Building a V8 fastback Neville Higgins

 This narrative came from somewhere, including some pictures,
It somehow became corrupted.
I have recovered the text only and cleaned it up to read slightly better.
The recovered file had all sorts of extra line breaks and gaps making it difficult to read.

This is my sort of project as evidenced by posts in this Blog

If any reader knows of the original article or of the current location of this car could they please advise.
DR Go ogle cannot find any references other than the ones in my Blog, perhaps I am not asking the questions properly :-)

His Vincent motorcycles are now with the Vincent historical folk

https://www.vincentownersclub.co.uk/threads/neville-higgins-machines.19024/

https://www.vincentownersclub.co.uk/threads/neville-higgins.8397/

Enjoy :-)

 

BUILDING A V8 FASTBACK RAPIER by Neville Higgins
PART ONE: EARLY DAYS
After spending three years from 1953 to 1957 working on 37 litre supercharged V12 Rolls-Royce engines, as an engine fitter in the Royal Air Force, my industrial working life started at Armstrong Siddeley Motors in 1957. I worked, not on cars, but on Sapphire jet engines, designing and installing the seemingly miles of pipe systems jet engines require. Later in 1958 I moved to Hawker -Siddeley Aircraft, working on all sorts of mechanical design in the works engineers office.
My major free time interests were motor cycling, rock climbing in northern Scotland, and photography. After 35Occ and 65Occ BSA'S, in 1957 I bought art almost new 1000cc Vincent Black Prince (the enclosed Shadow model) and the combination of high speed touring, hill walking, and rock climbing produced many enjoyable holidays in Scotland. A planned round the world tour by motor cycle was abandoned in 1960 in favour of going racing in sprints and speed hill climbs. A 1948 Series B Vincent Rapide was reworked in a major way and I had considerable success in my first competition season in 1961. In 1963 I built and ran a supercharged 1000cc Vincent dragster in quarter mile events, getting down to 10.2 sec and 145 mph in the standing quarter.
Transportation for these hairy machines was a 15 cwt Austin van which crisscrossed the country in all directions at wide open throttle! My first thoughts of big V8's were born as I sat there urging the old thing on to greater speeds.
In the middle sixties I moved first to Triumph motor cycles, then to Rootes, on engine design work. At this time Leo Kuzmiki, ex-Norton ex-Vanwall engine designer, who was responsible for the light alloy Imp engine, was head of Powertrain design and development, and he said to me "Motor cycle boys are usually good on cylinder head porting, so take a look at the Alpine head and see if you can get anything more out of it without incurring any major tooling costs. It is already pretty well developed, so don't be disappointed if you cannot do anything."
After considerable head scratching I came up with new port shapes, and minor modifications to the combustion chamber, valves and valve seats. Subsequent testing showed, to my delight, that every change I had recommended gave an improvement, and that the greatest improvement was attained with a combination of all my changes. Power was slightly improved all the way up, with a major improvement in torque below 1500 rpm, probably due to my radiused valves and valve seats. As is so often the case, nothing further was done. However, when a year or two later, Holbay came up with their first version of the Holbay Rapier engine this was found to be-altogether too rough and "cammy" to be acceptable for a production engine, so they were given copies of my drawings.
They incorporated nearly all my ideas, and together with a more civilised cam this became the production Holbay Rapier. So my work was not entirely wasted although Holbay got the credit for it! Not long after the Tiger 2 was announced Rootes got into financial trouble and was bought up by Chrysler (hope it wasn't my fault!). We then heard that Chrysler’s reaction was "We don't build cars with Ford engines here" and the Tiger line was stopped. Next news was that 160 or so left-over Ford 289's were to be sold off! A friend at Rootes who owned a Tiger 2, and I immediately expressed strong interest, but it was to take something like 9 months before Rootes could make up their minds on how, to whom, and at what price they were to be sold. It was during these months that many different ideas were examined and my plans were finally crystallised.
The first idea was to put a 289 in one of the Commer 15 cwt vans, and I started putting out feelers to Bedford to obtain some chassis front end drawings to see if an installation was feasible. However, before these came to fruition the annual office party took place and being one of the less drunken members, I was elected honorary, unpaid, transport driver. Guess what the transport was? A Commer 15 cwt 12 seater van! This was my first drive in one, and the steering felt as if it was coupled through a blancmange! To add to my pleasure it rolled like a drunken sailor on every curve, and I immediately realised that installing a big V8 would make life a lot more dangerous than riding a 130 HP motor cycle dragster at 170 mph in standing kilometre events!
At this stage prototype fastback Rapiers were already running, but they were rough, black, slab-sided, and very ugly without the stainless steel sill finishers which were added for production. My reaction was "I don't like those!" until the first pre-production prototype arrived. Then my eyes popped out on stalks and the decision was made for me- my future competition transport just had to be a Rapier with a tow-hook on the back and a 289 under the bonnet! Drawings were of course, available in the office and my investigations could start at once.
During this time Richard Manning, the Tiger man, and I kept on chasing the V8's but again and again the reply was "it's still not decided, but we're going to sell them." However, it did seem by now a fairly safe bet that we would eventually get hold of an engine each.
Enquires among those who had sometime worked on the Tiger project indicated that there had been some engine installation drawings once, and an extended search in the drawing stores unearthed them.
The copies were tough to handle- a yard and a half high by three or four yards long! Laying these under the Arrow (Rapier) chassis front end drawings showed up a number of problem areas, but it seemed as if these could be overcome with a bit of ingenuity so design and drawing work was commenced in earnest. It was now time to instigate enquires into obtaining a Rapier body, but this was to prove much more troublesome even than getting hold of an engine. I started by asking at the local spare parts agent- where Rootes employees could obtain a 25% discount on parts for their own Rootes cars on production of a special card. Accompanied by the horrified sucking of breath I was told that they could not possibly supply a body- I should try the main Rootes Parts distributors in Birmingham. Here, the only man who could do anything was away for a week or more on holiday or conference or something, so I had to wait patiently until he returned. Even then it took days of telephone chasing to get hold of him- only to be told that he wasn't the right man for that job at all- I should speak to so-and-so, who was unfortunately away at the moment! And so the process went on- and the weeks went by, while I went round in a big circle until I came back to the man I had started from! The second round started, with me pushing a bit harder until I fought my way up to the Managing Director of Rootes Parts. After the usual delaying tactics- "Give me a few days to look into it" away at a conference, etc etc, he finally told me that the only circumstances they could sell a body-in-white (that is an unpainted, untrimmed bodyshell) was if a customers' car had been so badly crashed that the body was a write-off. A proper dealer could then order a replacement body-in-white to rebuild the car for him, but this idea could not under any circumstances be stretched far enough to sell a body to a troublesome jerk like me. So would I please go away and not trouble him any more! Meanwhile the weeks were racing away, and my design studies were coming along quite nicely. News came along that engine sales were imminent, and that the cost would probably be around 150 pounds each, but that Rootes was still looking for a tax kick-back on engines that were to be re-exported. A few more weeks, and suddenly a phone call to say that the majority of the engines had been bought by a wholesaler with a big warehouse in Holland, but that the odd leftovers from already opened packing-cases were to be sold off locally at the fantastic price of 50 pounds each! My immediate reaction was to ask "Please can I buy two," and the answer was "Yes"!
Within a couple of days Tiger Tim Manning and I were off to Birmingham to the old Jensen factory, to collect the goodies in my old van. The warehouse was like an Aladdin’s  cave with engines, gearboxes, accessories, and spare parts in mountains all over the place. The man organising the sale showed us which engines we could take, and then said "Over in these packing cases are the gearboxes and all the other parts you need, and over here are some spare parts which are to be scrapped, so except for the spare sumps which Rootes Parts want, you can help yourselves! What an invitation! The engines were bare- and heavy! but we managed to get a man with a fork-lift truck to load three of them into my van which we drove into the warehouse. The poor old van gave a loud groan and sank to its knees, but there was still some space inside so we started on sorting out all the other parts which were needed. Water pumps, exhaust manifolds, clutches, bell-housings, starters, generators, distributors, carburettors, gearboxes, gear change parts, propshaft drive-yokes, and masses of small parts. There was case after case of nuts and screws etc which were obviously necessary to screw it all together, but we didn’t know what we needed, and in any case we just ran out of time! The very helpful sales organiser said "Never mind, I have to be back here again in two days time so you can came over again and sort out the rest then." We jumped into the old van and staggered off from Birmingham to return to Coventry, with the front wheels hardly touching the ground and the rear end almost dragging on the road. on arrival at Manning's place there were two of us to off-load his engine so it went fairly well, but after driving down to Gloucester (my parents home, where I had my workshop, and built the car) I had to man-handle my two engines off the van and round to the workshop on my own. We tried to make up a list of all the bits we needed to screw the engines together but this proved impracticable, so when we returned to Birmingham the next week we took plastic bags and boxes with us and just took a few of everything to be on the safe side! With an engine organised it became even more important to get some sort of grip on the body situation. It began to seem as if the only way out would be to buy a brand new car, tear it to bits, and throw away all the mechanical parts which were at least half the total value. In reality this was not a practical proposition, because I was still running a fairly full motorcycle racing programme, which cost a lot of money, so I simply didn't have the 1400 pounds with which to buy a new car.
I talked to a couple of the senior managers on the design side at the Stoke factory where I worked, but they had no more success with Rootes Parts than I had. At this time all design work was still done at Stoke where the engine production factory was, but final assembly was done out at Ryton, on the outskirts of Coventry Engine designers seldom had cause to visit Ryton, and I had never been there myself since Arrow production started, so I contacted our liaison engineer and got him to take me over and show me the new lines one day. He was able to tell me that all the standard Hillman, Singer, and Humber bodies went down a body trim line before being lifted over to the final assembly line for assembly of the mechanical parts, and the body-drop on to the ready laid out drive-line.
Unfortunately, there was no Rapier on the assembly line that day but he was able to tell me that the Rapier body shell was so different from the rest of the range that they were built completely separately down at the Pressed Steel factory at Abingdon near Oxford. He then showed me a body "as delivered" from Pressed Steel and ready to go on final assembly. HOLY SMOKE!! this was exactly the configuration I wanted- fully painted, almost fully trimmed, with carpets, seats, windows and wiring harness all fitted, but without any mechanicals at all, no lamps, no heater unit, and no instrument panel. HOW COULD I GET ONE OF THESE? Nobody could tell me, so I went the rounds of Rootes Parts and all the other contacts again- but with the same negative results.
After another week of depression I suddenly had a brainwave. Could there possibly be a part number for a Rapier body as it was delivered from Pressed Steel to Ryton? A few enquires soon found the body designer responsible for this stage and for contacts with Pressed Steel, and "Yes" there was a part number for each colour and different type. Asked if it could be possible to order such a body privately, he said "I really wouldn't think so, but we can “ask so-and-so down at Abingdon."  He phoned, and the surprising reply was "Yes sure, how many would you like?" Apparently Pressed Steel had plenty of capacity and only wanted to sell more bodies.
Thus I had only to decide what colour I wanted (Sherwood Green Metallic) get the part number, ring my contact to ask about the price, and place an official written order. With regard to price I was told "Somewhere between 450 and 500 pounds." He was very apologetic that he would be unable to give me the full 25% Rootes employees' discount as his margins were so small. When it finally came to the crunch my brand new body cost me only 359 pounds and 2 shillings!
As my motorcycle workshop was not big enough for a car I had to work outside, -and I prepared an area at the far end of my parents' house by laying paving slabs, moving out an old, heavy, workbench, and buying and erecting steelwork to form a runway for a lifting block to handle the engine and the body. I also bought a large reinforced plastic sheet to cover everything over.
At the beginning of June I had a call to say that my body was ready for collection, so I borrowed a trailer and a car to tow it with, and off to Oxford one day to get it. It was lifted onto the trailer by fork-lift truck at Pressed Steel of course, but I had considerably more trouble in getting it off on my own in much more cramped circumstances! I reversed the trailer into place, jacked up the body rear end until I could rest it on a strong plank placed on oil drums on each side, then lifted the front end with my lifting block and carefully drew the trailer out from under it. A bit more juggling and I had the body resting safely on four oil drums and covered over for the next month.
It so happened that I had, a long time previously, arranged to go on a touring holiday to Greece with three companions from Rootes. We travelled in a Singer Vogue automatic, mostly camping but staying also in a few hotels, and had a truly wonderful holiday, seeing many of the marvellous relics of ancient Greek history, and getting on famously with the Greek people we met. At that time one was only allowed to take 50 pounds out of England on holiday, plus an extra 25 pounds for the car, but I've never enjoyed myself more at any price. And all the time I was away I had the thought of my Rapier body waiting at home for me to start work on it as soon as I returned!

