Red | Diesel is for tractors

What? another new illness? Yes, well, maybe.

Tell me more!

Its something that plagues a huge number of the worlds population, in a variety of guises. Its been around a long time, but I’ve yet to find its true name, so let me discribe it to you and ask yourself if you possibly have it too.

It probably started for me when I was about 6 years old. My father allowed me to steer the car on a private road. I don’t know if it was an airborne illness or something that resulted after touching the cars controls, but that was when it began.

The next batch of symptoms were not noticed by family as anything abnormal. Posters began to appear on the walls of my room, mostly of Italian exotica. Toys were replaced with scale models. The tv shows I watched began to change from regular cartoons to ones with cars, examples such as Transformers & MASK, to anything that featured an engine – Night Rider, Steet Hawk, Magnum P.I, Airwolf, Automan, Hardcastle & McCormick, Miami Vice(although the parents didn’t know!) Dukes of Hazzard and the A-Team. There were more but I can’t remember the names.

Then it got worse. I started to go to local Rally events. My parents must have simply not wanted to admit I had this sickness, because the signs had become obvious. The sound of the neighbour starting his Sierra Cosworth. It drove all the other locals crazy, but I couldn’t get enough. Lying in bed at night as the same car would return from a night out, I could hear it approach from miles away. Each downshift, the gentle increase and decrease of revs while cornering, to the roar on the straights.

Sunday sports tv was replaced with F1. The collection of mags left in the house by my uncle we raided. I hit the jackpot…. mountains of issues of CAR magazine.

I started to watch, actually study, my Dad as he drove. I wanted to as good as he was. I listened to any conversation that had the slightest hint of petrol, hoping for tips or just cool car stories.

I would identify the make and model of every car I would see, thankfully all this was kept in my mind as I’m sure those around me would have had me committed. Instead of being angry when I spotted a car I didn’t know, I was delighted. It meant I had to go researching! All this in the days before the interwebs, it meant visiting the library, the newsagent and actually talking to people, face to face.

But things took a turn for the worse when a certain red beast, with “2 roundy triangles” under the bonnet, arrived from the land of the rising sun. Then the sickness turned into its most destructive form. Financial stage 3 sickness. First it was the initial cost of the car. Then the shipping and freight insurance. Then the flights to the UK to collect it and ferry back. The duty, the VRT, the insurance, the fuel. The large bill for the rebuild, the various bits and pieces it needed along the way. Then came the mods.

Oh the mods…… its by now that if you aren’t nodding with me, you are probably safe and disease free. So go away. If on the other hand, your smiling, knowing what its like to suffer, read on.

I find myself turning on the pc and immediately checking car sales sites & parts sites. Not just in Ireland, no, that would be too easy and probably not cost enough. Nope, the internet is a global market place, so I must use it to the full, along with my ever dwindling bank account. But its ok, I have an understanding woman in my life. She knows I have inner demons, which torment me, daily, hourly. She can read my body language from the other side of the room. She knows, really knows, when I have located the NEXT car. Or worse, when I have located that rare part, for the rare car, that I DON’T own….yet. Oh yes, B, you are a truly understanding woman and I am blessed to have you in my life.

What she doesn’t realise, is that I have slowly, over many years, been trying to nuture this disease in her also. Wicked? Wrong? Disgusting? Evil? yes, probably. But I know that if we both suffer the same sickness that it will ultimately bring us even closer together. When will I stop? When the day comes that she wakes me up, saying “I’ve just changed the injectors on my car and fitted the uprated fuel pump. Want to go for a spin to test it out?”

Any day now!

Thank you Dad for this sickness, and to my Mum for understanding, it has come to define me and is a part of my soul now, I’ll forever be grateful.

Moving

Imagine owning a mint Mk1 Ford Escort…. now imagine saying goodbye to it, seeing it drive away and knowing the cash was going toward helping to restore another car. At this stage, some of you are probably thinking “was he mad!?” while others are wondering “what car was he restoring!”, “must have been pretty special?” – read on.

Allow me to introduce my friend Mark and his Delta, in the first article of many(I hope).

Mark is a regular at the local Cars & Coffee, and has been since day one. This stunning example of pure Italian automotive scorcery, first found a home in Germany, back in April of 1994. Just three years later, she was purchased by a UK based specialist car importer(oakfields.com) and introduced to its new owner, a Doctor in Hamshire. It was to remain in his care until 2005, when he traded it back to Oakfields.

This is where Mark enters the scene. The car was purchased and brought back to Ireland. The journey back home with the Delta must have been an exciting drive. Mark used the car for the rest of the year, only to stop to give her a chance to avoid the grip of winter.

Once March arrived, the Lancia once again saw sunlight, but it was to be short lived. The head gasket obviously liked the idea of hibernation and didn’t want to work properly just yet.

The previous owner had left her parked under a tree for quite some time before moving her on. As we all know, mother nature can be a jealous lady, and she took it out on the Giugiaro penned beauty. The birds in the trees probably used it for target practice too.

Oakfields treated it to a good respray prior to selling it to Mark, but for this car, good simply isn’t good enough. It had to be perfect, it was to be given the VIP treatment, only befitting of such an Itailian Super Model. This meant only one thing – total restoration. Unfortunately for Mark, the fabulous bubble arched Mk1 Escort had to be sold to fund the work. But it would be worth it.

Many days spent in prep work, before she received numerous layers of lucious red paint. This was followed by hours spent machine polishing, with the end result being a finish that would have been the thing of dreams at the Lancia factory. Paint so deep you could swim in it.

The front seats were in a sorry state, but thankfully the rears looked like they were never used. So, the investigative work began and the source of the material was located, surprise surprise, in Italy. Thankfully they still had the exact fabric in stock. One slight problem though, it wouldn’t be perforated. Material located, next stop, Germany. A firm there had the ability to replicate the perforation pattern exactly. Excellent!

So, next task was getting the fabric applied to the seats. The firm in Germany wouldn’t do this, but a company in the UK were entrusted with the task. The pair of reclining buckets were dispatched to the UK, and the material was shipped from Germany. The seats were professionally reskinned and shipped back to Ireland to be reunited with the Delta.

The mechanicals were given the same level of care and attention to detail, with any issues being addressed and the block and all ancillaries brought back to full health. “The engine bay is not a good place to drop a socket” – sounds like the couple of skint knuckles were the result of some under the hood fishing!

So, after all the attention now being given to the Lancia, surely it would be locked away in storage, watching the value rise, as so many are?

Not a chance! This one is being enjoyed, driven as it should be – hard! Mark has a truly fantastic machine now, one which provides a much needed burst of colour and sunshine when the grey skies and government are doing their best to drown the country in gloom. I hadn’t seen a Delta up close until Mark came along to the Cars & Coffee meeting, but the look on everyones face was priceless and the memory will stay with us forever. The sound, the paintwork, the shape. Stunning doesn’t come close. Thank you Mark!