Barn Finds
A whole Sixties Vauxhall rally equipe is unearthed and put on sale
Two Vauxhall VX4/90 rally cars have emerged from long-term ownership, one of them a genuine works-prepared team car. The partially stripped glassless example was registered as 2 FTM. It was one of three cars entered by the factory in the Monte Carlo, RAC, Tulip, Welsh, Spa-sofia-liege and Midnight Sun rallies in 1963. A sister car, 3 FTM, crashed while preparing for the 1964 Monte Carlo rally, killing the driver, Sam Nordell. As a result, Vauxhall apparently discontinued its involvement following the event, and sold the two remaining cars, 2 FTM and 4 FTM, off to employees. 4 FTM survives in good condition and has been rallied extensively, but 2 FTM was converted to road use, until an engine fire in the early Seventies put it into storage. The car’s rescuer was Warren Kennedy, better known as a Healey guru through his business Classic Restorations. But his fondness for these VX4/90S goes back a long way, as he explains.
‘I got to know Colin Field, who had worked on the rally cars when he was an apprentice at Vauxhall. This was back in about 1990. I was trying to buy a VX4/90 off him, 634 CRX, and joked that it was a shame he didn’t have one of the works cars. He said he did, actually… he’d got 4 FTM and had used it in a few club events. We hatched a plan to turn 634 CRX into a perfect replica of the lost car, 3 FTM. So I did the body, Colin tracked down the rare bits, and Bill Blydenstein, who built the engines for the original works cars, did the engine.’
Meanwhile, Colin tracked down the other surviving works car, 2 FTM, resting in Wales after its engine fire. Warren bought it, but rather than sink funds into a third rally car, he restored the body and engine in roadgoing guise, though with a growing family, the restoration was never finished. Warren eventually bought 4 FTM and later still, was offered 634 CRX to ‘complete the set’, as he puts it. He sold on 4 FTM some time ago and competed in 634 CRX.
‘The last event I did was in 2010 at the Rally of the Tests,’ he says. ‘I didn’t even
wash it – I just parked it next to 4 FTM in my warehouse afterwards and there it’s stayed ever since. I’ve got too many cars and I won’t get round to finishing 2 FTM, so it’s time to have a clear-out. I’m hoping the next owner buys both cars, puts the Blydenstein engine into 2 FTM and reclaims its number from the DVLA, with Vauxhall’s help – they’ve authenticated it.’
If these were BMC works entries from the Sixties or Ford from the Seventies, the values would be sky high. As it is, Vauxhall’s early tilt at rallying didn’t involve big-name drivers or meet with podium finishes, so this slice of British motor sport history was offered for sale with no reserve by Historics at its Windsorview Lakes sale on 17th July. It managed £2464 for 2 FTM, the works car, and £3360 for 634 CRX, the replica.