BUILDING A V8 FASTBACK RAPIER by Neville Higgins
PART TWO: DESIGN WORK
My original idea in building a special was to produce something which would go much better than the average standard vehicle available at that time, without really looking out of the ordinary It should be a "Q-car" which would cruise quietly and comfortably on the road, hauling a trailer full of motorcycles and racing gear when required, and even be capable, after some expensive engine tuning, of being driven in the unlimited sports car class in speed hill-climb events. In my early speed hill climb years it was often touch-and-go between me and the fastest of the cars as to who could put up fastest time of the day, so I had many friends among the sports car boys, and it would have been fun to try giving them a run for their money in a car as well! After a few years, the unlimited racing car class was using big V8's, DFV'S, and sixteen inch wide tyres, and then I could no longer stay with then.
With these requirements in mind, there were many different design angles and compromises to be considered and juggled. It may be a good idea to list them up here to get a better overall view of the scope of the job to be undertaken.
A: Is engine installation possible?
This first question had been answered in the affirmative by MY first quick feasibility study in laying a Ford V8 layout drawing under an Arrow front end layout.
B Engine Installation
1. Engine position- fore and aft on vehicle centre line?
2. Drive line angles
3. Engine mountings
4. Bell housing clearance
5. Sump to steering clearance
6. Water pump to radiator clearance
C Gearbox
1. Clearance under tunnel
2. Gear change position
3. Rear mounts
4. Driveline angle
D Rear Axle
1. Must give same rear track as standard Arrow axle
2. Must accept same wheels and brakes
3. Must suit Arrow rear springs
4. Provision for traction bars
5. Provision for watts linkage
6. Prop-shaft angles
E Suspension
1. Should be as near standard as possible
2. Uprating and strengthening
F Body
1. Modifications to clear engine and gearbox
2. Stiffening and strengthening of front end
3. Modifications for traction Bars and watts linkage
4. Move battery to luggage boot
G Propellor shaft
1. Length and diameter
2. Centre bearing or one-piece?
If we now take a look at each point in a little more detail we should begin to get an idea of the jobs to be tackled:

B: ENGINE INSTALLATION
1 Major considerations here are that, with an engine weighing over 400 lbs instead of 200, it is important for correct weight distribution to move the engine back as far as possible, but the rear of the block must still clear the firewall and the clutch bell-housing must fit in the transmission tunnel. The Tiger engine has an oil sump which is deep at the front, so to avoid major hanges to the oil system, this should also clear the front cross-member and steering.
Here I should perhaps explain that vehicles are drawn using a three-dimensional reference grid system to simplify the location of components, and that the zero point for this system is the intersection of the plane of the rear block face with the crank-shaft centre line. The location of this point is the most important criterion for a drive-line installation, which is then further located by the lateral position of the crankshaft centre line in plan view, and finally by the angle of the crankshaft centre line in side view. With a symmetrical engine like a V8 and a rear axle input on the vehicle centre line the obvious choice is to position the engine on the CL. However, before deciding the engine installation angle in side view, we must also consider the propeller shaft angles.
2 At first sight one might expect the ideal to be a normal load installation with gearbox, propshaft, and axle in a straight line, but in practise this is not so, I was told. The reason is that if the spider joints run at a zero angle all the time the races "Brinell" or impact from the action of the rollers. To avoid this the joints are best run at a small angle of about three degrees. This however, gives rise to small variations in speed each revolution, which can cause vibration. The solution is to set the angles at the front and rear ends of the propshaft in opposite directions, thus attaining fluctuationless rotation of both engine and rear axle together. Only the propshaft tube itself is then subject to rotational variations, which is acceptable.
3 The engine mounts would be based on the standard Arrow front cross-member, but would need considerable modification to suit the mount positions on the Tiger engine, and probably some strengthening as well.
4 With a 10" clutch instead of the standard Arrow one, clearance for the bell-housing was a major problem wherever the engine was positioned. Tunnel surgery would be necessary but it seemed to be possible to retain the standard heater packet position, even after considerable modification to the tunnel and floor.
5 With the engine set as far back as possible the sump would still clear the front of the cross-member and the track-rod which lies behind it. otherwise the steering column and steering box posed no direct problems for the engine installation, but room to fit a competition type exhaust system would obviously be a major headache-which I would try to solve at a later date, in practise, rather than on paper.
6 Even with the engine as far back as possible there was a foul of several inches between the fan and water pump shaft, and a radiator in the standard position. However, it appeared possible to modify and shorten the water pump pulley and fan shaft considerably, and there was room to move the radiator forward by 2 to 3 inches, so this problem could also be overcome.

C: GEARBOX
1 The gearbox body itself appeared to clear the transmission tunnel quite nicely, but unfortunately the gearchange mechanism is external on the Ford T10 box, and lies on the left-hand side where it would foul the tunnel. This would require the side of the tunnel to be moved out about an inch to clear it.
2 The left-hand gearchange, with the engine set back almost under the scuttle, positioned the
gearchange correctly for a LHD Tiger, but in my case the gear stick would land too far forward, and too
far to the left for a RHD car. Considerable gearchange surgery would be necessary here.
3 The gearbox rear mount lay a long way behind the normal Arrow mount positions on the body, so a completely new rear cross member would be needed, and new mounting positions would have to be built in to the body.
4 The driveline angle and position were now considerably nearer to being finalised, but the rear axleposition still had to be taken into consideration
.
D: REAR AXLE
1 A specification check showed the Tiger to have the same rear axle track as the Rapier, and internal contacts indicated that the Competition Department might have a used axle lying around from the old Tiger rallying days, so a visit to Des O'Dell was arranged and after a few minutes discussion I came away five pounds lighter in cash and many pounds heavier in iron! It turned out that they also had a spare, monster three-row radiator from a rally Tiger so I bought that too.
2 But, but, but--when I got my bargain axle home and measured up across the axle flanges, compared with the Arrow axle, and then compared the wheel insets and brakes, there were very major differences!

3 The Tiger spring mounts were also different from the Rapier ones so a major rethink and a lot of head scratching was required!

4 and 5 The mounting of traction bars and a Watts linkage to fully locate the axle suitably for competition work obviously had to be done from scratch, whatever axle I decided to use. Special brackets would have to be welded on to the axle casing, and, a much more difficult problem, incorporated into the body.

6 The axle position was already fixed by the standard rear springs, but the nose angle would be dictated by drive-line angle considerations. This would then decide the installation angles for the spring and traction bar brackets.

E: SUSPENSION
1 As far as possible both front and rear suspensions would be kept standard. By using a basically standard front cross member, the standard bottom radius arms and brake reaction rods could be used,
and I found that special McPherson struts with heavy duty export springs and dampers, and the stronger
Holbay Rapier stub axles could be bought complete from the Competition Dept, so I ordered a pair. The
new front end weight was very roughly estimated, and a quick calculation from the spring rates indicated
a ride height somewhere between standard and about an inch lower than standard. This seemed
acceptable as a start.
Another available heavy duty export part was a cross brace between the tops of the strut towers and the
firewall, so this was also used.

2 Since the rear end weight was not estimated to increase very appreciably, standard springs, which would give a slightly lower than standard ride height were taken as a kick-off point.

F: BODY MODIFICATIONS
1 Engine clearance. As already discussed, the engine would go into the engine bay without major alterations. The battery platform needed to be removed to clear the alternator.
As with most V8's, the connecting rods work side by side on a common crankpin on the Ford, and this means that the left hand cylinder bank is offset slightly rearwards from the front one. To place the engine as far back as possible the firewall behind the left bank could be "dinged" back nearly an inch to clear it, without requiring any alteration to the heater unit which lay directly behind it.
Gearbox clearance. This was a major job, and an estimate of the size and location of the panels to be cut out and modified was made. Again it appeared that the standard heater unit position could be retained, so final details could be worked out in practise, during an engine and gearbox try-in.

2 With somewhere near 3001bs of extra weight, mostly on the front end, I was considerably worried about having sufficient strength in the front end of the chassis. Close examination of a production car showed that the stress path for engine weight was from the chassis member where the front cross-member bolted to it, via the inner wing panel, to the top of the strut. Light stiffener panels, in front of, and behind the strut, were spot-welded to the inner wing panel, but not attached directly to the chassis member at the bottom, which seemed to be a weak point. Since I was not smart enough to do a proper stress calculation for this area, I decided to strengthen it up considerably for safety. This would take the form of extra stiffener panels, welded all round to the originals, and 16swg (1.6mm) steel reinforcing plates to wrap round the chassis members and weld to the inner wing panel and the firewall.

3 Traction bar attachments. The major problem here was finding a place to get them in, which would firstly, not fight with the rear springs, and secondly, not intrude into the rear seat area!
The Watts linkage would require brackets below the rear chassis members to anchor the links. These must be strong enough to resist the forces from say, sliding sideways into a kerb, but still leave room for the spare wheel and a large, double exhaust system of 2in diameter.

4 The battery had to be moved to the boot, but installation of a suitable mounting platform on the right hand side could be arranged.

