The Last Ambassador. It's Ours!

[Isaac Hunt]

Great progress, headlining looks great. Good to see you have the rear quarter light in as well

 

 

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[alpinerapier]

I've just caught up on this thread and now i have a blister on my "like" thumb.

 

As Dicky as above about the plates, contact David at DMB, 99.9% sure he'll be able to match them for you.

DMB made a set of plates last week for my 85 Solara and they are identical in every respect to the originals, other than not being cracked and faded, obviously !. The font and supplying dealers name and location were spot on and I would highly recommend.

[Ghosty]

apparently only Austin Rover dealers used this font.

 

Nope - VAG did too, and well in to the late '90s.

[500tops]

D...M...B...

[Austin-Rover]

Wow, this is great progress. Looks like you got to this Ambassador just at the right time - it seems to have survived its years of neglect really well!

 

Now, not wanting to whittle on about DMB Graphics...but this man can perform miracles - and he doesn't need to have the 'font' available to make the reproduction either. I've attached below his best work for me to date (I buy a lot of plates off him). The font is the Serck font people on here are so mad for...but with a silver highlight running though the letters. There's also a graduated line in gold on the yellow background (silver line on white for the front plate). When the reproductions arrived, apart from age and weathering they were perfect reproductions.

 

 

[rovamota]

I have sent DMB Graphics a copy of the plate and he says it's no problem, so thanks guys.

[Eddie Honda]

It was the second most common font used in the 1980s, and certainly wasn't exclusive to Austin-Rover dealers.

Would it be one of Hills' fonts? Hills certain used to do raised plastic like that, just looks like a 2D version of it.

[rovamota]

Remember that beautifully crafted roof panel I restored recently? Well we got around to attempting to fit it to the car today. Unfortunately, BL had, at some stage, decided to change sunroof supplier meaning the aperture in the roof panel isn't the same shape as in the sunroof unit, so instead of making a new roof panel BL bodged it by stretching the covering out to cover the difference and hope no one would notice. Bastards! You could say we should have spotted this on removal but it was in such a state it simply wasn't even considered that it might be wrong.

I had to unpick the newly fitted covering and do it all over again. Of course, the glue was a bastard to remove and took chunks of the panel with it so now it's quite lumpy.

 

Ah well, who looks at the roof lining in a car?.. Unless, of course, you're up to no good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

That's a proper 'That'll do' attitude from BL. Shame you had to tweak it due to their laziness, but at least it'll be a million times better when it goes back in.

[Wilko220]

It's fantastic that this is in good hands - but still a weird mystery as to why someone would buy it from a museum and do nothing with it but let it get trashed.

[Guest Lord Sward]

That's a proper 'That'll do' attitude from BL. Shame you had to tweak it due to their laziness.

 

 

The correct term you are looking for is called 'Birmingham Engineering'.  I kid you not.

[rovamota]

A bit of a late update, but anyway...

 

Martin explains.

 

I have been under the car cleaning and checking all the gaiters and ball joints etc which, to my surprise all looked fine to me with no evidence of any perishing that I could see. There is quite a bit of surface rust underneath and on the door sills but, as I say, this looks superficial to me but needs cleaning up, hammeriting and then waxoyling. I don't want to do that at the moment as, although it may get an advisory, there is nothing structural that means it'll fail an MoT. There is a fist sized hole in the bottom of the spare wheel well which needs welding up but again I don't think that will fail the MoT, famous last words...

 

The fuel gauge doesn't work so we took the sender & pump out of the tank to find that the float had fallen off and was somewhere in the tank. Attempts to flush it out failed so we just fitted another one. Also the rear washer jet doesn't work (and it isn't blocked!) although it's got a nice new wiper blade and that works fine. I've checked all the bulbs and they're all fine including the number plate lights, now illuminating the new number plates from DMB Graphics, as recommended by you guys. Spot on the are, too!.

 

I've cleaned out the 30 years of detritus in the heater plenum chamber and cleared the front washer jets which now work fine. 2 new Bosch wipers and that's another job done.

 

 

I've taken the car out around our estate to check that everything seems to be running OK. There's a bit of pulsation on the brake pedal. The discs should be fine as they were skimmed so shouldn't be warped. However, the brakes themselves seem fine and work well stopping in a straight line. 

 

So having done all that I thought I might put it in for a speculative MoT... I taped up the rust holes in the bonnet so there are no sharp edges and booked it in.

 

 

Failed! Due to non working signal  bulb and emissions which didn't surprise me at all. The bleeding winker was working last night! Anyway the garage fiddled with the carbs including having to reset the needles for some reason and it flew through the emissions on re-test. There are a few advisories because of the rust, not least the "hold" (sic) boot floor! The tester also reckons one of the steering gaiters is perished so I'll have anther look at that but at least we know it's safe and the brakes passed all the tests.

 

So that's its first ever MoT out of the way. The car's already insured so it's now been taxed to try and get some miles under its belt and do the inevitable 'snagging' exercises before we take it on a longer journey...

 

Next job is to get the bonnet we sourced painted and we've given the painters the original bonnet for colour matching.

 

 

In the meantime we've fitted another bonnet we acquired which is far too rusty to be of use, so it's now being driven sporting a rat look.

 

 

More to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Felly Magic]

Yay it's now legal, I think this needs to meet the Holy Grey Grill Sierra

[Parky]

Low spec Ford meets upscale Leyland - the sudden collision of shite particles might trigger a black hole and reveal the secret of the universe. Which will be disappointing for CERN when they realise the hadron collider wasn't strictly necessary and all they needed was about £1500 and access to eBay

[Felly Magic]

I think if they did meet, and Trigger was to Woollard them both, the universe would implode

[Pillock]

Started out on page 1 really not liking the look of this thing - I fully understand and appreciate why you're saving it, but I could never love it.

 

By page 3 it's giving me a cheeky wink. By page 5 I'm got a semi-chub on. It's a really good looking motor! Not sure why I never realised before. I do recall my parents had plans to replace a 1978 Sunbeam with one of these, bizarrely I can remember my mum being impressed it had a hatchback - I think they were comparing it to a Princess. Never happened and that thing soldiered on until replaced in '85 with a Polo.

[sierraman]

I was talking to a guy at the weekend he had a Ambassador VDP he was having professionally restored. He was surprised I knew what one was!

[fordperv]

I enjoyed looking at this at the nec,

 

Have a picture of my dads ambassador from the 90s to say thanks

 

[Zantimisfit]

I think if they did meet, and Trigger was to Woollard them both, the universe would implode

 

If you try to Woollard two cars at once dont you just fall over??

[inconsistant]

I enjoyed looking at this at the nec,

 

Have a picture of my dads ambassador from the 90s to say thanks

 

 

Is that a 4 door Nova behind it? 

[vulgalour]

Looks to be, and a saloon too for bonus shatchback points.

[fordperv]

Yes it was a mk2 4 door saloon a merit if i remember rightly, it wouldve only been a year or so old when the picture was taken

[Dick Cheeseburger]

What became of this one?

[ETCHY]

It's here.

[Rab]

Local Museum piece in Whanganui NZ..they were optioned to the hilt. This one sold later for a 1000 English notes....

[DarrenKC53]

It was at the NEC in November.