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Project Cars
Current Project - 1947 Vauxhall 10 "Time for something different" I thought when I saw this for sale. The car is a 1947 Vauxhall 10 Saloon, pretty unusual in itself as that's the year that Vauxhall ceased manufacturing them after only resuming (following WW2) in 1946. There really is a shortage of this history on the net for lots of cars of this age, which makes me wonder what the humble Mk2 Astra will look like in history in another 40 years. Hopefully I might still be alive to see... Why this one? Well it's really got quite a lot to do with its history which was about 2/3 spent inside a barn. Looking its best for viewings wasn't really an option when I saw it at the Vauxhall Heritage Centre during the Open Day, but essentially it was a complete car that one day was driven or pushed inside a barn and pretty much forgotten for just over 40 years. I can't be sure why it met its apparent end that way, as it's not rusty. The previous owner obviously collected cars and apparently had upwards of 40 classic cars in that barn at the time he died, leaving the estate to his family. Unfortunately they weren't the only people that knew they were there and the barn was repeatedly broken into, cars were dragged out and stolen for their scrap metal. Andrew Duerden from the Vauxhall Heritage Centre bought it in 2007 after getting a phone call from the executors. They apparently said that if he wanted it, he'd better get there quickly as otherwise it was likely to have gone the same way as many of the others. Luckily he was a man of his word and got there in time to buy the car, concluding a year later that he wouldn't have time to do the work needed to restore it and needed the space for other projects, so it had to go. I bought it a week after seeing it at the Heritage Centre - Andrew delivered it on his trailer to me in Kent and the restoration began.
In many ways it was just like finding it in a barn for myself, nothing had been touched. Everything is covered in dust, surface rust and (the underside) in mud. Mechanically, the most I knew about it was that the wheels went round. This page will be kept updated with progress as I work on the car, please excuse the formatting.
Click the links or photos below to transfer to the diary pages:
Some background information
September 2008 Saw it at the Heritage Centre on 14 September 2008 Took delivery on 20 September 2008
October 2008 Had it running for the first time
March 2009
Current job list, parts needed and tools required
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