Motorclassica
Australia’s premier concours brings Maserati to the fore
Australia’s premier classic car show and concours, Melbourne’s Motorclassica, became a restoration showcase with a distinctly Italian flavour, with almost all of Italy’s great national marques represented among the recently completed cars. Many of these restorations had taken decades to finish.
Ferrari 250 GTE
This Ferrari, the property of Australian racing legend, works Porsche driver and 1983 Le Mans 24 Hours winner Vern Schuppan, made its show debut at Motorclassica after a very long and complicated restoration by Gerard Miller and his team.
‘When Schuppan brought the car to us in 2015 it had been unregistered since 1974,’ said Miller. ‘It looked to be in reasonable nick, the paint was how you’d expect from a car that had been garaged for 44 years and the underside, though covered in a thick layer of underseal, appeared sound.
‘Even once the paint was removed the true condition was not clear. There was lead on the panels, but no visible rust. However when the lead was removed, it revealed a completely different story. The rust had been cleverly covered with pop-riveted patches and lead wiped all over to hide the sins of a crash repairer with little or no self-respect. The floors had suffered a similar treatment – sheets of steel riveted over rust and damage, then covered with bitumen paint.
‘We removed all the panels from about kneeheight downwards, including the floors and outriggers and even the box section that carries the rear spring hangers. At this stage, we had the structure garnet-blasted and epoxy-primed to preserve it. From that stage we repaired, reassembled and painted the body. The engine and mechanicals were stripped and overhauled as required and detailed as they were put back together by our team.
‘Gauges and dials were quite a challenge, because the Australian heat and sun is very hard on the Perspex faces. Replacements are not available, so it was up to us to make new ones. We made a die for pressing the new faces and polished them to a chrome-like finish, the acrylics were cut and etched, then heated and formed and finally the paint was put onto the dials. The result was well worth the effort.’
Maserati Ghibli Spyder
‘The hardest part of this newly finished restoration was research,’ explained restorer Peter Vandersluys of his 1969 Maserati Ghibli Spyder project – a car that was shrouded in mystery.
‘Making something right when you know how it needs to be, we can do. But finding out what is correct can be very difficult. In the case of this Ghibli, this was compounded by the fact it was a hand-built car so no two were exactly alike, and
it had been converted from a coupé to a Spyder in the Eighties in the US. Other than that, we had very little to go on. The car came to us as a bare shell with the rest of the parts in boxes, and no paperwork. If you are lucky enough to be the one who pulled it apart you have a photographic record, but we didn’t in this case. We were very lucky to be able to borrow a Ghibli coupé from a very good client of ours, which helped a lot.
‘In fact, all Ghibli Spyders are conversions – even the factory cars started as coupés and were converted by Ghia. Our goal was to get this as close to an original Ghia car as possible.
‘The owner didn’t know what he wanted to start with, but after some discussion we settled on the colour change and styled this after an original European-market SS. Apparently this particular car started life as a Lemon automatic coupé and now it’s a manual convertible finished in Verde Gema green – it’s an extremely rare factory colour. Personally I don’t think it suits coupés, but it looks great on the Spyder.
‘We tried to keep it as factory-original as possible. We made sure all the bits were relevant to the car. For example, we ordered the correct windscreen from the US, although unfortunately when it arrived it was broken in the box. We ended up finding a genuine new-old-stock one in a warehouse in Sydney, though – it fitted perfectly.
Maserati Merak
Brendan Blake’s 1973 Maserati was a brave buy – and it turned into a race against time to get the project ready for Motorclassica.
‘I bought the car off the internet sight-unseen in the UK,’ Brendan explained. ‘The guy was reluctant to sell and I had only seen four poor-quality photos. The car was really in bad condition.
‘We did a reverse restoration of sorts. It was trimmed before it was shipped to Australia, by world-renowned trimmer Lincoln Scott. When I got it home it was missing its indicators and headlights and the body was very rough. I took it for a quick drive with the windscreen held in with sticky tape before sending it off to get the body restored. The whole car was stripped right back to bare metal – the bonnet and one door proved to be beyond repair and had to be replaced.