G: PROPELLOR SHAFT
1 Design of the prop-shaft could not be finalised before the engine location was finally fixed, but as the V8 and T10 gearbox were much longer than the standard set-up, and also moved rear-wards, the question arose of whether the prop-shaft needed to be of the original two-piece type, with a centre bearing, or whether a single piece shaft would be adequate. A look at the Tiger prop-shaft showed it to be very short indeed, and therefore of quite a small diameter. Consultation with our rear axle design chief provided help with whirl calculations which showed the Tiger shaft diameter to be completely inadequate for the approximate length I would require, but that a 3in diameter one-piece shaft would be safe up to over 7000 rpm, which was high enough for any engine tune I envisaged, even for hill climb competition work. At this point I felt that I had taken a good look at all the serious problems, and had a fair idea of how to tackle them. The next stage was to solve the rear axle problem so that the drive line position could be finalised, and detail drawing work started.
I therefore contacted Salisbury axles, and presented my problem to our contact man, asking if there was any standard axle available which would do the job. I then had to submit a sketch giving the main dimensions, and a rough specification so that a check could be made. It took quite a while to get them started, but eventually they said that there was a similar axle used on an old Aston Martin, which had the same distance across the brake flanges. After some persuading they agreed that it would be possible to produce one of these completely devoid of external brackets for me, so I ordered one. By contacting the supplier, I got a pair of standard spring brackets sent in to Rootes for me, ready to weld onto the axle. With this information I could at last finalise my drive-line angles, and settle the engine position. The maximum rearward move of the rear block face which I could accommodate was 3.17", and I was also able to drop the crankshaft centre line downwards by 1.52" without compromising ground clearance too much. This eased problems in the transmission tunnel area, and gave extra room above the engine for any later tuning work on inlet manifolds and carburettors, or fuel injection systems. Being able to move the engine so far rearwards and downwards was a great help in keeping the centre of gravity of the whole vehicle in the right place. Having fixed the engine position, I could start detailing the engine mounts. Since the 289 is a very short stroke engine (bore 4" and stroke 2.87") this means that the block, though very compact, is rather long.
Thus the mount positions on the block lay 3.32" further forward than those on the standard cross member. If a simple adaptor structure was welded on to the cross member there would be a large torque exerted on the cross member by the weight of the engine ahead of it, so I designed in an extra fixing point by means of a piece of square tube which could be bolted to the chassis via a long through bolt. This in turn required a piece of tube to be welded through the chassis member so that the bolt would not crush it. I would then have three bolts on each side mounting the cross member to the chassis, all of them passing through my extra chassis stiffening plates. The rear cross member, supporting the gearbox, was designed from scratch, using light channel section, and the body would need extra mounting points welded in for it. An extra front cross brace in light tube was also designed to bolt across the two sides of the tunnel under the gearbox to prevent body boom, which can often be caused by vibration of the tunnel sides.
By now I felt that all the major front end problems were under control, and though many small points would have to be sorted out in practise, I was ready to start the physical part of production at the front, while detail design work on the rear end could continue at the same time.

BUILDING A V8 FASTBACK RAPIER by Neville Higgins
PART THREE: CUTTING METAL!
After my return from our holiday in Greece began one of the busiest 15 month periods of my life. During the weekends I worked absolutely full time at cutting, bending, and welding on the Rapier body, with a notebook beside me- not for writing articles later! -but to note down spare parts to be bought during the following week, to make sketches and measurements for special parts to be drawn, and for small parts to be made. My lunch hours at work, and an occasional extra hour or two after work were spent laying out and detailing the rear suspension and driveline on the drawing board, and all my evenings were devoted to the making or machining of small parts or assemblies in the garages or workshops of various friends in or around Coventry, so that they would be ready for fitting during the following weekend. There was literally so much work to do on every side that one hardly knew where to begin, and to avoid serious hold- ups for lack of material it was essential to plan well ahead so that all the parts needed could be ordered in good time.
On the first weekend after my Greek holiday the first thing to be done was to remove the cover from my new body shell and gloat over it for a while, after all the hard work in obtaining it! Next I removed the bonnet, and as it was obvious that I could not even try the engine in place without removing the battery platform, I got out my hammer and cold chisel and started blasting away at my brand new body. It was such a strange sensation to be standing in the middle of the engine bay, looking out over the garden with my mother tending the flowers, and chiselling lumps off a brand new body, that I can still remember the feeling clearly now, twenty years later!
Next I made up a lifting device for the engine, by welding legs on to a piece of 2 inch tube with a lifting eye on it, so that I could slide the hook back and fore over the engine, to tilt it as required to get it down into the engine bay. The engine was rolled out of the workshop, the gearbox and lifting eye bolted on, and up in the air it went ready to be lowered into place. Here I hit the first snag! No matter how I tilted and wangled the unit, it was too long to be angled down into the available length in the engine bay. However I had half expected this, so it was down with the engine again, unbolt the gearbox, and this time the engine dropped into the right place as it should.
A confident Higgins then laid himself down on his sleeper trolley with the gearbox on his chest, and scrambled underneath to lift the gearbox into place. Five minutes later Higgins still lay there, utterly exhausted, with the gearbox beside him. The damn thing was so heavy that it was physically impossible to lift it up into place! Higgins crawls out for a heavy thinking session.
Where there's a will there's a way. It was out with the engine again, bolt on the gearbox, and lift the assembly on to an old door (which just happened to be handy!) stood on log rollers, and then lift the front end of the body a couple of feet so that the engine unit could be rolled into the right position underneath, then lower the body down on to the oil drums again and lift the engine up into place at last!
With the engine hanging in the correct position I was then able to mark out the fouls over the bell housing, clearance for the gear change, and the position for the rear cross-member mounting pads to be welded on, and compare them all with my layout drawings Everything corresponded encouragingly.
During the following week I completed the front cross-member, which had already been started. I bought a standard cross-member, cut off the standard motor mounts, bent up my own mounts from 16 s.w.g.(1.6mm) mild steel plate, and welded them in place. The first attempt went wrong and it had to be done again from scratch, but at last all the dimensions checked correctly against the drawing! The problem was that it was compound angles in every direction, and very difficult to draw out in a developed view, and even more difficult to bend up correctly. The strengthening piece of square tube was welded in at the front, and can be seen in the picture showing the engine unit sitting on the cross-member. (Part I of the article)
Before the engine/ gearbox unit could be correctly positioned a great deal of cutting work had to be done to obtain the necessary clearance. I first made two long vertical cuts, one on each side of the tunnel over the bell housing, and then joined them with a horizontal slice about mid-way down. This left me with a series of metal "flaps" which I could bend back out of the way, and later reweld into place again. The firewall was hammered back about an inch behind the left hand cylinder head, and all the external gear
change parts were removed so that the engine/ gearbox unit could be approximately positioned to mark out the necessary cut-outs on the tunnel. After remounting the driver's seat to determine where I wanted the gear change lever to be repositioned, I ended up cutting away the whole of the left side of the transmission tunnel plus a good deal of the top as well. This can be seen in the photograph.(no.3)
At last it was then possible to position the engine correctly and bolt up the front cross member temporarily, with blocks to support the gearbox. To suit me, the gear lever which was designed to suit the left hand drive Tiger installation, had to be tilted backwards and to the right. The mounting bracket was so hard that it was only just possible to cut it with a hacksaw! But after a lot of very hard work I finally had it welded up again in the right place, and the operating links modified to suit. This stage is shown in the picture.
The panel edges, and the cut away pieces, were bent and hammered into position to give the required clearance, and then the engine was removed so that the bits-could be welded into place again. The next two photos show, first, welding completed inside the car, and second, welding over the bell-housing.
(photos no.4 and 5)
The next stage was to reinforce the front end of the chassis for the extra weight it was to carry 16 and 18 swg (1.6 and 1.2mm) steel plate was cut and formed to fit round three sides of the main chassis members from the front of the engine mounts back to the firewall. These started from the bottom outside corner and wrapped round the inside, over the top, and then divided into tapered "fingers" stretching halfway up the inner wing panels to distribute the extra engine loads as evenly as possible. The two stiffener panels on the outer side of the inner wing panel were doubled up by welding a second pressing to the original and welding to my wrap-around stiffeners at the bottom. I then had a greatly strengthened stress path all the way from the engine mounting bolts up to the top of the McPherson strut tower. The tower would later be further braced to the firewall by bolting on the heavy duty export brace in the engine bay.
By the time I had reached this stage, some of the very first production Rapiers had accumulated up to 40,000 miles and the first problem had shown up. This was cracking in the chassis members where they joined the firewall. In production this was cured by welding a "flitch plate" on the inside of the chassis to stiffen it. My chassis was already reinforced in this area, but as an extra precaution, I added a small triangular gusset from the top of the chassis member to the firewall. With the engine correctly positioned the rear cross member could be made up in light channel section, and the necessary stiffeners and mounting pads welded in to the tunnel and floor.
The front suspension and steering gear were installed for a check, and here I met my first real mistake. The right hand lock stop on the track rod fouled on the bottom of the starter motor. I had missed this point on my installation checks, but was able to get round it by first cutting the top half off the lock stop, and then lifting the engine quarter of an inch with thick washers under the front engine mounts. Picture 6 shows this stage. Having now got over the "cut and weld" stage of engine installation, with the engine and gearbox correctly positioned, I bolted on the rear road springs and temporarily installed my Tiger rear axle to allow me to physically check the prop-shaft dimensions. Everything tallied correctly with my layout drawings, so the prop-shaft was detailed up and I zipped off to Birmingham one afternoon to leave the drawing and my order at Hardie-Spicer's. In a very short time my prop-shaft was ready for collection. The only major mechanical parts still missing were now wheels and the rear axle. I rang Salisbury's every few weeks to check up, but always got a very pleasant "Yes we'll have to get on to that for you!" in reply. With the engine installed, the next problem was to find enough space to fit a radiator! The ex-rally Tiger radiator I had was considerably bigger in all dimensions than the standard cooler, and offering it up into its' approximate position showed that I would be forced to cut away the rear half of the bonnet locking platform to make room for it. I therefore sketched up an altered platform and managed to get this folded up for me by a local plate workshop in Coventry, so that I could weld it in place the following weekend. This stage is shown in picture 7.
Before the radiator could be mounted there were two more jobs which had to be done. First the water pump and fan mounting had to be shortened by 0.75" to clear it. This was tricky, and the pump assembly had to be pressed apart to see how it could be done. I was able to cut a piece off the nose of the casting, and press the hardened steel shaft through towards the rear of the pump to avoid the need to cut it. This enabled me to position the fan drive flange to the rear, but to retain the same fan belt line, I then had to shorten the very long conical fan pulley by the same amount which was a tricky home welding job to position it to run true! The second job was to modify the radiator mounting brackets to suit the car- another tricky welding operation to avoid melting the radiator at the same time! The radiator could then be mounted and visits round various accessory suppliers produced some water hoses which could be cut to fit. At this stage I was becoming anxious about wheels and a rear axle. That week's phone call to Salisbury's stressed the seriousness of the situation, and they promised to take action, having an axle ready for me to collect within two or three weeks. I had haunted accessory shops and wheel makers for a long time, looking for a set of alloy wheels which I liked, without finding anything. Discussing the problem with various Rootes people, one of the testers remembered that they had once had a set of wide wheels made to test a set of 175x13 tyres. Unfortunately, these had rubbed on the rear wheel arches (eyebrows) during hard cornering, so the idea had to be abandoned. A search in the chassis stores revealed the wheels still lying there and I was able to buy them as scrap for one pound! Suddenly things were looking better again, and I was off to buy myself a set of 175x13 Cinturato tyres.
With all the other major front end parts in position, it was now time to think about an exhaust system. The 289 Ford engine was known to respond well to a proper system, instead of the very restrictive standard manifolds, and in view of my intentions for future tuning for speed hill climbs, I had decided to install a full set of headers with double collector boxes and a full length twin pipe system from the start one and five eights inch dia pipe (about 4lmm) was chosen for the individual headers, and I made several attempts to bend the steel tube myself- filling with sand etc. but in the end I was forced to admit defeat.
Since space was so restricted and the pipe runs so complicated, it was difficult to make satisfactory patterns to give to a pipe bender. Eventually I bought flexible convoluted plastic hose of the correct dia, bent and fixed it to the desired pipe runs in the car, plugged the bottom ends, and poured them full of plaster-of-paris to set them in position. They then had to be very carefully removed to avoid breaking them, and mounted onto wooden frames to support them and hold them in the correct positions for the exhaust ports and the collector box ends. These, together with a bundle of tube, were delivered to a little firm in Coventry which had previously made motor cycle pipes for me, and delivery was promised in two weeks. In the meantime I sweated buckets sawing, filing, and drilling to make up 8 individual exhaust port flanges.
As I was forced to work to pipe clearances down to 1/8" (3mm) in the engine bay, I could not expect my new pipes to fie straight away, and in fact a whole week of patient adjustment was needed before I could finally weld the flanges in place and bolt them on. To get them in at all, I had to run the front two pipes on each side of the engine alongside the block, and drop the number three and four pipes down under the ends of the cross member. They surrounded the starter motor on one side, and the steering box on the other, They were cut to obtain the same length (for tuning) by filling with the same volume of water to obtain the correct point. This left me with a bundle of ends protruding to different distances, but I took care of this by using one of Mickey Thompson’s ideas, which I had seen in Hot Rod magazine. He used long collector boxes into which the header pipes could protrude different distances, so I did the same. These, and the 2" bore Jaguar type silencers which I used, can be seen in photo number 8.
With the front pipes fitted, some temporary wiring made up, and a 5 litre can of fuel stood on top of the engine, it could now be test started in the car. A very noisy, but nevertheless pleasing moment!
The next job, before the engine bay could be painted after all the welding, was to get the brake and electrical systems sorted out, and decide where to mount all the brackets, the ignition coil and so on, so that the necessary weld nuts, holes, and plastic inserts could be fitted before painting. The engine and gearbox unit was dropped out, the pedal box, master cylinders, and servo were mounted and the front end brake pipes and fittings were made up and installed. The instrument panel was completed and wired-up as far as possible, then temporarily installed.
Since the 289 Ford alternator was on the opposite side of the engine to the Rootes one, and had a different charging system, a very major rehash of the engine bay wiring system was necessary, and I encountered a lot of problems in netting the charging system to work properly, and in particular, in making the alternator warning light function. I consulted one of our electricians in the experimental shop, and he suggested a particular voltage control unit, and gave me a wiring diagram for it. I dashed out to buy the bits, wired them up, and tried it- but no charge on the ammeter!
This continued for three weeks, until I had exhausted the available supply of Rootes voltage controls without any success. I was then forced to go back to basics and use my head instead! I Compared the Ford and Rootes wiring diagrams and charging systems in detail, and came to the conclusion that I should be able to use the standard Autolite voltage control wired into the Rootes system in a modified manner. This I did, and at last I had lots of lovely amperes galloping out of the alternator! The one remaining problem was that the warning light still didn't work. Again I had to go back to basics and work out my own particular solution, and wire it in via a small extra resistor- but then everything worked as it should. The wiring system and control gear were then positioned tidily and the harness was made up and bound before clipping in position. At last the engine bay was ready for painting, so it was out with the engine again, remove all the pipes and wiring, a final clean and rub down, and prime and paint in Sherwood green metallic.
During this time the exhaust headers had been shipped out for chrome plating and returned. The instrument panel, fascia, and controls were finished off, and then the engine unit and all its ancillaries could be finally installed, to look as in photo 11. The cooling system was connected up and filled with water, and the engine could be started normally on the key. This left two more problems to be dealt with- no drive to the rear, and a great blast of sound from the open collector boxes! We’ll leave these until the next instalment.

