Richard writes:
>...they also have Shadow seminars, on a regular basis. These seminars
>started out so that owners of the pre-war cars could share knowledge.
I have not been on one of these, but a few very experienced friends of mine
thought they were wonderful for the 6-cyl. cars.
> An ignorant owner does not necessarily mean a bad car.
>[. . .]
>Ignorant though I am, there's something I've learnt already: look at the
>service history, and then ring the company which has serviced the car.
>If *they* are vague about the attention the sus and brakes have
>received, don't buy. Most good dealers have no axe to grind, and will
>give you a detailed history of the car.
>
True, impeccable logic, but it does depend on how old the car is. The
newer cars have sufficient intrinsic value for the owner to cheerfully pay
to have them properly serviced, the older and rarer cars this is also true
of, but many will consider the purchase of a more inexpensive vehicle in
between these two. It is at this point that cars get neglected if a
reputable garage wants too much to look after them properly.
>Speaking as a Spirit prospective purchaser - most pre 85 cars have some
>negative history. If you are looking at an early Shadow, you can't
>expect a perfectly clean history - the key thing is to find out how well
>the car was repaired.
This is where it can get frightening, when considering a T-type/Shadow a
few months ago, I looked at several; one, in excellent condition came with
a fairly full history that included a London service receipt from about
eight years ago for just under 12,000 pounds sterling (11,900 to be
precise)! Needless-to-say, this was just about a full-house of attention -
brakes entirely overhauled with NEW pumps, flexible hoses, calipers etc.,
similar treatment to the self-leveling suspension, complete exhaust system,
major attention to the transmission, minor engine work, and a lot of work
to the suspension bushes. Another with similar history, but done at a
'cheaper' garage (about half the cost) clearly needed a lot of the work
redone and a respray was bubbling away after barely two years.
>Sorry, Practical Classics is not online.
>>
But you can buy back issues from the publishers.
>>> As far as corrosion goes, the vehicle is not too bad (but remember the
>>> bodies were made by Pressed Steel Fisher
>
>Shadow and Spirit bodies were initially made at Pressed Steel Fisher in
>Swindon, now at Rover Cowley - but always under strict RR supervision.
>The fact of the matter is that no-one in the automotive industry paid
>enough attention in those days to electrochemical ("battery effect")
>corrosion. Once RR fully understood the problem, they fixed it. Later
>Shadows and Spirits are galved where it counts, which with typical RR
>caution means almost the whole body is galved.
>
Pressed Steel Fisher was at Cowley, now at Swindon, but for about the last
year, the panelwork has been made by one of the parent company's other
subsidiaries (sorry, cannot remember the name).
There is a fascinating paper of some years ago about how the cars were
protected, it is called something like 'The History of a Dimension'.
Hope the search is going well.
George
'We must aim at the fixing of standards in order to face the problem of
perfection'
Charles-=C9douard Jeannerat
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Dr. George Mowat-Brown, Tel & Fax.: +44 (0)181 580 8430
High Point,
13 Borough Road, e-mail: geomowat@vossnet.co.uk
Isleworth,
Middlesex, (University e-mail:
TW7 5DY, g.mowat-brown@surrey.ac.uk)
UK.
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