BLOG: A tale of two lucky VDP's - part 7

by Andy Perman

I’d set my alarm early for the following morning but there was no need, I was up early and actually getting nervous. The night before over a beer I’d got all the necessary paperwork together so should I be successful I could pick up the tax on the way home and be road legal ready for the drive up to the Gaydon show on Sunday morning.

​With a coffee in hand I opened up the workshop, jumped in and turned the key. She roared into life and I began easing out of the workshop, round the awkward bends and down the drive. Once on the road I got my first experience of driving the old girl. Loved sound the engine made and the gentle whine from the auto gearbox that reminded me of the Mini I’d had years before. I was also more than aware this car had not turned a wheel for the best part of 15 years but felt confident I’d done everything I could to bring it back to life.

MOT time

The drive to the MOT garage was only a couple of miles and was over way too soon, I was proper enjoying myself in the leather loveliness. It was like driving around in your favourite armchair. As I arrived the shutters were up and James was waiting with a coffee in hand and wearing a massive cheesy grin. I jumped out and handed over to him. Once on the ramp I got my first proper look at the underside and it was remarkable. Not a mark or scabby bit on it, completely original. Whilst I was distracted by the view of the car one of the old boys that works there came over and said ‘I heard that come in, recognise that sound anywhere, not running quite right is it?’ I explained my rush at tuning it the night before to which he replied ‘leave it with me, be my pleasure to set up once the boss has finished’.

The next 40 minutes went by very quickly and I watched James go over the car then put it on the rolling road for the brake test, then finally the emissions. "Couldn’t find anything wrong with it", he said. "Credit to you, well done". "Oh, it’s passed then?" "Yes of course it did, in fact your front brakes were pulling 148% efficiency so well done!" Ticket done and paid for, the old boy came back over and said ‘jump in and start it up’.

​After a minute of listening said ‘off’. He took off the distributor cap, fiddled about, put it back and said ‘fire it up’ Already it sounded better. He then tweaked the timing, all by ear for a few minutes then with a satisfied grunt said ‘that’s tuned’. And it was, you could balance a coin on the engine it was that smooth. Didn’t want paying for it either so I put a donation in their tea boat instead. Well I hardly remember the drive to the Post Office to collect the tax and change the status from SORN to on road. I’d done it and was elated - I was going to Gaydon!

The next morning I was up early and nervous again, but more of a nice anticipation this time. So loaded with some tools just in case and a large coffee I set off and pointed the car North with 165 miles to destination on the sat-nav. It settled into a nice mile-eating canter at about 60mph where the top gear was engaged. I’d noticed a very slight shimmy on the steering wheel and put it down to slight wheel imbalance and ignored it.

​Unbeknownst to me there was a serious underlying problem that was going to occur and bite me several times before I got to the bottom of it, but that’s yet to come! The oil pressure gauge I noticed never got any higher than 35psi, whether this was an issue or not I had no idea, so I decided to take a look in the workshop manual when I got home. About 100 miles in I’d also noticed the lovely sound the engine and exhaust was making seemed to be getting slightly louder, so as some services were coming up I pulled in to re-charge my coffee and investigate.

Coffee replenished I had a quick look and it was obvious, the manifold clamp that I’d recently put on that joins it to the new exhaust was letting by a bit so no drama. I could sort that out when I got back home so again pointed North and pressed on,  turning the radio up a bit. The other thing I’d noticed was the kick-down wasn’t doing anything. Even a good shove on the throttle didn’t produce any change down. Probably why it had been removed in the first place by a previous owner, but no drama - I could use the stick shifter which worked great, changing the gear instantly.

Well I arrived around 10 o’clock and was immediately surrounded by various excitable people saying ‘where did you get this car?’ ‘We didn’t even know this car still existed’ and ‘Do you know how rare this car is?’. Once I gave them a chance to calm down and explain one at a time It turns out my humble old scrap yard car is a very early MK1, one of only 3 known to still exist, in a rare colour (mirage) and with an even rarer Tuscan leather interior. It’s the earliest one surviving, being registered only 3 weeks into production and remains to this day the only MK1 on the road. Then after all that the chairman of the Vanden Plas club came over and said ‘Can I have some pictures of your car please for my history books? Only I don’t have any of a MK1 and certainly not in this colour’. So my car is now in the pages of the VDP handbook at Gaydon!

Well the bad weather that was forecast turned up with attitude, so we all went inside, had lunch and a wander round. Then at 2pm Harris Mann gave a presentation. What a lovely humble chap, talking about his original designs and the inner wrangling of BL at the time and what eventually emerged as the Allegro. Fascinating. Then a few awards were given out and my VDP picked up it’s first one, winning the "Best Early Series" award. ‘Something else to dust’ was my wife’s response when I phoned to tell her, so to this day the awards live on the rear parcel shelf out of her way! The show over, we said goodbyes and I headed the 165 miles back home with no issues other than the rain. And that shimmy I’d dismissed……….

The following weekend I looked up oil pressures and 35 at best was not right, the spec was 65psi running, 25psi idle so I started to investigate. With the oil head taken apart all seemed OK so I dug deeper and removed the sump and the pressure bypass valve. The sump was pretty grubby and the strainer pick up worse. The main problem though was the bypass valve, it was jammed open and no amount of persuading and swear words would release it. Quick word with my Dad and he suggested leaving it in a jar of diesel for a while, so I did.

​About an hour later whilst I was cleaning up the sump and strainer I heard a 'plink' from the jar it was in, the valve had freed itself off. Dad you’re a genius. Everything back together I fired it up. Perfect! I had 65 at fast idle and just over 40 at idle. Job done. I also got the local tyre fitters to sort out the manifold clamp which they truly did as they are the experts! I had ironed out those niggles, so I thought - but don’t forget that wheel shimmy, I had and it was going to cost me!

I got another three shows in before the end of the year all with no issues and picked up another award, but winter was coming so it was soon time to put the old girl to sleep. Busy year next year - I had my kids prom and I’d been invited to show my car at the NEC that Autumn.

To be continued……