Young Man's wish granted Video: 1957 Austin A35 restored by anonymous person | Ep. 82 (UK Trip 2/5)

Hagerty, Classic Car, Classic Cars, Hagerty Drivers Club, barn find, barn find hunter, tom cotter, fordferrari, cobra, GTB, england, UK, austin of england, A35, cancer, rays of sunshine, BMW, mercedes, jaguar, TWR, XJS, turbo, aluminum, engine block, cortina, escort, plymouth, triumph, stag, chevy, land rover, mexico, rally car, rallye, race car, scca

Video Script:: 

so we travel on these trips we usually have a support vehicle behind us with camera gear a drone things like that well yesterday as they say in the UK we had a mishap fortunately not with this car but with the van one of the drivers of it an American was trying to get out of the way of an emergency vehicle hit a curb and knocked out two tires blew the tires hadn't bend the rims so that kind of screwed up the day that vehicle was stuck on the side of the road for the day so we were bringing around now with a second vehicle until the other one gets fixed this vehicle belongs to a gentleman named cliff Ryan who lives here in the UK in Watford and I happen to know cliff because he races in the States occasionally with a Mustang and I raced a Corvette and we race really hard against each other I have become good friends as a result of that and so we're going over his house he's loaned me this car but what a great guy he's got several cars but really is one car in particular and it's his sons Sam Ryan and we're gonna look at his son's car it's quite a quite a story attached to that car so I haven't seen it I'll see at the same time you do mom look like good friends the Ryan's Sam and cliff who I usually see on the other side of the pond at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut where cliff races a Mustang and I race a Corvette and I don't know have you ever beaten me I don't think so you know what's been so often I can't remember how many times that's true anyway it's been cliffs you know very nice offer to use his car this week cliffie could you just tell quickly what I'm what I'm driving here this this is a Jaguar XJS but it was actually produced by Jack your sports who are a joint venture between twr Tom Walkinshaw racing and Jaguar and it was brought out to commemorate Jaguar winning LeMond and it's got a detuned version of the Loom on winning engine in it so it has Cosworth Pistons still billet crank and as I take fuel system I could bore you for hours about it but that's it in a nutshell and that's an original paint car that's the original paint car the only thing that's been painted is that it's the body kit because yeah it's a start much yeah and you have a racing version have a racing version of this in the garages okay let's take a look just quickly at those okay well we have a red car here too so that's the racing version of the one we just drove here tucked away in the corner because it's not used very often is that right how many times a year only a couple of times you at the moment I used to camp I used to do full championships but I don't do it anymore I cherry-pick now what about this this is right 1976 triumph stag all original apart from slightly different color paints I bought it in 1983 used it for my first holiday with my wife and we used it for our wedding it's not going anywhere ever 83 so you've had it 37 years 37 years isn't it man runs well runs well and that's got a strange little v8 right it's a it's a unique v8 that's only in this car there are rumors that it was two four cylinders joined together but it never featured in any other car and the use of a lots of problems with overheating because because the stand wasn't taken out of the galleys when they when they cast it okay all right well we're not here to talk about these cars we're here to talk about Sam's car and I have not even seen the other garage well this will be Mike when I also when I was youngest Sam guide us to your car my car is this way in the other garage there we go you get the full nicely covered and here we are wow that's exceptional Wow this is an 835 Austin a35 Austin a35 so this is like the the the cousin to a Morris Minor I'd say yeah interesting you can see right here of England so you've had this for how long since 2007 so what inspired you to own a car like this because dad had a racing car which was an Austin a35 and the car was here and I was driving it round the driveway and I just fell in love with it really the race car around the driveway yeah well it was a car before a race car was it was converted into a race car and we were on holiday in Jamaica and that was doing some research online and he found an Austin a35 in Jamaica no in the UK so but whilst we were on holiday he had a look we dad bought it online and came home picked it up and did it look like this no it didn't look like this we brought it home and unfortunately 2007 I fell ill with a brain tumor cancerous so there was a charity at the hospital one of the nurses approached me and she said is a charity called rays of sunshine which offer cancer patients wishes so you have a list of three that you would like to have and the top one was 835 and then the other two I can't even remember what they were because they weren't imported so so that would not to meet Mick Jagger's right now it was like me do you want to meet Beckham or a celebrity of some sort or going away on now wanna have my car restored to original condition who restored it volunteers it was an anonymous person so but it was in London he went to a car garage and they stripped it back and they completely resprayed the whole thing they welded all the holes and they rechromed a lot and we new interior brand new interior and I actually bought a few of these pieces here because when we originally bought it they didn't have the original mirrors on so they sort of took that off and then put it back on again are you satisfied oh yes yes pop how about how about you are you a chip off the old block here yeah absolutely he's in every way I mean he restores furniture he likes old he just likes all things sorry keeping the heritage so you're not gonna modify this thing oh no no no no they said to me when I made the wish for my car to be restored they said