Doing a collect - Fresh rust incoming. Confirmed AVAS content.

[sdkrc]

About as useful to you as tits on a nun but I just found this Practical Classics from 96 with a 56 Cresta in it

[somewhatfoolish]

I remember that article, it's quite flattering except for the brakes. Maybe retrofit a servo if longer trips are on the cards. I can't see the captain attempting 85 em pee aitch and will look forward to seeing the luxury interior reassembled and featuring its luxurious clock.

[Dyslexic Viking]

The brakes are probably similar as on my Mercedes, which also has drums both front and rear without servo. They are not great, but if you keep that in mind while driving, this is no problem, and these cars are not exactly speed machines or sports cars either. And I drive mine a lot like a truck with a lot of engine braking and thinking ahead and it works very well and uses the brakes very little.

[rusty_vw_man]

This is brilliant - it’s not a project it’s a jigsaw puzzle. 

Looking forward to seeing the progress on this, I wish I had the balls to take on something like this!! 

[captain_70s]

So the gearing makes 55mph equate to about 3,000rpm in top gear. Peak torque is at 1,200rpm. 

Needless to say I think it's best suited to low effort slugging along in top gear, I can't see myself taking it up to motorway speeds on the regular - if I take it on the motorway at all.

I suspect the brakes will rapidly overpower the limited tyre grip before my leg runs out of energy!

[lesapandre]

About 500,000 of this body shape was made in the Velox, Wyvern and Cresta guises. They undercut contemporary Fords on price - and were vastly successful but - now almost forgotten.

They  made many more than anything in the BMC stable - Austin sold 50,000 Hampshires in the 50's in comparison.

I remember them on the road in the 60's - the reason there are so few left is that they were a  good useful car and just got all used up as transport in an era where most stuff was terminally rusty at 10 years and 80,000 miles or less. Especially as they were a unibody car. They tended not to be patched up by later impercunious drivers because they were big and thirsty and very out of date looking by the 1960's - so most were scrapped without a thought.

They did a job - and then died. Great to see one surviving.

It's the success of these that also did for some of the lesser 1950's middle-class brands like Lanchester, Jowett and Singer (the original company) because they were so good in comparison to their competition for a 'big car'.

Vauxhall was quite a posh brand still at that time. At that point they made no small car.

[lesapandre]

 

[lesapandre]

 

[Talbot]

15 hours ago, captain_70s said:

So the gearing makes 55mph equate to about 3,000rpm in top gear. Peak torque is at 1,200rpm.

The lovely thing about this is that it's far less likely to bog down when hill climbing:  You're in top gear, you put your foot down hard at 2500rpm.  The car cannot make it and starts to slow, at which point the engine starts to generate more torque than it was before, so there is at least a chance that you'll keep going and not have to grab for a lower gear.

It's the theory a lot of commercial vehicles work on.  If you normally drive around significantly above the peak torque engine speed, it's less likely to leave you with problems.

Well bought!  How long do you expect it to take to get moveable?

[Asimo]

This was Dad's (Velox) about 60 years ago. I didn't like riding in the front on the motorway because I could see the road through the floor. I didn't like being in the back either because the doors opened on bumps and corners.

Loved all the chrome though.

[lesapandre]

Very nice I like these early one the best - they have lovely simple but stylish detailing. The rear lights are particularly stylish.

What dated them by the 1960's was the very high scuttle line - you really sat up in these cars.

Clap-hands wipers - these are pneumatic?

[captain_70s]

15 hours ago, lesapandre said:

Vauxhall was quite a posh brand still at that time. At that point they made no small car.

It's odd to think about it with a modern perspective given how long Vauxhall has been building middle of the road cars but certainly pre 1960s they were certainly considered a premium brand and were ahead of the game in regards of technology.

2 hours ago, Talbot said:

The lovely thing about this is that it's far less likely to bog down when hill climbing:  You're in top gear, you put your foot down hard at 2500rpm.  The car cannot make it and starts to slow, at which point the engine starts to generate more torque than it was before, so there is at least a chance that you'll keep going and not have to grab for a lower gear.

It's the theory a lot of commercial vehicles work on.  If you normally drive around significantly above the peak torque engine speed, it's less likely to leave you with problems.

Well bought!  How long do you expect it to take to get moveable?

A big deal is made of it's "top gear performance" in advertising and roadtests. Given it's lack of any sporting pretentions I think the goal was to have as close an experience to an automatic as could be achieved with an affordable gearbox. 

It's the main reason I had to have a 6 cylinder. The idea of a 4 banger screaming away at the limit doing 50mph simply doesn't appeal...

I'd like to have it on the road for summer. I intend to do all the welding to the bodyshell, then reassemble. Any bolt-on panel repairs can wait till I've had some fun with it.

Currently it is in the odd state of being very original but in poor condition. At least for a start I'd like to keep it as original as possible as there can't be many original paint cars left and it's the difference between a 1,000hr £1k rebuild and a 10,000hr £10k one... The rechroming bill alone would make you cry!

1 hour ago, lesapandre said:

Clap-hands wipers - these are pneumatic?

Cable driven from the camshaft, engaged via a clutch! So the higher the revs the faster the wipers, the opposite to vacumn systems.

For the last year in '57 they got a conventional electric motor.

[lesapandre]

"The rechroming bill alone would make you cry!"

I've seen cars generally with very well resprayed chrome parts done in a good quality matt silver paint. Personally I think it works - but it's not to everyone's taste.

I think getting stuff chromed these days is more difficult - I think there was some environmental issues with the old technology?

[somewhatfoolish]

Metal plating plants are barely-contained environmental disasters even before there's been lumps of metal dunked in and out.

[lesapandre]

Just to give more anacdote about these cars.

The rural village I lived in the 1960's had I recall two. An early one and one of the later ones with more chrome - the former was black and the latter maroon.

Both belonged to neighbours on the adjoining caravan site. Both by that point were pretty disresputable rusty hulks at the end of their life. I can't recall any repairs being done  to them, they just disappeared off the road - like a similar Morris Oxford Series II and Rover P4. There did not seem to be much value placed on bigger cars and they were one bill away from the scrap man.