Anglia van Pic for Hussein

bpimm

Brian Pimm
Anglia van.jpg

This is the only picture I can find at the moment. I got this body shell years ago from a friend Ed who got it from the original owner who was a merchant marine and brought it home from England, it's LHD so the story goes that he ordered it that way to bring to the states. He was a neighbor of my friend and when Ed asked if he would sell it he responded with " I'm going to keep it until I die". But that prompted him to get it running again so he pulled the engine and trans and sent them out to be rebuilt and then promptly died. Ed bought it from the Estate sale minus the drive train because no one knew where they were. Ed sat on it for a few years and I bought it from him for IIRC $400.00. This was about 1982-1983 and I started to install a 2.6L V-6 out of a Capri into it then Kids happened and it has never gotten back to the top of the to do list. Right now it's stored in my basement sitting on top of a Miata skate as an option for suspension, and I'm thinking I want to keep the engine in the ford family so now thinking of a 2.3L Ecoboost and 6 spd out of the newer Mustangs to power her. The Dallara and this are now my top 2 car projects I want to finish before I'm to old to do any more. So hopefully I will have it driving before I've owned it 40 years LOL.
 
Very cool Brian. And I imagine having been in storage most of its life, it is relatively rust free? I'm a sucker for odd vehicles, and especially "wagons" of any type. So this would be something I could really get into. I also like the 'formula' racer above it in that pic.
 
And I imagine having been in storage most of its life, it is relatively rust free?

HA! it hasn't been stored inside most of it's life, it doesn't even have floors and the rockers will have to be mostly replaced but the upper body is pretty good.
The little formula weighs 670Lbs and puts 150HP to the wheels... it' just to hard on my old tired body to have fun with anymore. One of the reasons to build the Dallara, something not as harsh but just as quick.
 
What is that, a Formula 440? Doesn't look quite big enough to be a FF, and it doesn't look like a F-Vee.

Pete

Yep a F500 stretched to fit a Suzuki Hayabusa engine/trans, still chain drive live axle rear but it does have real dampers instead of the rubber pucks they came with.
 
Yep a F500 stretched to fit a Suzuki Hayabusa engine/trans, still chain drive live axle rear but it does have real dampers instead of the rubber pucks they came with.

Very interesting. What class did the SCCA allow this in? I assume this was used for club racing, not autocross?
 
It was used in Autox in Amod. I was going to run hill climbs with it once I got it all sorted out, about the time I thought it was getting close I was moving across the back strait at one of our autox'es when the left front wheel folded back against the body so here I am at about 80MPH heading for the bushes and guess what, live axle cars don't steer with only one front wheel... good thing the breaks were rather good. I found the threaded bung the builder had put in the a arm's came out. that's when I discovered that they used the wrong size bung, it was to small in the tube so they made sleeves to fill the gap then just plug welded them in. After that I didn't trust it enough to even think about a hill climb where that kind of failure could be fatal. I kinda lost interest in it after that. I need to part it out to help offset some of the cost of the coming X project.
 
It was used in Autox in Amod. I was going to run hill climbs with it once I got it all sorted out, about the time I thought it was getting close I was moving across the back strait at one of our autox'es when the left front wheel folded back against the body so here I am at about 80MPH heading for the bushes and guess what, live axle cars don't steer with only one front wheel... good thing the breaks were rather good. I found the threaded bung the builder had put in the a arm's came out. that's when I discovered that they used the wrong size bung, it was to small in the tube so they made sleeves to fill the gap then just plug welded them in. After that I didn't trust it enough to even think about a hill climb where that kind of failure could be fatal. I kinda lost interest in it after that. I need to part it out to help offset some of the cost of the coming X project.

Yikes, glad that ended without major incident.

Is it a metal frame with a fiberglass body, or is it some kind of composite tub?

Out of curiosity, what would you be looking to get for the whole mess. Not sure why I'm asking, WA is not exactly local to me. PM me if you'd rather not discuss it publicly.
 
Yikes, glad that ended without major incident.

I have since rebuilt the front suspension so it will hold together now.

Is it a metal frame with a fiberglass body, or is it some kind of composite tub?

Metal frame Glass body, it started life as a 1987 Red Devil F440 and was converted to F500 in 1983 according to the log books, the bad repair work on the front end was done by an owner sometime in it's life.

Out of curiosity, what would you be looking to get for the whole mess. Not sure why I'm asking, WA is not exactly local to me. PM me if you'd rather not discuss it publicly.

Probably more than it's worth as a car, The engine kits are running from $2500-3500 but mine is already sorted with all the wiring harness hacks to get it to run without the bike, Plus it has electric paddle shifters with ignition kill so you just leave your foot on the floor and pull the lever to up shift, you have to manually blip the throttle to unload the dogs to downshift, I was going to work up a auto blip for the downshift but didn't get to it. Plus I have more goodies I bought to add to it but never got to the next step, I have a Rilltech Racing wet sump oil pan for the engine which gets rid of the bike pan and puts a pan on designed for cars and the high lateral G load they see. I think that alone was about $1500.00. I also have an independent suspension transaxle with quick change gears and a quaife LSD also adds a reverse gear, it came out of a Radical SR3. I was going to rebuild the rear end to use this transaxle also, would have made a big difference in tight corners. this unit was $3500.00, so for those components alone were looking at about $7500.00.

It needs some maintenance, rear brake caliper mount is broken, needs a new chain and sprockets, I would raise the gear ratio, first gear was almost useless, I launched in 2nd.
 
I know why, because it is super cool. I want one, even if I have real use for it.

I always wanted to make a run into town in it, 12 miles each way on a crooked road that follows the Washougal River. But I managed to stay out of jail...
 
Just a side note, it beat a 550WHP Subaru STI in an 1/8th mile Drag race on dirty parking lot asphalt. The STI got me at 60ft but I took him by almost 1/2 second by the end. We had a radar gun and the STI clocked in IIRC 103 MPH but the radar gun couldn't lock on me so I don't know what my speed was. I think my time was in the 7.0 to 7.1 range. 0-60 in the 3 sec range but highly dependent on traction.
 
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