BUILDING A V8 FASTBACK RAPIER by Neville Higgins
PART FOUR: THE REAR END.
Before starting work on the rear end, there was one final job to be completed at the front. I doubted if the standard anti roll bar would be sufficient for my heavier V8 vehicle, so I drew up a new one in 15/16 inch (23.8mm) dia bar. After some searching, I found a firm in Birmingham which could supply the right material and bend it to my drawing, and it was ready to collect within a week. When I got it home I had a real fight, using my largest welding jet, to get the ends hot and soft enough to allow me to hammer them flat and bore holes in then for attachment of the pushrods from the lower suspension arms. Opening out the standard rubber bushes slightly allowed me to use the standard brackets for attachment to the chassis.
Since I was working in a comparatively restricted area it was necessary to turn the car round before I could work comfortably on the rear end. To do this the rear springs, the Tiger axle, the prop-shaft and the wheels had to be installed temporarily. The battery was lifted into the boot, and long cables to the engine were improvised, together with a gallon fuel can propped in the engine bay to feed the carb direct. The engine could then be started on open pipes to check that everything went round and round as it should do. The wheels turned the right way, but the first problem showed itself anyway, in that the clutch would not free! After some half hour's struggle, I determined that it was not the plates sticking as I thought, but the hydraulic system. Full pedal movement did not give enough pushrod movement to free the plates. Since I had started out with the simplest and most obvious combination, a Rapier master cylinder combined with a Tiger slave cylinder, I needed a set up to give a higher movement ratio. I therefore tried a Tiger master cylinder, which had a larger diameter, and then the clutch freed as it should, though operation felt a bit heavy. Then the car was lowered down on to its wheels, and could be reversed round, to back into my building position for work on the rear end. Picture 12 shows the car in front of the house during the turning round procedure. The battery cables can be seen hanging from the boot. During the later stages of front end assembly, my evenings and lunch hours in Coventry were busily engaged on design work on the rear suspension. one of the major problems here was finding room to position the traction bars and their anchorages correctly, so that they would not fight the natural swing of the axle dictated by the standard leaf springs. The standard set-up was drawn out full size, showing the rear chassis, the axle, and rear springs, and with some help from the rear axle and suspension expert, the virtual centre and the movement path of the axle determined by the standard springs were drawn in. To avoid "fight" between the springs and the traction bars, the length of the latter was determined by the distance from the axle centre line to the virtual movement centre. It was then a case of juggling the positions of the bar ends around, both on the axle, and on the chassis, to find a place to fit them in, while still maintaining the correct virtual centre. The positions found had first of all, to provide an anchorage strong enough to resist the considerable forces transmitted by the bars, and then had to allow ground clearance, and access for fitting and bolting up.
The virtual centre lay a few inches behind the roadspring front mounting point, and the bars must have an approximately parallelogram action to prevent axle wind-up and tramp. The bottom bar could be attached to a bracket welded under the main chassis member, so the main difficulty lay in finding a suitable anchorage on the body for the top bar. The ideal position lay up inside the rear seat squab, where it would jab the backsides of the rear seat passengers, but by moving the top bars as far from the vehicle centre line as possible I found a corner where three panels met, where I could cut a small hole to weld in a bracket which would be very strongly supported. The three panels were the rear seat back, the squab panel (floor) and the inner side panel. The brackets would still intrude into the seat squab area, but only at the extreme rear outside corners where they would not be felt by the passengers. The bottom brackets on the axle were positioned just inboard of the rear spring mounts, while the top ones were squeezed in directly above-the rear springs, where there was just room to weld the bracket in place between the U-bolts clamping the axle to the springs.
The curvature of the road springs and the action of the shackle actually causes the axle to tilt slightly as it moves up and down, and to avoid any "fight" with this natural movement the traction bars were designed to follow it. This was achieved by making the vertical centre distances between the traction bars slightly less at the front than on the axle. In fact this was an advantage for me, as it enabled me to lower the front end of the top bars by about half an inch, which meant just that much less intrusion into the rear seat squab for the anchorage points!
The axle could then be drawn up to position the spring pads and traction bar brackets, and all the details were drawn ready to be made. The brackets were bent and welded from 14 swg (2mm) steel ,plate, and the bars were made from 7/8in (22mm) dia tube with screw adjustable ends and small Metalastic rubber bushed eyes, to provide a little compliance, and to prevent axle and road noise being transmitted to the body.
The weekend following completion of all the brackets, I set up the axle on my little surface plate- very carefully levelled- and by dint of much juggling with straight edges, protractors, and spirit levels, positioned and clamped all the spring and traction bar brackets correctly, ready for welding, The wholething had to be very gingerly transported to Coventry in my old van, and when I left t for electric welding I got the sour comment "Looks like you're building a lorry, not a car, with this bloody great thing!"
The next job was to weld in the attachment brackets to the body, and this also involved some very tricky measuring up before cutting, as there was no room for mistakes! All went well, and at last I could hang the bars from the body, lift up the axle and rear S rings, and adjust the traction bars to the correct length prior to fit. Before bolting up I jacked the axle up and down through the full range of its movement, removing nd refitting the traction bar bolts at each stage to prove that there was no fight between them and the rear springs. Everything worked as it should and picture 13 shows the final set up. The Watts linkage system for sideways location of the rear axle was, of course, designed in at the same time as the traction bars, but could be mounted afterwards. The pivot for the centre link determines the height of the rear roll centre, which I decided to position on the axle centre line. The problem was that here there was only a light pressed steel cover which was not strong enough for the job. The Salisbury axle was built from a centre casting with separate axle tubes pressed and welded in on each side. The welding was not done where the tubes entered the casting (which would cause distortion of the tubes) but through a large hole in the casting. These two holes were the only place where I could get extra support for the link pivot, so I was forced to design a complicated set of stiffener ribs welded to the diff cover and to a pair of tube stubs which pressed into these holes when the cover was fitted. Not very easy to describe, but picture 14 shows the set up. On the left side you see the stiffened diff cover, with the centre link of the Watts system pivoted in the middle of it. The connecting links are not mounted.
The stiffening ribs support a large threaded boss in the centre of the cover into which was screwed a shouldered bolt, which was the pivot for the centre link. The latter was made from a turned boss on to which the side plates were pressed and brazed. The two horizontal links were similar to the traction bars, with rubber bushed, screw adjustable ends. The desired roll centre height determined the position of the Watts links, which thus determined the length of the body brackets required for their fixing points. The right hand bracket had to be very long- extending to below axle centre height- so diagonal bracing was necessary to make it strong enough to cope with shock loads such as when bouncing off a curb. The brace was made in thin gauge square tube, as shown in photo 14, and to provide a safe anchor point in the centre for it, a piece of similar tube was welded across the body between the chassis members, directly under the floor.
Unfortunately, I found after finishing the job, that welding the Watts link brackets under the chassis members had caused slight contraction which tended to pull the rear end of the body down. This showed itself as a tendency for a wave to form in the wheel arch panels directly over the rear wheels. Luckily it is so slight that you don't see it unless you look specially, but try as I might afterwards, I could not stretch it out again. Maybe jacking the spring anchorage points hard apart before welding would have avoided this irritating little flaw. With the Watts link system fully assembled the axle was again jacked up and down to ensure that everything functioned correctly, and that axle movement was truly vertical over its working range. Now there remained the rear half of the exhaust system to be made. Referring back to photo 8 again the front pipes and collector boxes were already complete, and the rear half was to be made in 2 inch tube with a single pipe running on each side of the prop shaft, widening slightly to meet the two square silencers under the back seat, arching over the axle, with the right pipe traversing the body behind the axle to lie beside the left one for a double entry into the rear silencer situated in the standard position on the left, beside the spare wheel. This silencer was fitted with chromed large bore twin outlets, which just filled the standard body cut-out perfectly.
As with the front pipes, it was beyond my skills to bend 2 inch steel tube, so in this case I had to resort to the cut-and-weld method for all bends. To obtain smooth bends this meant very many welds in some places. For instance, the pipe from the rear of the right hand silencer, running over the axle, across the car, and into the rear silencer, had more than 40 cut-and-welds in it! Initially I built in a piece of convoluted stainless steel tube as a shock insulator just behind each collector box, but later this proved to be unnecessary. One can be seen in photo 8 just behind the collector box. There was a good deal of trouble in getting the rear pipes to tuck up close underneath to give good ground clearance, and to clear all my extra rear axle bracketry without dander of rattling against the body, but when I was finally satisfied, it was all stripped off again so that I could get at the underside of the chassis for completion.
All the underbody welding and brackets were wire brushed and sanded, and then painted with primer and colour coats. A battery tray and hold down bolts were made to fix the battery on the right hand side in the boot, and then long heavy duty positive and earth cables were made and run forward to the engine bay. Brake lines to the rear brakes were made up and fitted. A Jaguar type SU electric fuel pump was bought, and after a lot of searching, a small corner in which to mount it under-the fuel tank was finally found, and fuel lines and electrics installed.
The axle and all the links and brackets were dismounted for sand blasting and enamel painting. With all underneath obstructions removed the chassis members, sills, door inners etc were treated with Waxoyl rust inhibiter internally, and the whole under body and chassis was hand painted with two coats of underseal. Then the exhaust system and rear axle could be finally refitted, and that was the underneath work completed. It looked good, and it sounded good when the motor was started!
There remained a few small jobs inside, such as minor alterations to the rear seat squab to clear the traction bar brackets, replacement of sound deadening material and trim and so on. The lamps and wiring were fitted and completed, together with the bumpers. The finishing touch was to buy and fit a radio, and then we were ready to confront the registration authorities.
I called in at Coventry Council House, and the idea of a home built vehicle was sufficiently unusual to require an interview with the registration chief. He required a police inspection of the machine before he could do anything, so I had to contact the Gloucester police to come out the next weekend to inspect it for me. The sergeant who turned up was mighty surprised to see a gleaming brand new car- he explained that the check was really to ensure built pp vehicles were not made from stolen parts! He was used to checking all sorts of old wrecks, built with scrap yard parts, so a new Rapier was a pleasant change for him. After a glance through my big bundle of receipts for body, engine, and parts purchases, he wrote out a note for the registration authorities, and I was able register the car and get number plates made up during the next week in Coventry. Insurance was arranged-at Group 7 plus 50% rates, and I was ready for the first road test the following week end. After 15 months of excruciatingly hard work, I would finally see if my ideas worked or not.


