Workshop Skills: Project Shoestring

A new series sets out to prove that you can put a fun and interesting classic on the road for under £1500. Hopefully...

With classic car price rises showing little sign of abating but many enthusiasts finding themselves in straightened circumstances, we kick off a mini-series that seeks to prove that you can get on the road in something interesting and undeniably classic without it having to cost an arm and a leg.

Getting into the classic car scene for the first time can be a bit like getting on the property ladder – not so bad to move up and down once you are on it, but very difficult for a newbie to get started. It doesn’t help that prices for iconic classics such as Jaguar E-types and MkI Ford Escorts have gone stratospheric in recent years, with headline figures for those pulling other stalwarts of the classic scene such as Triumph TRs and MGAs up in their wake – it wasn’t that long ago you could buy a TR4 or TR6 on the road for well under £10,000, but now the best dealer cars are going for £30,000 and above.

The knock- on effect of this has been huge. Until recently, MGBs were regularly touted as the bargain route into a classic sports car, with the less popular rubber bumper models being almost ludicrously cheap. It is all relative and they are indeed still a bargain when compared to the high-flyers, but the days of picking up an MoT’d and useable BGT for £1500 are long gone. Partly that is because many of the poorer (and so cheaper) cars have either been restored, broken for spares or simply scrapped, but also because when wedgedup buyers find themselves priced out of the car they desire most ardently, they start looking around for cheaper alternatives.

And since they can afford to pay a little more for the better examples, it once again starts to resemble the housing market where cash-rich buyers with bonuses to spend can price out the locals.

None of this is meant as a moan about people with the money to indulge their classic car desires. If we had the cash then most of us would do the same, so good luck to them and I hope they enjoy their new toys. And besides, there are still other options available to the rest of us. If you

want a sports car, then all you have to do is move ahead to the 1990s and early 2000s where you will find a tempting array of MGFs, TFs and Mazda MX-5s on the road at prices that start below £1000. It is true that you are unlikely to get a perfect car for that money, but if you buy wisely then you can still get one that will be a lot of fun. That situation cannot last for ever though, and pretty soon the same thing will happen to these as happened with the MGB, namely the poorer cars will disappear and the survivors will all be the better (and hence more expensive) examples. As the saying goes, get them while they are hot...

Another option is to get the type of car that we feature in our Emerging Classic slot. These are cars that are only just starting to appeal as classics, and so can still be found in reasonable numbers as cheap daily runabouts. In this category I’d lump cars such as the first generation Ford Ka (1996-2008), second generation Nissan Micra (1992-1997) and the Rover 25/ MG ZR (1999-2005). I quite fancy something like that myself, and if any of them float your boat then I reckon you could get a lot of fun for very little cash.

You will also find that most of them have a thriving enthusiast community, and cars like the MG ZR can piggyback on the marque’s heritage, gaining you a warm welcome at events such as the MG Car Club’s MG Live! which does such a great job of incorporating the more modern MGs alongside the established classics. On the downside, readers of a more mature persuasion may well have to adapt their DIY skill set from points and carburettors to computercontrolled fuel injection and on-board diagnostics. They may also find themselves directed to the general parking area at many classic car gatherings.

It was musing along these lines that inspired this mini-series. Was it possible, we wondered, to get behind the wheel of a car that was widely recognised as a classic, practical enough to be used as your only car if necessary (and certainly capable of covering something like 5000 miles in a year), one which offered some tinkering opportunities without requiring you to commit to a restoration, all for under £1500? Surely, we concluded, the short answer had to be yes, and the slightly longer answer finished: ‘Let’s prove it!’ First of all, I should say that classic cars are a very personal matter, and since I was putting my own money into this project, I felt entitled to work around some of my own personal preferences. Please do not take this as knocking other cars which you may prefer, because that is certainly not my intention, I am simply trying to explain how I ended up where I did. So although I am delighted that we are currently running a very early BMW MINI as a project car, something like that was not for me. To most casual observers you can still go out and buy the same car brand new today. What is and isn’t a classics is far from being an exact science, but although opinions vary from one preson to another, there

is a certain amount of gut feeling to the equation. The new shape VW Beetle is another option, but although the first of those are older still at 23 years, the second generation only went out of production in 2019 and the distinction will be lost on most people. In short, it has to look old.

An alternative would have been to get a car from a similar era, but which was at the end of its production run rather than the beginning. Models that enjoyed a particularly lengthy production run work best in this scenario, cars such as the Classic Mini (which lasted until 2000) or the Citroën 2CV (1948-1990), but you have no chance of getting one of those for £1500 that won’t need a whole lot more spent on it in very short order.

