DREAM SHED —

IMPORT GOLD

James Taylor’s first car was a Ford Anglia. He restored it in his dad’s panel shop, and it was that car that got him into cars as a hobby. It will come as no surprise, then, to find out that James has fond memories of the humble Anglia 105E as something more than just a quirky-looking economy car of the 1960s. However, it’s what James would do to an Anglia that would really set it apart from all the other Anglias out there. The best thing you can do to those cars is give them a bit of power, and James’d be jumping feet first into the deep end, with a Nascar donor car sourced for the running gear, mechanical support, and ancillary components. This means that a 358ci Roush-Yates D3 small block screamer, good for somewhere in the region of 800hp — perfect for a car that weighs less than 800kg! — and seriously narrowed nine-inch diff filled with all the gear would find its way inside. The four-speed dogbox would get the toss for a six-speed sequential. A drop-base air cleaner would be needed to try to keep the engine height manageable, but the high-rise intake set-up would still see the big filter sky high through the bonnet, while Nascar-style side-exit exhausts would take care of the other side of the equation. The next issue, of course, would be ensuring that the poor old chassis could cope with that sort of firepower. The easiest solution would come in the form of a whole lotta chromoly tubing and a TIG welder. A full tubular space frame with integrated roll cage would be built to utilize as much of the Nascar componentry as possible, including the coilover suspension and massive brakes, with a set of 15x8-inch front and 15x10-inch rear Nascar- style wheels and a bit of tyre sidewall. These wheels would, of course, be far larger than anything the old Ford engineers could have conceived for the Anglia. The plasma cutter would be needed to carve out a decent guard radius, and a set of bolt-on A9X Torana–style flares would try to provide a bit of decency. However, other than the flares, that’d be it. “No added on spoilers, or chins, or anything; I’d keep the stock grille and bumpers, and no side chrome,” James says. The paint would be kept as original as possible, in its light blue with a white roof, and whatever patina it had when the project began would remain. We’re not looking at anything too showy — as James puts it, “It’d just be something built for high revs and shitloads of tyre smoke.” We wholeheartedly approve.