do you want it on the MTV program the American program pimp my ride where they put speakers in the car and they put all this bling paint work on it and stripes down the side and what God knows what so and I said no I don't want that just exactly how it was originally I love the respect you have for there were old things that's really true and they said are you sure you don't want speakers in the back or something like that I was like no I don't even want seat belts it didn't come the seat belts so I mean were you surprised when he chose the car over celebrities no I knew yeah I knew what he was like that he loved I mean we bought it for him to restore and him him and a friend of his were restoring it in this garage and when it went unfortunate he was taken ill easy so we have got photos of him and his friend underneath it and you know what's it looking quite as well in a photo doesn't look that bad you know pictures make things look a lot better everybody looks at it the kids are say daddy daddy what's that look at that as we're driving past and it just makes me smile that it really does take effect yep and it is such a lovely piece that people do appreciate it well Sam thanks this has been a great stop thank you for coming and having a look at well I'm gonna come next time in the summer because I want to ride oh yes yes we'll be pushing it across the road for it to get started we just left cliffs house and we're following cliff right now his friend Gary's Gary is a Jaguar specialist and runs a Jaguar repair restoration parts center and it'll look more like an American yard of barn fine cars than we've seen so far here and in England this friend Gary they've been longtime mates and they've raced together and Gary has a Jaguar specialty shop mostly they work on race cars and so this is an MGB tell us what we're looking at here this is one of the oldest MGB still racing this belongs to a guy called Paul Latimer he's had the car now for some time I used to run the car with cliff and the original owner a guy called Longtin who unfortunately is no longer with us a nicer guy you couldn't wish to meet but yeah rod ran it for well he ran mg's for over 50 years two years so you've raced this you guys of races we've raced this at Spa in a six hour race probably half a dozen if not all of these times on the wing that's all there so you can count them you can do whatever you want there's all the original yeah stickers for the for the spartax our LeMond classic in it and I've done the Targa Florio historical in it and it's just it's been campaign and as a mark of respect to rod his name Steve no nothing on the side of the car so what kind of business do you have really it started out just as I had a garage with my father back in Dagenham 20 30 years ago and then I moved in with a friend doing some some spare parts for Jaguars and then when I packed up there I just decided to do a few bits and pieces for myself the the race cars really took over more than anything and it's a good thing people are happy to spend money on race cars so you've mostly erased prep shop mostly but there's there's also a lot of restoration stuff as well I've take on anything Jaguar that's for sure up into a point XJ aces and before I get it okay what could we walk around look at some of your projects well tell us about this jag right here strangely enough this one came in from the states as a pretty poor car and it went through a few hands I purchased it for a friend of mine and when I got it back and stripped it down I thought I'd done him a lot harm to be honest the car really wasn't that noise but it required it was a straight guy yeah but in the time it took to actually get the thing repaired and together the value was back in the car it was it was it was a very good buy he lost his way with it a little bit and somebody else took over another friend of mine he had it for a short period and same deal he sort of lost ease away with it somewhat but this engine here is for a race car that's just outside the door I've just finished building that that's ready to drop into the whole era was it an XJ this is an X shape this is 6 million or XJ yes this is actually the car is a I'll actually that car is a 4 liter so this is a 4 liter engine wandering outside oh this is the race card that was he's the race car the yep this belongs to a guy called Simon Dunford who is classic Jaguar racing mm-hmm he makes aluminium panels and bits and pieces for e types so or 80s the way things have gone we started a series some time ago a friend of mine and myself just for XJS is subsequently it got into XJ sixes as well and now they're diversify and further with theirs yeah there's all sorts of bits and pieces out there but this was primarily these were cheap to buy at one time we could we could pick one up for five hundred-pound at the side of the road and stick a seat in it and go racing that was that was the fun of it it's giving him a new life I guess it's a degree but it's got the point now where they're more more valuable than just picking them up and going racing another race in XJS yeah it seems that I've got probably half of the grid in the garden at the moment this belongs to a friend of mine calling in who he's my panel man he does an awful lot of panel work for me and a better panel man you couldn't find but he wants me to remove the engine and gearbox for him so that he can restore the body it's a mark - this is mark - yeah 3.8 mark - manual it's actually Auto but we will be converting it to manual yeah well like for your race car no that's going to be his own Road car it's just that it's a very sound car that just obviously had a bad paint at some time in its life there's a the biggest pile of Mg spares under those bonnets there that's that's all mg parts MG Midget mainly is there as he knows that's the C type bonnet yeah well what store with that oh it's five away it's a fiberglass one yeah okay it's a kit oh wow and you have the rest of the car this is a fiberglass yeah the rest of the car actually used with my friend Colin who actually has it in mind to build an aluminium copy from the fiberglass model used as a buck yeah so this this is a Ford Escort Mexico mark one that my son races and