BUILDING A V8 FASTBACK RAPIER by NEVILLE HIGGINS
PART FIVE: ON THE ROAD
Road test Saturday finally came round, and after checking oil and water, filling a couple of gallons of fuel from a can, and checking tyre pressures, we were at last away down the Gloucester-shire country road to the local village to buy petrol. Even running the engine quite gently (running in of course) the car seemed to positively fly over the road in comparison with my old van, which had a power to weight ratio close to zero when loaded with racing machines! The engine and transmission were quiet and refined, and temperatures normal after a few miles. Even the generator and charging system worked perfectly.
The brakes were light and felt smooth and powerful with the oversize servo I had used, but in contrast the clutch was heavy to operate. The steering was a bit heavy at parking speeds, but felt normal as soon as one got going on a smooth road. However, as I motored up and down the road a little faster, I noticed that when the front end lightened going over a hump bridge, the front tyres squealed as we landed again and the front end gave a little sideways lurch if we didn't land square. I returned to the work-shop to investigate. First a tracking check, which was OK, then I jacked up the front end and noticed that the front wheels toed in as the suspension dropped and the wheels left the ground- this was obviously the problem, but why was it happening? Lying underneath gazing round I noticed that the track-rod ends were not parallel with the lower front suspension arms. How could this happen? At last I tumbled to it- the steering arms were crossed over left to right so that the track-rod ends connected above instead of under the arms. A few minutes with the spanners had the problem corrected, and the front wheels stayed parallel during jacking up and down. Readjust the tracking and out for a longer road test-now everything was fine! The car then looked as in photo 15, taken in the sunshine in front of the house.
On the Sunday I experimented a bit, trying to improve the clutch feel by swapping around the different master and slave cylinders I had, but the combination which gave a light clutch did not free, so I had to revert to my Saturday set up which was heavy. On Monday morning I drove the first (comparatively) long trip- 70 miles back to Coventry, and everything continued to go well. A buzz went round the office when I reported that the machine was complete and in the carpark, so there was a major exodus at lunch time for an inspection. The first three customers for a trial run were taken out, and this became a daily occurrence for the first two weeks.
After a couple of days I got permission to take the car into the factory so that the Design chief Leo Kuzmiki could take a look at it. He gave it a nod of approval, but I dare not offer him a test drive, as some of the stories he had himself told me had frightened me! Once he borrowed a Tiger to go down to London for a weekend. On the way back in the wet, coming out of a traffic island, he stomped the throttle and spun three circles without leaving the road, and was able to continue home to Coventry!
Another time we had an example of the first Wankel engined car-an NSU Spider, as a test car, which was sometimes a bit difficult to start. It was also one of the very first models to have a steering column lock fitted. He was to test drive it one evening, and I collected it and gave him the keys. Next morning he related that he had to get a lift to the office because the Spider had stalled in the middle of the traffic island just down the road on the way home, and he had been unable to restart it. He had to call a reakdown truck to tow him away to a nearby garage, but sad to relate, he apparently didn't put the ignition key in properly. As they neared the garage the key dropped out on the floor just before they came to a left turn (driving on the left of course) and as he swung the wheel to follow the tow truck, the steering lock clicked in. The truck straightened up and the Spider continued its left turn to be dragged, smash! Into a wall on the inside of the turn!
Another day I was down in the development department with him and we collected his test car for the evening to drive it back to the office. It was parked in a line, nose to the factory wall. It happened to be one of the first Minis to be fitted with an automatic gearbox, though it still had a hand operated choke. Leo pulled the choke out full and started the engine, which raced away at high RPM. He tried to select reverse, which was difficult at high RPM, so he gave the stick a good yank- and got first by mistake. The car leaped forward a yard, Leo yelled "God!" and stomped the brakes, to stop just an inch from the factory wall! "That was close!" said he, eased in the choke and selected reverse with considerably more care this time.
While my car was inside the factory we took the opportunity to put it on the chassis scales to measure the separate corner weights. This was on September 24, 1969, and the weights were:
Left front 712 lbs Right front 760 lbs
Left rear 652 lbs Right rear 651 lbs
This gave: Front weight 1472 lbs (668 kg) 53% of total weight.
Rear weight 1303 lbs (591 kg) 47% of total weight.
Total weight 2775 lbs (1259 kg) with a full tank. Standard car 2276 lbs (1032 kg).
This was exactly the same weight distribution as the standard Rapier, so I was very pleased. The Competition department also had a look at it, and Des O'Dell had a demo run. They all liked it, though they predicted that the steering box oil -would boil from the heat of the "snakes nest" of exhaust pipes around it, and Wynne Mitchel was incensed by the rear mudflaps, which "made it look like a lorry!" I checked the steering box a few times, but even after extended high speed running on the German autobahn, or on English motorways, it was never more than barely warm to the hand, so I’m glad to say that their fears were unfounded. My free breathing exhaust system obviously didn't run nearly as hot as the competition Tigers, which apparently cooked everything around them.
Lunch time demonstrations continued daily, and as the car park at Stoke was a good 10 minutes walk from the Design office, there was plenty of time for speculation among the 3 passengers. I soon became used to hearing "I bet it's the most understeering car in the whole world!", "It must be terribly noisy – rough - poor handling - etc etc." I soon learned to say "Wait and see" and leave it at that. At that time the engine always started with an almost explosive roar (I don't know why) which made an immediate impression on the customers, and then settled to a smooth burbling tickover. As we drove away would come the exclamations - "Gosh isn't it quiet - isn't it smooth!" Then "The ride in the back here is wonderful- just like the sofa in my sitting room" and so on.
By the second day I had found a standard test route which I knew well, and when we came out of Coventry there was a long left hand bend in a country road, which I could take fast in second gear. The V8's roadholding was far superior to that of the standard car, with which everyone was familiar, so this produced a chorus of amazement every time! It was followed by a straight where I could demonstrate the acceleration, which was equally popular, and as the boys recovered their equilibrium I eased down to an 80 mph (128kph) cruise for a while. The next question was always "What are we doing now- 50? Jeez no-80! Is the speedo accurate?" It was in fact within 1% -much more accurate than the production job. Much discussion on return to the office, and always more customers wanting a ride the next day.
During the first two weeks of running in my notes show a fuel consumption of around 20 mpg (1.4 l/mil)
but after a little ignition and carburettor adjustment this had improved to 22 mpg (1.28 l/mil.) (For English readers, Sweden measures fuel economy, not in litres per 100km, but in litres per 10km. 10km is called a Swedish "mill' -hence l/mil.) This continued up to just over the 6000 mile point on the mileometer, in May 1970,when I moved (temporarily!) over to Sweden. Since I had quickly learned to use and enjoy the car's performance, I was very satisfied with this sort of economy.
To confirm my claim for using the performance I can relate that the first set of tyres were worn out at 8000 miles and that the first set of front brake pads had to be changed at 15,000 miles, though I am not normally hard on brakes. For the second set of tyres I went up one size, to 185R13 and chose Goodyear G800. These gave much better wet grip than the original Cinturatos.
By the beginning of October the engine was run-in, and Dick Evison, who was Leo Kuzmiki’s Technical Assistant, thought that our Engineering Director, Harry Sheron, should test drive the car. He therefore arranged for Harry to borrow it one evening. while I drove Harry's Sceptre in exchange. At that time we
still worked at Stoke, but Harry Sheron had already moved over to the new Technical Centre at Whitley, so the next morning I was over at Whitley early to return the Sceptre and collect my car again. When the chief arrived he said he liked it, and remarked that the road holding was better than his Humber over one peculiar bump on his normal route. We lifted the bonnet for him to have a look, and then our American Managing Director arrived, and was called over "Come and have a look at this! -this is the sort of thing we should be building!" However, being a Chrysler man, he was not so enthusiastic when he saw the Ford 289!
Harry’s parting remark, "Pity about the clutch, it spoils the car" prompted me to make a real effort to find a better combination of hydraulic cylinders to improve it. I already had a number of different sized master and slave cylinders, so I wrote these down in table format, and then went chasing round all the accessory shops for sizes I didn't have. A number of different mounting brackets had to be made up to enable me to try them, but eventually I ended up with a table as follows:
CLUTCH CYLINDER RATIOS
MASTER CYLINDER SLAVE CYLINDER
TYPE Dia (Inch) Area (M) Dia (inch) Area (M) RATIO M/S C
Arrow 5/8 0.307 1 1/8 0.994 0.309 T
Tiger 7/8 0.601 7/8 0.601 1.000 T
SP1 5/8 0.307 7/8 0.601 0.511 P
SP2 7/8 0.601 1 1/8 0.994 0.604 O
SP3 3/4 0.442 7/8 0.601 0.735 O
SP4 5/8 0.307 3/4 0.442 0.696
SP5 7/8 0.601 1 0.785 0.766 H
SP6 3/4 0.442 1 0.785 0.563 O
As you see, there was a good deal of experimenting before arriving at the final choice. Alternative SP6 was the lowest M/S ratio which cleared properly and therefore gave the lowest pedal pressure I could obtain by simple means. Though it was still a bit heavy, I found it quite acceptable, though the pedal had to be pushed to the floor to clear the clutch.
Another minor problem which showed up at an early stage was brake balance. A couple of very hairy emergency stops demonstrated clearly that the car, with standard brakes, was braking too hard on the rear wheels. A test drive in a standard Rapier quickly convinced me that the standard car was worse than mine! I think standard rear brake cylinders were 3/4 in dia. Luckily I managed to find a pair of unwanted experimental cylinders of 11/16 dia. and this reduction in area proved to be just right. On stomping the pedal it now felt like driving into a rubber wall!
The next problem was a grunting sound from the rear axle on turning sharp corners at low speed, which was caused by the limited slip diff slip-sticking at low speed. A few words with Ron Beatty of Forward Engieering, who had come knocking on my door one evening, revealed that limited slip diffs require a special oil. I filled up with Shell special oil, and everything was all right. A test start with one rear wheel on tarmac and the other on gravel laid a black rubber line on the tarmac side, and the rear axle grunt had disappeared.
The town of Warwick lay on my normal weekend route between Coventry and Gloucestershire, and was
often choked with heavy traffic, but luckily a fine new by-pass road had just been completed and this made a wonderful weekly high speed test stretch for the new Rapier! I had fitted an oil temperature sender in the sump, and could watch the oil temp rocketing up to over 130 C in 4 or 5 miles at full throttle.
I therefore bought myself a Tiger oil cooler kit with remote oil filter mounting and was pleased to note that the oil temp hardly exceeded 120 C, even when I put a sender in the filter housing, to record the max
temp in the oil system.
After a few thousand miles I began to realise that I would feel a "long" brake pedal after each 2000 miles or so. (That is, the pedal would go down a long way before the brakes bit.) Investigation showed this to be due to brake pad "knock back" which was in turn caused by play in the front wheel bearings. This had me a little worried, so I tore everything down for inspection but could not find anything wrong. Since it wouldn't be very nice to have a stub axle break off, I kept a close eye on things, but never found anything
in spite of having to make frequent adjustments. Last winter, with the car in Sweden, and the speedo on 44000 miles, I decided to renew the wheel bearings, just as a precaution. I showed my bearings to the supplier, and even he said "These are perfect, and don’t need renewing", but I did it anyway.
Before reassembling I took another close look at all the bits, and finally I saw signs of wear on the rear faces of the locking thrust washers which sit between the outer bearings and the retaining nuts. There was obviously some movement between the inner bearing race and the washer which was causing slight wear, which produced end play, and explained my problem at last!
I then spent a lot of hours sawing and filing up a new pair of washers in 1/8" steel gaugeplate which I happened to have in stock This is a very tough material which can be oil hardened, and by making the washers a very tight fit on the axle and in the keyway I hope they will not be able to move in future. In combination with a drop of Locktite to prevent the inner races of the outer bearings rotating, I hope this will solve the problem.
BUILDING A V8 FASTBACK RAPIER by NEVILLE HIGGINS
PART SIX: OFF TO SWEDEN
Returning to the story back in 1970, in England, the only thing I was still dissatisfied with on the car was the steering, which was too heavy at parking speeds, and felt a bit "rubbery" with the extra front end weight. Together with some pals on the chassis section, I took a look at fitting a steering rack in place of the standard box, but unfortunately, at that time there was nothing available which would fit, so I had to be content with the standard set-up. With so many more racks available nowadavs, there is a much better chance of finding something to suit, but this will have to wait until I have a bit more time to look at it.
Another job I took a look at in the beginning of 1970 was a windage tray in the sump, to prevent oil being whirled up into the crank at high RPM. This was prompted by discussions with engine development
friends at Jaguar, who had recently found that they could save up to 20 HP at 6000 RPM on V12
prototypes. I made up a tray, but could not find a satisfactory method of mounting it securely under the crank. Since my motor was currently limited to 4800 RPM by its' hydraulic lifters, I decided to abandon the job until such time as I got round to tuning for higher RPM for competition work. Thoughts of the latter had to be postponed when I came over to Sweden, and the car has subsequently proved to be such a pleasant and practical road machine with its standard "cooking tune" motor, that I now feel no need for further modifications.
I mentioned Ron Beatty previously. He turned up on the doorstep one evening, soon after my car was completed. He had a customer with a Tiger and a growing family -which would no longer fit into the Tiger!
This customer had been asking Ron for "Something Rootes and roomy, with a V8,- and what could Ron do for him?" This was quite a question, but when Ron heard of my car he decided to investigate. On hearing that I had a full set of drawings, we came to an agreement, and I was engaged as temporary assistant designer.