‘After three years in the body shop I was driving it home and it dropped a valve, then put a conrod through the side of the cylinder block. I was very lucky to find a brand-new block, which had been sitting in a dealership in the middle of the US since 1972, and used parts from that to rebuild the Merak’s engine back to original specification over the next year. We finished and dyno-tuned the car last week, just in time for Motorclassica.’
Auburn Speedster
Motorclassica marked the culmination of a difficult and convoluted restoration process for Ian Waller’s boat-tailed 1928 Auburn Speedster.
‘The father of a close friend bought the car more than 40 years ago and collected all the missing bits by about the year 2000, when he started the project. Sadly, he passed away before it was completed, and the car went too auction in 2009. I had no idea about this, but I was talking to my friend a couple of weeks afterwards and she mentioned it hadn’t sold. I happened to be looking for a project, so went to see the car and bought it.
‘I pulled it to bits and restored it over the next two or three years and got it on the road. It didn’t end there though, after doing about 100 miles I was taking my wife for her first ride in the car and a fellow crashed into us. The repairs took another 18 months to finally get it back on the road.
‘It is a great car. It’s fast in a straight line with its 5.0-litre Lycoming straight-eight though, like most big American cars, not amazing in corners.’
Fiat 124 Spider
Michael Polito’s 1967 Fiat 124 Spider restoration marks the realisation – or possibly the beginning – of a childhood dream.
‘When I was seven years old, I was taken to see a classic car collection,’ Michael explains. ‘When I got there I instantly gravitated towards the Fiat Dino Spider and asked the owner how I might one day have a collection like his. His advice was to start with a Fiat 124 Spider, and that stuck with me. Fourteen years ago I bought this car and commenced the restoration.
‘I found the car for sale online – it had been left in a mechanic’s workshop as payment for a job, but was in pretty bad shape. The restoration became a marathon. I really understand why people give up at the four or five-year mark. We cut the bodywork right back to the firewall and replaced the entire front with new-old-stock panels. My dad instilled in me that you should always finish something when you start it, and that resolve was tested quite a few times during this restoration.’
Alfa Giulia Sprint Speciale
‘This car was a bare-shell rebuild that had been sitting for over 25 years when the owner acquired it and brought it to us,’ says restorer Paul Chaleyer as the Alfa made its post-restoration debut.
‘Giulia Sprint Speciales were built on a Type 101 Spider chassis that was sent over to Bertone, which cut off what it didn’t need and put the new panels on. I am pretty sure they were never intended to last 50 years!
‘We got it down to the bare bones with all the panels off, removed all the rust, and fabricated new panels to replace the damaged ones. That allowed us to get the door fit spot-on, and it’s back to being a very straight car.
‘Once we were done with the body we did a full driveline rebuild as well. This is a very interesting car. It is a very late example – from 1964 – which means it was fitted with the faster Veloce engine with a double-layer sump, along with five-speed gearbox and disc brakes, from the Arese factory.’
Alfa Romeo 6C 1750GS
A full restoration of this 1932 6C was started in 2002 and only completed early this year. The car was delivered new to English jazz musician and racing driver Buddy Featherstonehaugh. It was registered in the UK until it found a home in New Zealand after World War Two. It retains its original aluminium coachwork by Zagato, complete with ‘disappearing top’ tonneau. Featherstonehaugh’s car is also one of just 257 produced with a Roots supercharger. The car’s owner has future trips planned to the US and is also considering entering it in the Mille Miglia.
Vauxhall 23/60 Tourer
Fresh from a 26-year restoration, this Vauxhall was originally delivered new to Perth in 1925. The current owners bought it in 1991, driveable but with aluminium bodywork in very poor condition, having been cut down to create a ‘ute’ during World War Two – additional petrol rations were available to utility vehicles in wartime.