the clock, but it’s certainly not going to be tucked away again,” he chuckles. “My plan is to use it and get out to as many shows as possible, as long as it’s not raining!”
And with a respray on the cards in the future to finally bring the paintwork up to the same immaculate level as the rest of the car, this Corsair will certainly be a class act that’s hard to beat!”