Ron used a tuned Ford 289, I think with two 4 barrel carbs if I remember correctly, so the car certainly motored! He built it from a body-in-white, so that every minute item of trim and fittings had to be ordered and bought as a spare part. What a job! However, they managed it successfully though they simplified the rear end by using a Tiger type Panhard rod instead of my Watts link set-up. It was painted bright yellow,
and looked really good when completed. I had a very short demonstration run in it, but didn't drive it myself. Sad to relate it was only a few months before the owner had a major excitement and rolled it several times, completely demolishing the body. Undeterred, Forward Engineering obtained a new body-in-white, and rebuilt the car as new, using all the salvageable parts from the wreck. I later lost touch with Ron Beatty, so I don't know what subsequently happened to the car.
A contact of Ron's had a chassis dyno (rolling road) at his tuning firm, and we ran my car on it one afternoon. The first discovery was that it went too fast for the dyno in top gear. so we had to test in third. Next we found that it was running weak at full throttle so we dare not hold it long enough to get a reading. This was fixed by drilling out the carb main jets. On a rerun we then pulled 155 HP at the rear wheels,
which impressed the operator, as it was the most he had seen on his brake! He claimed that this was equivalent to 200 HP at the flywheel, taking into account the extra losses involved in running in third gear. Even if it was slightly optimistic, it still showed that my free flowing exhaust system was winning between 20 and 30 HP when compared with the standard engine brake figure of 172, which had been checked on the Rootes brake during the days of Tiger production.
I subsequently found that the retune had dropped my fuel consumption to around 18.5 mpg (1.53 1/mil) which was not so good. I therefore took a careful look at the jet sizes, did a few area calculations, and bored out a pair of compensator jets, returning to standard size mains. The idea being to retain my good part throttle economy, (which still flows through the mains) and flow the extra fuel required at full throttle high RPM running through the compensator jets, which are brought into operation by a vacuum valve opening under inlet manifold pressure. This restored my fuel economy, and gave a top speed somewhere off the end of the speedo dial. I was unable to get back on the chassis dyno to recheck the mixture, but a plug check indicated that it was OK so I was satisfied.
At this time, Spring 1970, Chrysler UK was getting a bit rocky, with various cost saving efforts being introduced, and a number of people being made redundant. The smart move then was to find another job and get yourself made redundant, so that you could leave with a nice golden handshake! A contract design firm, with jobs at Volvo in Sweden, offered me a job at a salary I couldn't afford to refuse, but the boss declined to make me redundant, so I had to leave in the normal way.
I sailed to Sweden on May l0th, taking the Rapier with me (which I could do for up to a year as a temporary employee.) The first weekend was Whitsun, so three of us, who had travelled over from Rootes at the same time, piled into the V8 and drove North up through Oslo to get a look at a bit of Norway.
When we came out on country roads north east of Oslo we found monster holes at unexpected places into which the car dropped with a mighty crash, bending and flattening my low slung exhaust pipes. We later learned that these holes were due to sinkage when the roads thawed out after the long winter, and they happen every spring!
We stayed the night at a Youth Hostel, overlooking a lovely lake and were able to watch the processions and celebrations for Norway's National Day on May 16th. This is when they celebrate becoming independent from Sweden, so it's a great occasion! Later we took a walk over the fells, and still found snow where we sank up to our hips -quite an experience for three green Englishmen in the middle of May!
The Volvo works holiday is normally four weeks in July, but as I was only on a short contract I took just one week, and made a 9 day tour North to the middle of Sweden, and then across to Norway and returned down the West coast. Most English people don't realise what a long country Sweden really is, but the commonest way to demonstrate it is to say that if you fold Sweden south about its Southern tip, the North Cape will reach down to Rome! A trip halfway North in Sweden was therefore about all that could be expected of me in one week!
I drove northeast from Gothenburg to Mariestad on the eastern shore of Sweden's largest lake, Vdnern, then via Kristinehamn, Ludvika, Borldnge, to Rdttvik and Mora. This area is said to be one of the most beautiful in Sweden, and is especially popular for the Midsummer holiday weekend, when the whole of Sweden celebrates the longest day of the year. At this latitude there is no night, as another 500 or so kilometres north will take you to the Land of the Midnight Sun. I continued north through Sveg, then joined the E75 heading west near Ostersund. This took me through marvellous scenery towards the first real mountains in Sweden (contrary to common belief in England, the southern half of Sweden is not mountainous at all) and then over into Norway at Storlien. The E75 continued through more and more magnificent mountains until I suddenly emerged onto the west coast just north of Trondheim.
Trondheim itself was very quiet and almost deserted, but I took a good look round the harbour, and while I stood on the quay taking some photos, a Norwegian came up to look at the car and offered me a straight swap for his 1964 Minx. When I lifted the lid and showed him the engine he became even more keen to swap, but I managed to resist the temptation!
I camped on the coast just south of Trondheim, then motored southwest on minor roads to m first Norwegian ferry at Kvanne, following the fjords down to Xndalsnes. Here one is at the sea end of Romsdalen, surrounded by magnificent steep Mountains, which are the centre of Norway's most famous mountaineering area. After only one kilometre on the main E69 road, I turned off on to the famous Trollstigvej or Trollway leading south to Valldal. The road is narrow and winding at the start with a very steep climb up to 1000 meters, and a series of hairpins to rival anything the Alps have to offer. The V8 just loves gobbling up this sort of road, and stomping the loud pedal in second gear gives a sensation almost like that of going into orbit!
At the top I emerged into a wide valley, still surrounded by mountains, and camped in the wilderness (photo 16). Next morning I sat in the sun, having a picnic breakfast, and examining the colossal 1500m vertical cliffs of the Romsdalshorn at close quarters. In later years these have become very popular with freefall parachutists, but this popularity is not shared by the local authorities, who are faced by the problem of cleaning up the mess left by the not inconsiderable percentage who do not reach the bottom safely! I would have loved to take an extra day to climb the Romsdalshorn, but there just wasn't time.
After 25 kilometres of fabulous mountain scenery the road dropped down to Valldal and ended at a large parking area with a key for the ferry across Norddalsfjord. Up into the mountains again on the other side,
and 2Okm further on an even narrower and more hairpin infested sideroad took me to the top of Dalsnibba, a mountain whose top had been converted into a car park at 1494m.
This must be the car park with the best view in the world-literally hundreds of magnificent peaks stretching
as far as the eye can see in every direction. A young American girl hitched a lift from here, but was immediately car-sick on the hairpins on the way down! We drove on slowly, stopping to look at an old church built completely in timber, and covered from spire to ground level by wooden tiles.
We followed the main road east and stayed at the Youth Hostel at Lom. Next morning I turned west again to drive route 55 through Jotunheimen, the largest glacier area in the southern half of Norway. Near Galdesand I sidetracked again onto an unmade road leading up to the Juvasshytta, a fell hotel at 1841m height. This track was so steep and winding that I was forced to stay in second gear for several km, and could not maintain fast enough forward motion to force air through my big 3-layer radiator, so the engine began to boil! I pressed on in hot summer weather, with the heater and fan both on full blast to try and get a bit of engine cooling!
At the hotel I planned to join one of their guided parties to cross the glacier and climb Galdhopiggen 2469m (810Oft) which is not only the highest mountain in Norway, but also the highest mountain in Northern Europe. Knowing that there is always confusion over the half hours between England and Scandinavia, I thought I had it right when I got the start time confirmed as 10:30. (Where we say, sometimes, half ten- meaning half PAST ten, the Swedes and NorweVians say halv tio- translating literally "half ten"- but meaning in fact half TO ten. You can imagine the consequences!) As I had over an hour to wait I climbed the nearest little top to take pictures, and sat watching the 9:30 party Departing for the hill. At-10:15 I zipped down to the hotel to join my party only to be told that they had gone an hour ago.
I stormed away across the high fells, reaching the glacier 6km away in time to see my party half way across the 2 or 3km crossing Since falling into a crevasse unroped is very definitely a one-way event, you don't go onto glaciers alone, so I had a problem! Luckily there was a large party of schoolboys just about to depart and I was able to rope up with them. We skirted a couple of wide, blue, apparently bottomless crevasses, and stepped up on to Galdhopiggen for the two hour climb to the top, where we caught up with the party I should have started with. There we ate lunch, chatted, and admired and photographed the fabulous views.
Three Norwegians were inquiring after an extra man or two to make a safer rope for a climb over several other summits, so I was immediately interested. It turned out though, that they would be descending at another spot which would involve me in over 10Okm of transport back to the car, so it was impractical.
We returned, and I motored on to Kaupanqer to catch the next ferry on a long 3Okm trip through narrow fjords with huge vertical cliffs, to land at Gudvangen on another gravel road which made a colossal hairpinned climb out of the valley (the steepest hill in Norway!) and with a 40Oft vertical waterfall, the Stalheimfossen, to photograph.
I then followed the Bergen road south as far as Kvanndal, took yet another ferry across Hardanqerfiord to land at Utne, and motored down the west side of S'O'rfj-ord to stop at a little camp site with a wonderful view over the fjord (photo 17). continuing next morning I stopped at the little town of odda to shop, and to watch a small 4-seater float plane run by the local taxi firm land and take off again. Float planes always fascinate me, and it made a lovely picture on the milky blue water of the fjord. The milky colour is caused by suspended rock powder brought down by the river from the Folgefonn glacier behind the town.
I sidetracked again and followed the road up the Buardalen valley to the car park at the end. Applying my climbing boots, I continued on foot for several km to reach the snout of the glacier, which is a monstrous convolution of ice blocks and caves, all covered by a thick layer of dirty black rock and powder, where it finally melts away to form the river. Removing boots, I waded the icy river so that I could climb up beside the glacier, to get a better view of the huge icefall as 'it toppled over the edge of the mountain to descend to the valley. After rescuing a lone tourist, who had got stuck, and lowering him to safety on my rope, I heard a distant crashing noise, and looked up to see the end of a small ice avalanche probably 2 or 3 km away near the top of the icefall. I sat down for a couple of minutes to admire the icefall, and tracing the avalanche back to its source, I saw a huge serac 200-30Oft high looking very precarious. As I wondered idly on its' chances of falling, a lump shot out of the bottom and a deafening crack echoed across the valley and, right before my eyes, a huge tottering pinnacle the size of a forty storey block of flats leaned outwards with agonising slowness and toppled down in a monstrous cloud of ice and snow powder. The whole mountain shook and it was several seconds before the booming sound reached me, and nearly 2 minutes before movement ceased and all was quiet again. one of my most memorable mountain experiences!
Returning both shaken and stirred to route 47, I continued south through several long tunnels (the longest 7km and quite eerie) on the HaukeligiFend pass, I turned off again to Sauda on one of the long coast fjords, to visit Erik Breivik, a Norwegian friend from the office, who was spending the holidays with his parents. I found the house all right, but was told that Erik had gone out before lunch to test a new four cylinder outboard motor for a friend, and was already overdue home. After waiting a while I went down to the harbour to see if he was there. An hour later I returned to the house -but still no Erik. When he eventually turned up, looking a bit tired, it was to relate that the new engine had broken its' crankshaft more than 2okm down the fjord, and that it had taken him 6 hrs to paddle the boat all the way home!
In the late afternoon Erikis father took us over the Suada steel works, where he worked, and where they make expensive ferro-manganese alloy steels in huge electric furnaces ' run of course, on Norway's abundant hydro-electric power. After spending the night at Erikls I followed Saudafjord westwards and took another ferry over to Sand to continue down the west coast towards Stavanger. Stopping at an undefined village called J6rpeland, I had a job to find the little track leading a few kilometres to a tourist hut up in the mountains. Here I left the car, and walked 6km over rough country to an arm of Lysefjord to inspect the Prekestol- the Pulpit Rock. This is a big flat rock at the top of a huge overhanging cliff, which drops 500m straight into ' the fjord below. Most tourists admire the Rock from below, via a boat trip up the fiord from Stavanger, which must be just as impressive as lying do a full length to take pictures over the top, but considerably less dangerous.
After this I continued to the south coast and camped for my last night in Norway. On the Sunday I toured through all the seaside resorts on the south coast "bulge" of Norway, and took the short ferry across from Horten to Moss, thus cutting out the long loop via Drammen and Oslo, and then drove down the E6 back to Sweden. Turning off 10Okm north of Gothenburg, I drove out to the sea on the island of Tjorn, and camped in the car. Rising early for a quick breakfast, I drove over the famous Tjorn bridge and came straight into the office to start work again.
This was the same bridge which, 10 years later, was knocked down by an oil tanker on a dark and foggy January night. The whole thing crashed 40m into the sea below, and eight people were killed when they drove straight off the broken ends-in the fog, before the road could be closed. one of these was a Volvo man from the office who had borrowed a test car for the evening. The car was later recovered and returned to the factory, and it had obviously hit the water upside down, as the whole of the top side was completely flattened. The bonnet had a perfect impression of the top of the engine pressed into it, so anyone in the car had no chance of survival.
The other day I came across my notes from this trip. they read: "A really good weeks holiday- 1951 miles.
Car went like a bomb and averaged 24.6 miles per gallon (1.15 1,/mil) for the trip. Averaged over 26 mpg at 80 mph (1.08 1/mil at 125 km/hr) for the 450 miles up to Trondheim! It's now full of dust everywhere- doubt if it will ever be clean again"' The dust, of course came from the many miles of gravel roads I drove, many with highly corrugated washboard surfaces which give the suspension a real test. Thankfully, most of the dust now seems to have disappeared after 20 years of more normal motoring.

