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.....neath, painted red, sits a straight Jag axle running tall 3:7 gearing and limited slip. Up front two more Appliance slots wear 7x14 Continentals and handle the bumps through some Zephyr springs. / strengthened all the front end up in there an'put twin brake calipers on at the front and Jaguar drums at the rear, I got a Daimler servo on the foot brake and a hydraulic handbrake on the front wheels, mainly I guess so he can churn "em up when he wants to.
The foot brake seems to take forever to reach its stop but works . .. oh its funny really 'e always travels a long way, chuckled Geoff, / even tried lengthening the rod an everythin' an' it don't seem to make no difference...
Does it still stop?
Oh yeah, it stops alright.
The 'glide running through the three-seven axle made for an almost sedate launch. The power feel came in, then Geoff shifted into second around four thousand loike keeping his right leg straight as we cleared the quarter-mile posts. The Classic hugged the road as we powered round the right hander. Geoff banged the stick into low, standing loud and chuckling as his Chevycar flew round the banking.
You might well blow his doors off if you met him at the Baker Street lights but he'd run you down quicker than that if you happened to meet on any of the many winding lanes around Yeovil.
D'you notice much difference with the injection?
Oooh a fair bit on the top loike, you know when you're going along about sort've fifty an' you work him down into sort of first loike he shook his head and grinned chuckled, makes hell of a lot of difference then, my earlier experience agreed, but on the bottom end see, it's dippin' out really cos it don't pick up till a thousand like. . .
Yeah and that ol' Powerglide doesn't help.
Neither does that rear end, until it gets hauling that is and then she really eats up the road.
The four-shock set-up at the rear and the Classic legs and Zephyr springs up front, which maybe give them a better spread, has the car really hugging the road when cornering under power. I even relaxed enough to cross my legs going through the esses. In fact, I even got to feeling that it might be nice to throw her round a few myself.
Unfortunately this wan't to be. Geoff made another pass with Clive at the stopwatch and returned much the same figures, then it was time for my run at the clocks. With Clive and his gadgets and Geoff in the back seat cos she's never been on the road without me, I tightened the seat belt over my lap.
Getting the feel of die high riding throttle and ornate brass shifter, I rumped out onto the line, the machine power twisting as I goosed the gas, letting me feel the injectors sucking deep. Clive counted down and I cut a fine green with my right foot. The mighty mouse roared, and died. Would you believe a sheared throttle cable?
It's a bit heavy should you flood the injectors, making restarting much like swimming in a boiler suit, so Geoff's hand snaked out and hit the fuel pump switch on the tidy centre-mounted console. Also clustered there are the switches for all the interior comforts like heaters and lights, as well as those for two of the four adjustable rear shockers (two are hand operated from the outside) and the bleach pump control... yes folks one thing about living in the country, getting up early happens all the time, so you get lots of daylight hours to install things like large trunk mounted, electric pump operated, bleach tanks. The feed pipes are brazed through the floor to exit in front of the rear wheels. Country cunning indeed. He may not get you from the lights but he sure can psyche you out with some of the smokiest churnouts this side of the start line.
Geoff was most upset when our Tech Ed wouldn't let him boil his hides up in the car park. It seems that Henry Hirise's supercharged tarmac-tearing traction earlier this year had led to a burnout ban at the track. Still, pumping up and down's not my scene, though when Geoff gets his fourspeed installed and wants to do a running burnout, I'll help Steve to hold his telephoto still and give the Classic a chance to smoke down the tower.
Hope he gets his throttle linkage toughened up though, 'cos my right foot is aching to get that little monster lit and a 'runnin' right. Drop in a shorter gear to match the fourspeed, slip in one of Bob Hatton's Marvin Miller specials and I'd even think of taking on the Mopar Miss herself. Now that really would be a Classical Gas...
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Bottom-Left - Honest Guv, all I did was put me boot down! Luckily we came up with a strip of electrical connector block, chewed off the plastic insulation and used the metal part to re-join the Classic's sheared throttle cable, saving Geoff a long walk home
Mike Collins
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