BLOG: A tale of two lucky VDP's - part 3

by Andy Perman

The next couple of years not much was done to the VDP due to several things. I’d had my name on the waiting list for an allotment and I made it to the top in the November of 2009, a mere 5 years after applying! The plot was a mess so I had my work cut out if I was to knock it into shape ready for the following spring.

​My plumbing business that I’d set up in 2003 was really starting to take off especially as we were fast emerging from the banking crisis so I was devoting a fair amount of time to that. I was also trying to placate the wifey somewhat by NOT spending too much time on the old girl after the verbal beating I’d received. She was warming to the idea now a bit, but obviously wasn’t going to let on to me!

I’d had a chance to look over the car in some detail however and compiled a list of parts I needed. Primarily these were a radiator and hoses. Brake pads, shoes and flexible hoses. Wheel cylinders, both were leaking hence no hand or foot brake. Replacement calliper seals and pistons and a master cylinder. Full set of lights and a grille as the originals had all been stolen. Full set of suspension metalastic blocks, including engine mounts. Full gaiter set for the drive and steering shafts. A water pump, an alternator and a drive belt. Wheel bearings and a set of tyres! There was also some welding needed on the front panel where it joined the wing, nothing major but it needed doing properly. Oh, and I was going to need some paint.

So I’d hit eBay with a vengeance and joined the owners club to use the spares service and very pleasingly had struck mother lode! I got hold of everything I needed and all for the princely sum of £20. Because all car parts cost £20; it’s the law. Can you get me a new Daimler Conquest gearbox for £20 including shipping, please? - Ed.

The only parts that proved to be tricky were the engine mountings as these were peculiar to the early auto model, but I got hold of a set eventually from the club. And yes same price, £20. I sent the petrol flap to a paint manufacturer for match and had a batch of paint shipped back, along with the undamaged flap. Result!

I’d also started to gather information from the club on some of the history of the car. From new it was owned by a solicitor’s wife and lived in Kingston upon Thames for around 20 years. She used it every week to visit the Chambers to run the payroll. It was taken to the local dealers Kibble and Burnett every 6 months for a service! Fortunately I found the Passport to Service book in the boot, along with what turned out to be the kick-down mechanism, but more of that later.

Ownership then passed to the chairman of the Allegro club who owned it for around ten years; it was stored in a barn along with a number of other Allegros in Kent. Unfortunately one night a group of gypsies broke in through the roof, cut out all the radiators, batteries and large copper wires. Loaded the lot into the back of one of the unfortunate vehicles and weighed the lot in at a local scrap merchant the following day. They were soon caught and did time for it, but things were starting to make sense as to why the front end of my VDP cooling system and electrical cables had been hacked out - by a chainsaw it looked like!

Then the ownership gets a bit hazy. It was sold on to someone around 2004 and seemed to disappear. One member recalls seeing it up a farm track outside Aldershot with all four tyres flat and up to the axles in mud in about 2008 which would have been shortly before it was taken to the scrap yard. Aldershot is geographically close to the scrap yard where I found it. The rest they say is history.

By the late summer of 2012, with the allotment in shape and my business ticking along nicely I started on the car with a plan. The rear brakes were stripped, cleaned and de-rusted. New cylinders, handbrake adjuster, shoes and wheel bearings were fitted. Similar process for the front. Calipers stripped, cleaned, de-rusted. New seals and stainless steel pistons. New pads and flexible hoses went in. Finally a new master cylinder was fitted. I now had brakes!

Then came the part I wasn’t relishing: the front end of the car was proper tatty and needed a bit of welding, lots of de-rusting, filling and painting. And Summer was well over; the temperatures were dropping so the workshop was c-c-c-c-cold! Within a month there was going to be six inches of snow on the ground, which for the south coast is uber-rare, and I was about to start on the bodywork. Not a great combination!

To be continued……