THE FAST SHOW
Chris Wenban was delighted to be asked to display his Talbot Sunbeam Ti at the NEC – the only problem was the car was in pieces and the show was just four weeks away.
Anybody who has ever restored a car at home likely reached a point where they stopped for a while. Perhaps just for a week, maybe for a year. In the case of Chris Wenban, the months of June to September 2013 were a busy period for the business he runs and he barely looked at this rare Sunbeam Talbot Ti for a while. Then it became a mad rush to get the car finished – that was no small task.
"It began in October 2012," remembers Chris, "a friend said ‘there’s an old car been sat in a garage since 1985, are you interested?’ When I found out it was some sort of Sunbeam, I was hoping for a Sunbeam Lotus, since I’d owned previously one, crashed it, and really fancied another." When Chris arrived at the address he first had to clear two decades of overgrown bushes away from the garage doors, "the lady who owned the house said the car belonged to her late husband," explains Chris. "He’d bought it when the car was about a year old but it kept breaking down. In the end he pushed it into the garage and
blocked the door with a load of concrete. Then a year later he died."
What Chris uncovered was a 1980 Series 2 Talbot Sunbeam Ti with 56,000 miles on the clock, a near perfect interior and rusty bodywork. After a thorough clean it didn’t look bad. "We dragged it onto a trailer because the brakes were seized on and the tyres were flat. I got it home, stripped it to a rolling shell, did a lot of research and went hunting for parts."
What quickly became apparent was that, while mechanical bits were easily available, new panels just didn’t exist. "I joined the Avenger Sunbeam Owners Club at the NEC in November 2012 – they said they were aware of very few roadworthy Ti Sunbeams in standard condition and hadn’t seen another Series 2 in Jonquil Yellow
I always strip my cars right down, because many bodyshops won't do that
for a long time. Most of the cars still in use are Lotus versions being raced and rallied, so those boys are always chasing good wings and doors. I found one front wing on eBay and bid to over £350, but when it arrived it was a bad repro part and didn’t fit. It was quicker to repair the rusty one I already had."
Metal guru
Fortunately, this wasn’t Chris’ first restoration: "I’ve done a Datsun 240Z, a Jensen Healey, Alfa GTV and maybe a dozen Minis, so I already knew the order in which to do things. The wings on the Sunbeam were like paper; the steel originally used was so thin I could push my fingers through it. I used 16 and 20 gauge steel to add a bit more strength. With a lot of help from my mate Graham Dartnell, we hand formed repair patches over a leather bag full of shot. A front valance cost £320, so again it was more cost effective to repair what we had. We used about twenty kilos of Corn Flakes packets just making up templates in cardboard! In the end it just needed a fine skim of filler, but every repair was done in metal. I did some of the welding, especially bits underneath, but Graham is excellent at the neat stuff. It’s no exaggeration to say he saved the car. What was especially helpful was getting in touch with another Ti owner via the club. I visited him on the Isle of Wight and took lots of reference photos."
With the repaired body in bare metal it went off to a local painter. "You have to choose a paint and bodyshop carefully," explains Chris, "I always strip my cars right down, because many bodyshops won’t do that. They prefer to leave, say, the windscreen wiper mounts on, because they’re often rusted in place – that’s not doing the job properly." The club supplied the
original paint codes and new paint was matched to the perfect colour still in place inside the body.
"As the Sunbeam was kept in a dark, dry garage for twenty-five years, the interior hadn’t faded at all, "continues Chris. "All the seats required were new foam, so I stripped them down, had foam cut to shape and the old material went back on. The carpet in the boot had rust stains where the jack had sat on it, but careful cleaning followed by a couple of coats of Autoglym Black Dye brought them back to like new – it’s brilliant stuff."
Chris was also working on the mechanical parts: "I stripped the engine, gearbox and rear axle down and I’ve never seen anything like it – it was all like new. The oil came out like honey – as if it had just been poured in from the can. The clutch was the strangest; it still had little wispy hairs of the paper
The oil came out like honey – as if it had just been poured in from the can
wrapping stuck to it. The plate was clearly brand new and had never been engaged. It was the same with the axle – perfect oil and all the teeth like new. Your mind races when you see that, thinking ‘what happened here?’ I rebuilt the engine because there was obviously some reason the chap took it off the road, but I never found out what."
Show business
"In October 2013 I got a call from the club," recalls Chris, "asking if I would like to display the finished Sunbeam on their NEC stand? I quickly agreed and then realised the car would need to be in place on the 14th November. It came back from the bodyshop on the 14th October and I began working seven days a week." Fortunately the glass was all fine to go back in, needing just a new rubber for the tailgate, "it was little things that were awkward," says Chris, "for instance the door mirrors have a piece of flexible rubber that joins the arm to the door – they are impossible to find. I made up filler plates for both sides, then a pair of rubbers turned up with hours to spare." The brakes were replaced right through and a new fuel tank was sourced. "The electrics were fine too, although I made up a new loom.
"Steve Conry – Vice Chairman of the ASOC – was incredible. I sent him lots of progress photos and he’d say things like, ‘I hope you’ll paint the area behind the back bumper before you put the bumper on, it should be matt black on the body, with satin black on the bumper,’ he had all that vital information in his head."
Chris was keen to make the Sunbeam look exactly like it would have in the showroom, "I was about to fit the stickers to the inner wings when Steve said ‘the sticker should have a little hole in the right hand side,’ no one knows why – I suspect they were hung on a hook in the factory. In every period photo I ever saw the sticker was wonky. The guy on the assembly line probably didn’t take much care attaching them so that’s the way I put mine in: wonky. I did think about uprating a few things but I decided against it – the next owner can do all that if they want. No one ever restores one of these to showroom standard condition – that’s why I had to."