unfortunately last time he was out at Brands Hatch he had a little coming together so gary is it's here for Gary to repair that was you saw the engine in gearbox oh yeah sitting in the workshop Daniel doesn't believe in doing anything by half obviously yeah so you're gonna chop the nose off on this he's gonna have a complete front-end yeah yeah so what's just history with this part I bought this when he was 18 so 12 years ago because he didn't like the a35 that we used to race he wanted a mark one escort we bought it we didn't know it was a genuine Mexico but it turned out that it was a genuine Mexico which means it was a factory race car now the Mexico was a tribute to the London to Mexico road rally winning cars okay okay and it was a certain spec that you had it's an export shell yeah they call it a vio an Ivo shell which is nearly Ivo shell actually if you go to the end of the garden it's the old factory is just at the end of the garden yeah seriously yeah so this is a 1,300 to 1,600 1,600 cross-flow Kent cross-flow okay so this was a street car and yoga Street car my Verta there's an unfinished restoration project because it didn't have it was it was a 20-footer uh-huh yeah this paint work you know it's not very good close up but from 20 foot which is what you see when you're on a race circuit it looks fine fine yeah Gary Gary turned it that's that's my son he's the driver he's the driver this is you as me and you read the checks and is Gary and he's the wrench yeah I mean there's an old friend of ours it seems I mean South Bend Indiana somehow came from South Bend to the UK what's the story with this car there's another guy I am local to here the rebuilds Jaguars we bought what we've been friends for a long long time unfortunately he passed away that while ago and he left this to his son he son was having some building work done and asked me to store it for a while how many years ago for a couple of weeks some three years ago yeah I have been in touch with him recently to see what he's going to do with the thing but it's actually quite sound as a car and the engine everything is in the boot so does this interest you at all or no it could just be a racer here not in the slightest yeah yes it one good with this year didn't is that the lark no it was real yeah it was it go green good wood yeah so cliff tell us about this car back here this is one of the i-35 that Gary and I bought when building a race car which I think wasn't good enough and so Gary gave it to Sam and then it wasn't good enough yeah it was it was just gone too far well you can see we found it's got fiber glass fiber cross and everything so that so this is this is the one he had before the one you've just yeah yeah man you determined it was just - it was just too rotten yeah yeah I mean we bought another one which ended up to be the race car and it cost us 50 pounds of food though for the show for a shell and it was a beautiful show or so we thought until we had he did yeah we had it dipped and then Gary spent a couple of weeks just just just a couple of weeks world a great word that just pretty much parts cars or what over here yeah the the s-type was someone building about one Jaguar uh-huh yeah so I did see one of your programs recently where you was looking at an S type and thought it was a mark - all right what's the difference I'm not gonna put you right if you look at next time it's got what we call it like an eyebrow above the headlight okay so if you look at it from the front yep the side lights on the mark - are on the tops of the wings and a proper early mark - would have would have a double bumper okay so this means yes type where were they what was early what was later or they semi together at the end but the mark 2 became the 240 and the 340 which did have the same bumper and the s-type was it was that it's got a longer boat on it it's got independent rear suspension and I mean in truth all around it's a better car ok but everybody loves the mark - more why your guess is as good as mine I mean in reality the S type is a better car other are there more mark twos I think that the mark 2 over here in particular has a little bit of a connection with being a bit of a rogue does that mean bank robbers bank robbers car so this is a Ford what is that it's a mark 5 Cortina but it's quite a rare car because it is actually only a two-door my friend that owns it tells me that there's there's only about half of a dozen left of them in the in the world now I'll take that with a little pinch of salt there's probably more out there hiding somewhere but but it is a very rare car and is that a overhead-cam for silver yes like a 2300 yes a Pinto engine you see it's a 2-liter Pinto so this this this is one of mine it is that was my daily driver for the first two and a half years of its life it was used by the Queen it was registered to Jack your cars and the Queen used it for driving to and from Sandringham or places like that I suppose and I bought it because one of the last series 3 v12 and it came here for some bodywork a few years ago and life and time happens is just sitting here so is your intention to restore it yeah no the Queen did she actually drive it or was yes because she actually tried it she always had two of these Jaguar would be servicing one while she's driving the other and they would swap them over they called them twins and I found out because I took it back to the supplying dealer and the guy recognized the registration number and whilst he wouldn't give it to me in writing he said they had a file this thing now that dealer doesn't exist anymore so I use second owner third well thank you sir this has been wonderful really really appreciated most of a thanks for introducing this is really cool hey we're gonna go ahead a pub now what to you happy honey Tito oh my country and the Subaru is this really a rally car just the decals just the decals yeah okay you say deck house yes you say it properly why are you guys do you do this on purpose to piss us off yeah now we're saying Mazda the other day and you say well master it's not on the answer either what do you say instead of Miata phonemic soil it was really cool oh you know they kind of are now in the states as well