BUILDING A V8 FASTBACK RAPIER by NEVILLE HIGGINS
PART 7 RETURN FROM SWEDEN.
My Volvo contract finished in December 1970, and I returned home for Christmas, for a holiday, and to look for a job, but with a further Volvo offer in my pocket. I made a trip up to Coventry, and went into Rootes for a chat with the boys, and to see Peter Wilson, who had taken over as Design Chief from ipy old boss, Leo Kuzmicki. He me told they were waiting for a decision on whether the new Avenger model, succeeding the Hunter range would be exported to the USA, before he could tell if he needed me to work on emissions for him or not. I understood the message- "Don't ring us, we'll ring you!" so I more or less decided on a temporary return to Volvo.
Before making any such rash move, I was determined to have a proper holiday, and my old climbing pal Ivor and I had booked ourselves into a winter climbing course in Glencoe in Scotland during February. As my parents had just moved down to Worthing in January, for their retirement, I motored up to Coventry on the Friday afternoon to collect Ivor, and we steamed up the motorway overnight. Reaching the Highlands north of Stirling about two or three at night, we stopped for a few hours sleep, made a quick breakfast, and continued on to the youth hostel in Glencoe well before lunchtime. After booking in, we were off up the hill for a training scramble until dark. The Rapier had then completed a trip from the South Coast to the Northern Highlands in well under 24 hours, and we had got in a good scramble as well!
The course started on the Sunday, with a short theory lesson, and our instructors were two very famous climbers, Hamish McInnes, and Ian Clough, who both lived in Glencoe. We were soon out on the hills to learn the correct use of the ice axe, and to practise braking to a stop on a steep icy slope after a fall. The course continued with belaying techniques in snow and ice, step cutting in snow and ice, and climbing practise in all sorts of widely varying conditions. The final day was devoted to rescue training, and practising stretcher lowering over a near-vertical cliff. The evenings were taken up by theory lessons, and then by slide shows from some of the notable climbs our instructors had made. It was worth the trip just for the slide shows alone! Sad to relate, Ian was killed two or three years later, in an avalanche during an Everest expedition.
Ivor and I stayed on in Glencoe for a few days, to practise what we had learned, And enjoyed some fine climbs together. For the last days of our second week we moved round to the hostel in Glen Nevis, and our final climb on the Saturday was the climax of the fortnight. From the hostel we took the steep tourist path up to the shoulder of Ben Nevis, then climbed round the shoulder and into Corrie Leis under the towering northern cliffs of Nevis. After a quick lunch outside the SMC hut, we set off up the steep face of Carn Dearg, just to the north of Ben Nevis. This was heavy going, as it was unrelentingly steep, and mixed snow and scree, but we could kick steps in the snow, and made good time to the top,
From the top we had a wonderful view of the hundreds of surrounding peaks in their winter mantle of snow, and could see the long knife edge arete which we intended to follow, leading round to Nevis in a giant horseshoe about 3 miles in length. We looked across Corrie Leis to the summit of Nevis, over 50Oft above, but the top was hidden in cloud, as is so often the case. (I have been on the top of Nevis four times, but have never seen anything except cloud!) We scrambled rapidly round the arete on mixed snow and rock, with stimulating exposure from the steep icy slopes on both sides and came to the long summit slope on the east of Nevis.
As we stepped on to this slope my feet shot straight out from under me, and I had to use my previous
week's training to brake with the ice axe to prevent myself sliding 350Oft straight down into Glen Nevis!
The reason was that the east and south slopes had been exposed to the sun, which had melted the snow, which had then refrozen to a sheet of ice. We took stock of the situation. We had a 100Oft ice climb to the summit, and would soon go into cloud, with the cloud level lowering as the afternoon advanced. We would have to navigate over the summit by compass, and find the tourist track down on the other side.
We decided to press on to cloud level and see how it looked. I tied my crampons on to my boots, and was able to walk up the slope, but Ivor had no crampons, so we were forced to cut steps the whole' way up the ice slope for him. This made it slow going, but we soon reached cloud level and stopped for a blow and another conference. We oriented ourselves very carefully, and plotted our compass course up to, and across the summit, deciding to press on, as we estimated we had enough time to get down before dark.
(This is a vital consideration during winter climbing in Scotland, when the days are so short.)
The white cloud closed round us, and we were entirely dependent on our compass,' as visibility was close to zero and we could only just see our feet. This was a totally eerie feeling which neither of us had experienced before. The white snow and the white cloud were absolutely indistinguishable, and it felt as if we were suspended in a white globe of nothingness. (This is known as a white-out.) It would have been very easy to become completely disorientated, as it was difficult to tell which way was up,, and every step felt like walking out into space, with the snow looking exactly like cloud. The top of Nevis is quite a large plateau, but we navigated ourselves safely to the ruins of the old observatory, and sat down for a piece of chocolate to celebrate our success so far.
Next we had to find the way down without falling over the 150Oft northern cliffs. The problem with cliffs is that visibility of 3yds or so, as we had, one can easily walk out on to an overhanging snow cornice before one sees the void ahead, and if it collapses under you there's nothing to do but shout goodby-y-y-ye as you go down! With one of us solidly belayed in the snow, the other stepped gingerly north to locate the cliffs. The edge showed up as a black void, but we couldn't see it until we were less than 4yds from it.
This gave us an extra check on our position and compass course, and we headed for down. After a while we emerged from the cloud into the gloaming, as night was fast approaching.
To get down quickly we started glissading down the slopes we could see clearly, but I nearly came to grief when I fell through the snow bridge covering a burn running in a deep gully beneath. This could easily have resulted in a broken leg, but I was lucky, and struggled out only wet and dishevelled, to continue our headlong descent, but carefully avoiding the gully this time! Back at the hostel, we prepared a big feed, and reviewed our day. This was probably the most technically demanding and dangerous climb that we had done together, and we were very pleased that we had accepted the challenge, and not turned back. It was an important addition to our mountaineering experience, and proved that we could navigate accurately, even in very difficult conditions.
On Sunday morning we were away early in the Rapier heading back to Coventry. On the motorway Ivor climbed over into the rear seat to take a photo of the view, with the speedo showing 90mph and the rev counter at 3500- cruising revs!
By mid March I had sailed the North Sea again, and was scratching away at Volvo drawings once more.
During the summer the Rapier made a number of interesting tours, both in Sweden and in Norway, and I met Vera, who later became my wife.
During the 1971-72 winter I became an unskilled ' but enthusiastic skier, and made many weekend trips north in Sweden, and to Norway to ski. In February Roy Smith and I decided to motor down to St Anton in Austria to ski for a week. Since Smithy knew the place, we took a chance on finding rooms when we got down there. We set off from Volvo at lunch time, in the Rapier, making a rapid trip south to take the first ferry from Hdlsingborg to Helsingor in Denmark. As it got dark on the way through Denmark the weather turned wet and windy, and then turned to snow as we boarded the Rodby-Puttgarden ferry for Germany.
This didn't look so good- but we pressed on. By the time we reached Lubeck it was blowing a blizzard, and getting colder by the minute. The autobahn was heavily salted, and though the car was handling beautifully in the fast thickening slush and snow, the major problem was seeing through the windscreen.
Next the screen washer fluid froze in the rapidly dropping temperature, and we had to fumble our way into the next service area to pour hot water over the pipes, and empty two doses of anti-freeze fluid into the washer bag. Five minutes down the autobahn it froze up again! and we proceeded in hops between
service stations, to defreeze and add more antifreeze each time. After about five stops we had pure antifreeze in the washer system, and at last we could keep motoring through the storm!
The traffic thinned out greatly, and we motored on south until very late before diving into a motel for the
night. By this time we had come through the worst of the storm, and conditions were much better next
morning, when we continued, reaching St Anton during the afternoon. All the guest houses in the lower part of the village were full, but "don't worry" said Smithy, "we’ll try up the hill." Up the hill turned out in fact to be up the mountain, via an extremely steep and snow covered road, where all the locals used chains.
"We'll never get up there before the summer" thought I, but we tried anyway, and to my astonishment the old Rapier just sailed up without problems as long as I could keep it moving! The smooth low rpm. Power delivery of the V8, combined with my limited slip diff worked wonders!
We eventually found digs way up the hill, but never had any trouble getting up there in the car. The skiing was great, with me doing my falling exercises, and the week flew past. We allowed two days to be able to take it easy on the 1000 mile trip back, so we left St Anton about 9 o'clock on Saturday, and headed north in pleasant weather for the trip through the Alps. On the German autobahn we cruised at 90 to 100mph, making excellent progress. with stops only for petrol and the odd sandwich. This continued until a BMW came up behind looking for a race. I stomped the loud pedal and was pleased to see him recede in the mirror, but suddenly, after about 2 or 3 miles at full throttle there was a huge white cloud in the mirror. just as if we were a destroyer laying a smoke screen!
I shut off immediately. and as we coasted to a halt the BMW emerged from the smoke screen and motored on triumphantly. Lifting the bonnet I found that one of the water hoses to the heater had blown off the plain ended pipe. and most of the coolant had spewed itself all over the engine bay. The glycol boiling off the hot exhaust system had caused the smoke screen. but luckily it had not caught fire! We broke the ice on a nearby puddle, and after replacing the hose. managed to scoop up enough water to get going again to reach the next service area and fill up properly. This problem in fact recurred a couple of times later in the cars life, and I cured it by silver soldering a piece of thin wire round the ends of the pipes to prevent the hoses sliding off.
Smudge got out the maps, his pencil and calculator, and pronounced triumphantly "If we can keep going at this pace we can easily catch the last evening ferry from Puttgardenll so we decided to continue and see about an overnight stop in Denmark. In fact we caught a considerably earlier ferry, and after having another sandwich and a few minutes rest during the 40 min crossing, we pushed on into Denmark. After an hour out came the Smudg? calculator again and he said "If we keep this up we can lust make the last ferry over to Sweden." No sooner said than done, and we arrived with over half an hour to spare!
As it was well after midnight, it didn't seem worth stopping then, so we pressed on to Gothenburg, arriving home between 3 and 4o'clock in the morning. As Smudge wasn’t insured for driving my car. I had then driven almost exactly 1000 miles in under 19 hours without feeling exhausted. I think that says a lot for the cruising abilities of a big V8, and the comfort of the Rapier seats.
Even as far back as the beginning of the 1970's the Swedish equivalent of the MOT was much more comprehensive, and much stricter than the English one. and only very minor modifications to cars were permitted. Everyone assured me that a special such as mine would never be approved, so at the end of spring in 1972 I took it home to England and left it there to await my return. It was then just taken out for my holiday visits, nearly always including a climbing trip to the north of Scotland.

