Category: Restoration

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Restoration

1958 BMW 507-Powered Speedboat by Rambeck Boatworks

1958 BMW 507-Powered Speedboat by Rambeck
1958 BMW 507-Powered Speedboat by Rambeck

Paul gave me a peek at his photos from this year’s Rétromobile show in France (more to come). It’s an absurdly great collection of amazing machines… but one in particular stopped me in my tracks.

This BMW 507-powered speedboat is the only one of it’s kind. Italian boatbuilder Abbate also built a more traditional one-off runabout powered by a 507 engine, but this example by Rambeck Boatworks borrows heavily from the design of the 507 and looks just as slippery and purposeful on the water as the car does on the road.

Digging around a bit I was able to find a video that touches on the restoration of the vessel after spending decades in dry dock. Quite a barn find indeed.

1958 BMW 507-Powered Speedboat by Rambeck
The side “gills” of the 507 almost look better here than on the car

I love the commonality of aesthetic that the boat shares with it’s 4-wheeled brother. The shared steering wheel, instrument cluster, and 150hp engine are only part of that. There’s a spirit to them both that make the boat just as magnificent as the car who’s heart beats inside her.

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Restoration Video

Let’s Build a 1935 Singer Le Mans

Looks like it only takes about 20 minutes.

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Historic Racing Photos Restoration Video

Firing up a 28.5-Litre Fiat After 100 Dormant Years

After 100 years of sitting idle, Duncan Pittaway and his team have breathed life into this former Landspeed Record Fiat S76. More than 100 years after the two S76s were built by Fiat to take the flying mile and flying kilometer records away from the Blitzen Benz, this fearsome hellbreathing dragon has spun up her four valve-per-cylinder, multi-spark, overhead cam 28½ Litre (!) engine and it. Is. Staggering. Without exhausts fitted, this view of the combustion chambers spitting the remains of burning fuel straight into the camera lens makes me feel like Gandalf staring down a Balrog in Moria.

Modern engines are absolutely pushing envelopes. The sophistication of engineering and artistry that powers contemporary racing machines is very, very impressive. But none of them have the Earth shattering brutality of this 104-year-old Fiat. Terrifying. And Gorgeous.

Hat tip to Stefan Marjoram on this one. More to come in the new year, it seems. I can’t wait for more of the Beast of Turin.

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Classic Sportscar Restoration

The Art of the Restoration Story

Alpine 110 Restoration by AlpineLAB

Car restoration is dirty business, and you feel that grime intimately: There will be chunks of rust stuck between your neck and your collar. There will be endless layers of paint slowly being sanded away. Twisted pieces of steel will be stuck in the soles of your boots from every stupid broken-off bolt you’ll have to drill out. I can understand why restoration shops would rather wait until the car is finished, polished, and with the proper beginnings of a sunset behind her before they get out the camera. What ends up happening, though, is that restorers web sites all tend to look the same: beauty shots of the finished car. There is rarely even a single photo of the car before restoration began.

Germany’s AlpineLAB shows us the kind of beautiful documentation that can happen when a truly passionate restoration workshop has someone on staff that knows a thing or two about curating a web site. Of course, there are miraculously beautiful photos of the finished product worthy of any of the glossies on the newsstand. But the commitment to documenting the restoration and the race history of their Alpine 110 projects is so very refreshing. What I appreciate most, however, is their opening the archives to show us the specific period articles and photography of these cars’ race history. People spend a lot of time establishing a car’s provenance, it’s very appreciated to see those archives opened up for all of us and not just prospective buyers.

The Alpine 110 was an astoundingly capable little machine. I’ve read it described as a car that you wore rather than drove. That kind of machine deserves the treatment that AlpineLAB has given it. I imagine that as more and more restorers enter the community having grown up on the web, the more of this kind of wonderful storytelling we’ll see brought to the world. Clear your afternoon and click over to their site for more of their build stories. These images are but a taste.

Thanks for sending this in, Jürgen!

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Restoration Video

Let’s Restore A Merlyn Formula Ford with Eric Dean

VSCDA Racer and occasional Chicane contributor Eric Dean is no stranger to stunning Formula Ford and Formula Vee restorations. For his most recent project, Eric has virtually opened up his garage and cracked a few Stroh’s so we can build a 1969 Merlyn Mk11A Formula Ford along with him.

You can really see the level of effort that goes in to making even a simple racing car this well prepared. Whenever I see these time lapse videos, I’m pulled in two directions at once. Part of me looks at these, and thinks, “There. That doesn’t look impossible. This guy is practically doing it by himself.” But time lapse is deceptive. If we slowed this video down and watched even a single afternoon of restoration in real-time, we would start to realize the hundreds of hours of meticulous work that is really behind these restorations.

