It’s been a long time
‘Grasshopper’ restoration started in earnest
Ihave always enjoyed long-term ownership of my classics, and recently have been taking stock of the cars I still have, and the work required on them. One of them is ‘Grasshopper’ (so named due to the ‘GH’ registration), a 1965 Austin A35 estate, which I originally bought in 1985, reluctantly selling it four years later.
In 1993 I re-acquired the vehicle (it had last been road-taxed and used in 1992), and by this time it was in a sorry state. It got sorrier still as, to my shame, it sat outside for 10 years awaiting attention, followed by another 20 years under cover. The reason for this long delay was down to me being always busy with my writing work and ‘life’, but all the while
I had visions of restoring the Austin – the dream lived on!
Early in 2022, I decided that action was required to get the A35 back on the road. I'd enjoyed driving it during the four years I had it roadworthy; it was such a useful and economical vehicle. It had worked very hard for me, without complaint and with no mechanical repairs required, just routine maintenance. Time for me to give it some love in thanks! By the way the engine, although high mileage, still runs and the gearbox and rear axle were mechanically fine when the car came off the road.
The reality
Even I was shocked when I started to examine the vehicle’s structural state in detail. Among many other ailments, the front wings were rotten, as were the floor pans, the inner and outer sills, the lower rear bodywork structure, etc, etc. The doors were also rusty and the driver’s door badly dented from a collision that had occurred at some time when the car was not in my ownership. I also understood from the
owner from whom I bought the A35 second time around, that the vehicle had been driven through a seawater flood, which hadn’t helped it either. On the other hand, with my optimistic hat on, I noted that the roof and the windows were still in pretty good nick…
Fast forward 30 years from when the Austin was last driven on the road, and the very good news was that over those three decades I had been deliberately and gradually collecting new bodywork panels and repair sections for this vehicle. Notable was the acquisition, in 1993, of a pair of genuine Austin A35 van front wings (the wheel arch lips of which differ from those of the saloons), followed by two genuine A35 van sills (the rear ends differ slightly from those of saloon sills), plus some floor pans (not ‘genuine’ but good reproductions).
This represented a great start, but more panels were required, which I set about ordering. Incidentally for the A30/A35 models ‘genuine original’ BMC body panels are very rare today, but many good reproduction panels and repair sections are available to help save a sad case like Grasshopper.
The work
I kept fooling myself that I would carry out the requisite stripdown and welding, but in the end, I had to be honest, and it was clear that lack of available time would preclude this approach. While I would love to have ‘done it all’, I needed some help or the A35 would just sit and wait… and wait.
I therefore talked to a local bodywork restorer, Mike Wareham of Style Craft Coachworks, Bournemouth, with whom I had worked (on magazine articles and in terms of respraying my A60 Cambridge, back in 2001) and he agreed to carry out the structural operations if I would strip the car back to basics – in so doing, saving him time and saving me money. As he is always busy and has a year long waiting list of customers, we had just a three week ‘window’ during which he could tackle the initial main structural work… I should add that even if you ‘farm out’ the heavyweight aspects of bodywork restoration on any classic, there’s still much you can do yourself, including dismantling and re-assembly work.
The plan
My aim was to get the Austin structurally sound in Mike’s workshop during that threeweek period, then for the vehicle to come home for me to remove the engine and transmission, also the dashboard, and to clean/prepare the underside of the vehicle so that it could then go back to Mike’s workshop – when he had another time ‘window’ available to undertake the full respray. The intention then was for the car to come home again for me to check/sort out the mechanical aspects and to re-assemble it.
More about all this in another episode; for now… the A35 was taken away on a low loader to undergo structural rectification.