No good jobs appeared in England, work at Volvo was plentiful, and the years flew by. In April 1974 Vera and I were married, but it wasn’t until 1980 that we managed to buy a house with a nice big garage. By this time I had come into contact with someone at Volvo who had worked extensively with the certification authorities in Stockholm. He told me to talk to a certain John Cole, an Englishman who worked at the head office and he told me it was possible to import my car as "flyttgods", that is, property brought with me during immigration. I also checked with the customs, and was told that the regs had recently been
altered. so that there was no longer a limit to the length of time after moving that one could import household goods.
In 1982 Vera and I made a major expedition to England with a Volvo 245 and a trailer, and returned with all my racing motor cycles and a whole garagefull of gear. It took half a day to clear the customs, and sorting it all out kept me busy for several years (and still does in fact!) It took until 1986 for me to pluck up courage again, and I returned from a solo visit in October with ,the Rapier. The boat landed in the evening, and I expected the customs to be working, but no such luck, and I was forced to leave everything and make my own way home.
Next day I went back and was asked "What time was your appointment?" It turned out that one must make a previous appointment to import a car- and I thought it was just part of a customs man's job! After a good wait he agreed to try to fit me in between his other appointments. When I told him my story, his eyes lit up and he pronounced "There’ll be a good bit to pay here." I said that my information was that "flyttgods" did not have to pay import duties. "Oh no!" said he, and rang head office to check. I was very relieved to see the smile leave his face, and I only had to pay a small sum for the paperwork. Completing
this and arranging temporary insurance took over four hours, but finally the V8 rumbled out of the customs compound on temporary red registration plates, and away home. I then had a month to get it inspected and approved for registration.
I had found two addresses for secretaries of the Sunbeam Club of Sweden, so I sent off a letter to each asking for any advice on getting a strange machine like mine through the inspection. Two days later the phone rang, and I heard an almost hysterical man whom I could hardly understand. When I could get him calmed down, it turned out that he was the ex-sec and founder member of the Sunbeam Club who had heard of a V8 Rapier built in England, and had been trying to trace it for years. Suddenly, plop! came a letter through his letter box and held found it! He was about 10 miles high with excitement, and we had a long chat.
He told me that, whereas at most testing stations, if it isn't directly covered by the regulations, it can't be approved, down south at Landskrona near where he lived, the testing station chief was not only an English car enthusiast, but also an engineer who would pass a non standard car provided it was a sound and safe engineering job. I rang and talked to him, and made a testing appointment. Vera and I took a day off to drive down, and when we drove into the test hall all work stopped for 5 minutes while everyone inspected the Rapier, with the 4 or 5 other customers looking a bit puzzled! Everything went well except that my trousers split wide open down the back seam when I bent down during operations on the weighbridge. I had to stand with my back to the wall until we could nip into Landskrona town to buy some new ones.

New number plates soon arrived and registration was complete at last. I heard from the other club sec that I had written to, that the club had changed its name to The Rootes Car Club of Sweden so as to cover all Rootes cars, and I joined up, eventually obtaining a special hobby car insurance through the club which covers everything for about 100 pounds, with a mileage limit of 10,00Okm per year, and provided that the car is not used as everyday transport.
Now, at the start of a new decade, the old Rapier rests quietly in the garage, waiting for the sun to emerge again with the spring so that it can rumble into life for the occasional trip. It can still surprise the latest Volvo and Saab hot turbo models by leaving them at the lights, which is great fun. It's all still in good original condition, though when I get time, I'd like to lift out the engine and give the engine bay a new coat of paint. I must admit that I don't find driving as much fun these days as I did in the sixties and early seventies. Ever increasing traffic and seemingly nonsensical speed restrictions have killed most of the pleasure of motoring for me, so now I only drive on the road when I have to.
If any SROC members come over to Sweden, and wish to view the V8 we can almost certainly arrange something if you give me a ring on 031-303219. We live only thirty minutes drive from where the car ferry lands in Gothenburg.-Happy motoring!