Our Classics

Mr S buys a new classic at auction in England… while he’s hundreds of miles away in Germany

OWNED SINCE April 2019 FIRST REPORT TOTAL MILEAGE 90,110 LATEST COSTS £95.40

1977 RELIANT SCIMITAR GTE SE6a

Ever since I ticked off the final must-do on my MGB GT bucket list ( CCW, 15 May), there have only ever been two classics on the shortlist as a potential replacement – a Rover P6 and a Reliant Scimitar GTE.

There may already be one Reliant in the CCW car park, but the GTE is one of those cars that

I’ve always lusted after.

I must have a thing for big-engined shooting brakes, because I can stroll past a 3.0-litre Capri without giving it a second glance, but a GTE will stop me dead in my tracks.

I initially fixated on the one that started it all – the SE5 of 1968 – and after signing up to the Reliant Sabre & Scimitar Owners’ Club at the NEC last November, I started scouring the classifieds for the MG’s successor.

Come the New Year, I’d looked at plenty, swotted up on values and even driven a couple, but none of them were quite what I was looking for. There were plenty of beautifully-maintained examples for top money and an awful lot of tatty examples under the £3k mark – but nothing in the happy medium I was holding out for. I widened the net to the later SE6 too, but still the cars didn’t quite tick all the boxes – until this one rocked up in the catalogue for Brightwells’ Bicester auction. VMA 40R, a 1977 SE6a, not only looked the part with its Wolfrace alloys, stainless steel twin exhausts and chunky go-faster stripe, but it had a long, advisoryfree MoT too and a long list of upgrades lavished on it by its outgoing owner. The Essex V6 has been rebuilt to Ford RS spec and treated to a Piper camshaft and gas-flowed cylinder head. Cornering is taken care of by AVO coilover suspension and a fresh set of Yokohamas, while an electronic fuel pump, electric distributor and 65-amp alternator all indicate that this car has been set up with big drives, rather than occasional show outings, in mind.

There was just one snag – I was going be at Techno Classica in Essen, 400 miles away in deepest Germany, when the hammer went down. So I took a leap of faith, got

CCW auction gurus Richard Barnett and Richard Hudson-Evans to look at the car for me and stuck in a bid anyway. An hour or two of nervously traipsing around Essen’s halls later and my phone finally rang – it was mine! By far the priciest classic I’ve ever purchased – and I hadn’t even seen it.

Two days later I was back in Blighty, and after hitching a ride with managing editor James in his Peugeot 406 Coupé (see opposite), made it to the sale venue at Bicester Heritage. I knew

I’d bagged a good ’un as soon as

I saw the Scimitar in the flesh – the cosmetics need a bit of love, but the fundamentals are healthy.

After signing the paperwork, I sank into its plump cloth-trimmed seat, fired up the V6 – and 30 seconds later it cut out, and refused to start again. My heart sank as I tried and failed, over and over again, to rouse the GTE into life – until I spied a handwritten note hidden deep in the driver’s footwell. It was from the previous custodian explaining how to disable its fuel cutoff switch – another of his many upgrades – and what to do when getting it started. It ended with a simple ‘STONKING ENGINE, BY THE WAY!’.

As soon as I pointed its nose towards home, it became clear that it cruises beautifully with the overdrive on, and emits a wonderfully baritone rumble when accelerating hard out of roundabouts.

Ninety effortless miles later I was back home, and completely hooked. In fact, the only real problem I’ve had so far is squeezing it into my garage…

Brightwells’ Toby Service hands over the keys to an eager-looking David Scimitar – sorry, Simister. Brightwells sold the Scimitar for £5150 – comfortably less than David’s maximum bid.

Old-school techniques avoid clobbering the garage walls. Anyone for tennis? The Scimitar’s a tight fit in David’s garage, so some reshuffling is on the cards.