Television audiences have come to expect that gorgeous automotive restorations can get done in 5 days. I think that devalues the real artistry, engineering, and skill that goes into shaving decades off a car’s age. Making a car as good as it was the day it left the workshop—or better—is no small task. It’s almost an insult to think that anything of this level of quality can be carelessly rushed.

That racers like Eric take on these projects is admirable. That they can then get in the pilot’s seat and put thoughts of the hundreds or thousands of hours of effort out of their minds while they squeeze a few more tenths out of a lap in high traffic… Well, that’s something else. I must be foolish to think that it’s not the risk to life and limb, but the risk of sacrificing all this effort that is some additional bravery.

Congratulations Eric, she’s gorgeous.

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Porsche Restoration

Detailing a Dormant 912

There’s something very satisfying about seeing a barn fresh car become road ready. I love the restraint it takes to clean a car up and freshen the paint without stripping it down and completely restoring it. Patina has value.

Some nice tips here on how to handle a car when you’re just feeling it out and assessing it’s condition.

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Ferrari Restoration Video

The Caretaker

“No one really owns a vintage car. You’re a caretaker for a certain period of time.”

Andy Greene

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Restoration

Breathing Life Back into a Written Off BMW CSL

It’s never an encouraging thing when you encounter a photo like this one. This photo of a “written off” BMW CSL popped up this morning on Bring A Trailer’s Facebook feed. I remember seeing this photo last fall shortly after a driver fell asleep at the wheel and careened into Jon Furley’s 1972 BMW 3.0 CSL. The loss of a CSL is a bad thing.
Any CSL is rare, but this is one of only 500 RHD models made. That sounds bad, right? But Furley’s example is a damn-sight rarer, as her original owner was Chris Amon. This CSL was Amon’s street car during the era when he raced the Batmobile BMWs. Noooo!
So, what has happened in the year since the crash? I’d assumed that this one was stripped of her valuable bits and given a tearful good bye. Thankfully that’s not the case. A very brave team has decided that she must live again. After all, what’s one lost corner between friends?
This album on CSI Garage’s Facebook shows that her restoration has begun this past November. Looks like they’ve welded in a replacement front end, rebuilt part of the frame, and pulled and assessed the engine (which was relatively unscathed with only a broken timing case cover and cylinder head cover).

There’s something infectious about the optimism in the vintage sports and racing car community that I love. Insurance adjusters look at this and call her a write off. A random person off the street looks at it and calls it scrap. Hell, most “car guys” would see these photos and say it’s beyond saving. A good restoration workshop looks at this and says, “Yeah, we can do that.” This is not a project for the weak of heart and I’m looking forward to their continued updates—though perhaps not as much as Jon.
Also see this thread on PowerFanatics for many more photos of the teardown. More good news, the family cat that went missing after the crash made it home. Ok, now I’m going from concerned sports car nerd and entering weird internet stalker territory.

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Classic Sportscar Restoration

Reader Non-Restoration: Phil Knudsen’s ’58 Alfa Giuletta Veloce Spider

“I am not restoring this car, its a REAL time capsule race car from the 50’s and 60’s. Restoring this car would be like erasing and restoring a Monet… it wouldn’t be the same. It will not be modified with new parts. It will find its way back to the track but not to compete. I’ll let other the guys destroy 750F’s… this one will stay a barn fresh nostalgic racer.
A car can only look its age and experience once.”

Phil Knudsen

And with those words, I turned from casual browser of Phil Knudsen’s AlfaBB thread on his ’58 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce Spider Race car into an enthusiastic fan.

It started commonly enough, Phil had sourced this retired racer from the John Murphy collection in Atlanta. The engine was out of her and he was looking for more stories and photos of her time as a frequent racer up and down the East Coast.

Naturally, I assumed he was trying to establish provenance while he tore the body down and started restoration. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that he’s decided to keep her bodywork and even paint as she was when she went into storage. Only newly painted (but beautifully aged looking) new numbers were added to bring her back to her old racing livery.

Of course, there were those that disagreed. Suggesting that not fixing the paint was tantamount to neglect. Keep the rust away, sure, but no top-shelf restoration can possibly make her any more beautiful than she is today.

Keep fighting the good fight, Phil. That patina is priceless and she’s only original once.

Click on over to Phil’s build thread on AlfaBB for more.

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Restoration

Reader Restoration: Beach Mk. 5 Formula Vee

Nigel Cass wrote in with this lovely set of photos of the 1965 Beach Formula Vee that he and his father restored as a hillclimber. With a 1915cc engine, I’m guessing she’s a touch faster up a hill than my old ’73 VW Thing was.

These shots of the car in action make me realize what a good photo opportunity hillclimbs are for vintage racers. If I just showed you these photos without the backstory, you might think that they are of a country road-racing circuit. The low stone walls and banners along the roadside only serve to make it look more like a mini Nürburgring or Spa.

She’s a beautiful car. I can’t wait to see Nigel and his father’s next project: a Lola 342