That Vestey car….

[streetwagens]

This is how it started.

I was on my way home after agreeing to buy the white LHD 912 pictured below. The usual rust but very complete, U.K. registered, and an interesting tale of why it’s in the garden.



There I was, happily heading home, stoped to grab a coffee, and glanced at my phone. A friend had sent me a pic…..

[streetwagens]

This was the pic he has sent me. At this point I knew it was going to be an expensive day.

[KS]

Oooh, that tacho looks interesting...

[stretch]

Wow... i'm excited already. Can i see Aga Blue. ?

[DustyM]

That top picture is of a 912 featured in one of Jonny Smiths barn find videos, he had to use a chain saw to get to it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Spit Nolan]

Come on Dai, half a job, get the rest up haha :D

[streetwagens]

Patience

I obviously rang my friend and said ‘can I have some more details, but I will buy it if it’s available’ - long story short, 4 more pics and I sent him a number that should satisfy the seller. It’s rough, rusted, damaged, missing a lot of parts, but it is what it is. The vin was there and unmessed with but the usual searches on HPI etc didn’t turn anything up, not surprising as it looked like it had been in a bush for some years! A 2 day wait ensued as the seller was away, then I had the call- ‘make the transfer’

I couldn’t get away to collect it so I sent my guy for it, and eagerly awaited its arrival!

[streetwagens]

Basically this is what we have to work with, bar some rusted wings, bonnet and a door, all of which were later replacements anyway. I put the rollers on it, some mismatched steels were on it with suitably rotten tyres.

[streetwagens]

Oooh, that tacho looks interesting...

Good spot, there’s the glitch in the matrix S should be 67MY, wood dash should be 64-66MY, so something was going on there.

[streetwagens]

As it’s a rhd and I only had the VIN, it’s always possible to get it registered on an age related plate with support from POCGB, however I thought it might be worth a shot to see if Paul at PRS had it listed under the AFN archives he holds. It was on there!



So now I had a registration, a first owner, and lots of other details! At this point it would be rude not to get a copy of the Cardex too…..



Now let’s google the name…

[streetwagens]

The first owner turns out to be Sir Paul Vestey, who runs the GP Library, an archive of race photographs, and some further searching turns up this-



No reg, but definitely the correct owner, correct year.. more searching found a video of that race on YouTube! Nothing conclusive, but this sure looks like a blue 911 with a short U.K. plate from the paused still I grabbed off the vid!

[streetwagens]

At this point my heart skipped a beat. From being a completely unknown car to this within a few Google’s was amazing! So I just had to email Sir Paul at the GP library archives! A day later he replied—

Hello Dai

What a nice surprise to hear that the old 911 is still around - I have often wondered what happened to the car over the last 56 years !

The good news is that the car had an international racing career - well it was actually just one race, but it was on the wonderful old 38 mile Mugello road circuit. I attach a shot of the car refuelling in the race and have some more action photos if you are interested.

I bought the car new from AFN in 1966, we did one club race at Snetterton and then the Mugello outing, which was just brilliant. We took the car down on the train to Milan, scrutineering was in the centre of Florence during an incredibly hot week and for a 22 year old having his first race abroad it was all total magic !

You mention the dreaded Solex carbs - we had nothing but trouble with them - fouling plugs etc, so I would be tempted to leave them on the shelf and put Webers on it.

Best
regards
Paul

[streetwagens]

At this point in the proceedings this little car jumped to the top of the queue of my projects. I just had a slight delay due to having my wedding in July, and before that I had to build the venue for the aforementioned wedding. Now that’s all done and dusted, it’s game on again

I have entrusted all metalwork to a very good friend of mine called Mark Spicer who runs Type 29 ltd, which is mostly known for specialising in 1950-1955 VW barndoor transporters. He is currently doing my 1950 panelvan, and to be honest I couldn’t have sent this little car anywhere else! Such a good eye for detail, and will take on even the biggest projects with passion. - I refer back to my 1950 panelvan on that! He’s on Instagram @rustykohlruss and is well worth a look

The remaining parts were stripped off the shell and it was prepared for blasting. Known terminal panels were removed as it’s pointless blasting stuff that’s going in the bin.

[streetwagens]

I was lucky enough to be able to buy a collection of cars and parts locally off a very good friend, so I could dig around in my parts bin (barn) for parts for this little one. Parts sourced so far:

64 engine case
Most early engine components
Solex carbs
901 box
Driveshafts (both types)
Seats
Door cards
Door caps
Rhd swb dash top
Pop outs
Door tops
Rear bumpers
Front bumper
Bonnet
Hubcaps
Window winders
Door handles
Bonnet and boot latches
All lights

I was quite lucky that the timings worked out well for me to have these parts at mine already, the search is now a lot easier for the much shorter missing parts list!

[Gary71]

This is really quite the story!