Interesting cars from today's KC All British Show

[MiniDave]

All the usual suspects were there, and you all have seen them in one form or another so I'll only post the ones I found interesting or relevant......

I'll start with this interesting Perana Capri racecar, imported from South Africa. In addition to it's full cage, huge row of instruments and 302 V-8 were a couple of funny things I noticed in the interior - see if you can spot them too.....

[MiniDave]

Next up, this interesting TR-3, the engine swap was done by the owner's grandfather back in the day and the car now has another 99K miles on it. The moon hubcaps are hand made by his grandfather and cover the original wire wheels. The clue to the engine swap is in the grill....

[MiniDave]

I've seen one of these done before, in an MGB roadster, and they make for a super clean look. This one is an MGB-GT, and the engine is the larger 3.4L V-6, backed with a 5 speed manual. The car had a flowmaster exhaust and it sounded great! He said it cruises at 2300 rpm @75 mph and gets into the mid to high 30's for fuel mileage. The 3.4 is lighter by about 50 lbs than the 4 cyl lump he took out and makes a little over 200 hp running a Holley 390 4bbl.

[MiniDave]

Sweet little Ginetta racecar.....

[MiniDave]

Nice little Sunbeam Imp.....with their 1L all aluminum engine mounted in the rear, these were a worthy competitor to the Mini in their day.... so few survive today outside of England.

[MiniDave]

OK - quiz time......what's wrong with the engine in this Bugeye Sprite?

[MiniDave]

And last but not least......

[MPlayle]

Capri: it has a/c and speakers?

Sprite: dual split webers, screws holding valve cover to head along the rim as well as the standard nuts on top, speedometer (or tach) being driven from the back of the generator, temperature probe in the head (below top rad hose) not hooked up?

[MiniDave]

Capri - A/C, stereo amp and speakers.................and a cupholder! in a racecar!   :D

Sprite - OK, you got all the major points that you can see in this pic (not split Webers, all 4 barrels are in use) so, what does all that tell you?

[MPlayle]

Sprite: It is far from stock!  It would be interesting to know the back-story.

[MiniDave]

Well, I'll tell you then.....

The valve cover is painted  and decaled to look like an Austin engine, but the tip offs are the aluminum head and the other things you mentioned, like the thermostat location on the front of the head......and if you were there you'd notice it's about 20% larger engine than an A series.....

I thought it might be an MGA motor, and it's close to that.....it also has a 5 speed gearbox.

Wanna make a guess now?

[Jims5543]

Capri - A/C, stereo amp and speakers.................and a cupholder! in a racecar!   :D

Perana Capri - I was thinking LHD in a place where RHD cars are common?

[MiniDave]

Because.......... Racecar!  ;D

Sprite - the magic answer is - a Datsun1600 engine and gearbox!

[MPlayle]

I've heard of the Datsun 5-speed transmission swaps in Sprite/Midgets before, but not the whole engine/transmission swap.

The drive off of the generator: is it for the speedometer or tachometer?  It is an unusual place for such a drive either way.

[towjoe]

Dave, great photos. Some really unique cars.
AC, cup holder, no harnesses....................

Thanks
towjoe 77.gif

[MiniDave]

The drive off of the generator: is it for the speedometer or tachometer?  It is an unusual place for such a drive either way.

Tacho drive, weird yes but that's the way they did it way back when.....

Joe, you're right - I didn't even notice that because I saw the fire extinguisher strapped to the harness bar..

[MiniDave]

BTW, the white car won the class, Don's P'up came 2nd and I got 3rd - out of 4 cars!   ;D

The 4th car had really nice paint but the interior was a work in progress, no door cards, rear seat was all torn and the fronts not much better but the paint looked great.

The paint on the white car was mediocre, overspray everywhere - it looked like an Earl Schieb job but it had a nice interior although it wasn't stock looking at all, just done in white and red vinyl.....but these things are always done by the popular
vote, not based or correctness or anything.

The 2009 MINI next to us always comes to this show, I don't know why others don't but he's usually the only one. His car is (IMHO) about the ugliest MINI I've seen, with stuff tacked on everywhere.....

[94touring]

I don't remember Don's roof looking so yellow, like coffee stained teeth. 

[MiniDave]

Yes, that's some effect from my phone or something, it's not yellow like it looks in the pic.

Pics sure make it look that way tho, don't they?

[John Gervais]

The 2009 MINI has the same PIAA lamps as my mini, presumably driving lamps.  Yes, quite tacky when overdone.  I've also got the matching yellow fog lamps...

Regarding cupholders in race cars, I've been toying with cable-tying a couple of bicycle bottle holders to the roll cage in my wannabe race car - would possibly fit a can of coke or cup of coffee.