Moving back in time, there are plenty of cars from the 1960s that could fit my basic criteria of usability, cars such as the Morris Minor, VW Beetle and Triumph Herald, but again cost is the issue as you are really looking at a starting price of £4000. (And yes, I know that some people get lucky or are exceptionally vicious hagglers, but I am neither of those!) I did push the boat out and bid on a Triumph Herald 13/60 convertible at auction a while back, but despite an estimate of £1500-£2000, it sold for £3180 – and appeared for sale within a week priced at over £5000.

It is a similar story with cars from the 1970s. I would have loved something like a Morris Marina, Austin Allegro, Vauxhall Viva or Hillman Avenger, but whereas these were once the joke cars that you could barely give away, now that there are so few left, people have finally woken up to all that they offer and are willing to pay halfway decent money for those that remain. Again I did consider stretching the budget and bid on a TR7 with a £2250£2750 estimate at the same auction, but that one sold for £4240.

So by default, this brings us to the 1980s. In many ways this is an interesting era, straddling as it does the change from carburettors and distributors to fuel injection and ECUs. Many of the options from this decade will have started their lives in the 1970s too, which only adds to their classic appeal. I already have one such car in the shape of a Volvo 340 – mine is from 1989, but the first 343 was shown as far back as 1976. And while many people would turn their noses up at a Volvo 340, mine does generate no end of favourable comments and reminiscences from casual observers, which to my mind is always the sign of a true classic car. However, that car is in superb condition and has so far cost me around £2250, again putting it outside my self-imposed budget of £1500 all-in.

Clearly a saloon or hatchback is going to be cheaper than anything with sporty pretensions, and it used to be the case that if you were not overly bothered about image but wanted a lot of car for very little money, then something from behind the Iron Curtain fitted the bill. But Eastern European cars are another category that natural selection and a rising interest in the remaining vehicles has knocked on the budget-buying head. When is the last time you even saw a Skoda Estelle or Lada Riva for sale, let alone for peanuts?

So for the best chance to stay on budget, I decided to focus on family cars of the 1980s, accepting I’d have to get something cosmetically challenged and/or needing some mechanical fettling. However, one of the surprising facets of cars from this era is how hard it can be to find spares. That’s because there are not generally enough survivors to have generated a specialist support network, but they are plenty old enough to have long since fallen off the manufacturer’s parts radar. As a result, you do have to be a little careful when selecting a project to ensure you don’t end up with one where all the broken or missing bits turn out to be made from hens’ teeth or rocking horse manure. And, of course, major body repairs and paint are expensive whether your car is worth £50 or £50,000.

Having laid out the background, I can reveal that I did indeed find a suitable candidate for just £750 and with a realistic hope of having it on the road for an all-in total of under £1500. The car I ended up buying is the base-spec 1984 Triumph Acclaim L in go-faster Monza Red that is pictured here. However, I will tease you a little and say that you’ll have to wait until next issue before I tell you all about it.

So by default, this brings us to the 1980s, in many ways an interesting era

These days, any cheap MGB is likely to turn into an expensive restoration project in very short order. Unfortunately, bodywork and paint is expensive whatever a car’s value.

ABOVE AND RIGHT: It is still possible to buy and run cracking cars like the MGF or Mazda MX-5 for our modest budget, especially if you accept a few cosmetic issues. Be warned though that three-figure asking prices can’t last much longer. A modern classic like the MG ZR can piggyback on the marque’s classic heritage.

We reckon that the K11 Micra and first generation Ford Ka are great budget options that are slowly gaining in classic status.

ABOVE: Late examples of cars with a long production run such as Citroën’s 2CV used to be cheap options, but those days are gone. LEFT: The new Beetle is now 23 years old, but it still looks like a relatively modern car, not helped by the fact that VW only ended production in 2019.

Remember when you could pick up a Green Goddess for £1500...? Temptingly different, but the running costs could be ruinous.

Simon sold this Morris Marina – on the road and ready to go – for just £395 some 15 years ago. Good luck at finding one today for under £2000 that doesn’t need restoration!

ABOVE: Maybe you can see past the clichés and fancy an Allegro? Unfortunately you are not alone and demand outstrips supply.

LEFT AND BELOW: 20 years ago, cars from Eastern Europe offered a world of cheap opportunities to lateral thinkers. Once again, today’s market is very different.

Sometimes it pays to stick with what you know, and Simon eventually picked up a car that fitted all his criteria in the shape of this Triumph Acclaim. Read all about it next issue.