Basket Cases before & after........

3 minute(s) of a 13 minute read

Hi Alan

All my bodies are done "freehand" with at best a few sketches done literally on the back of a cigarette pack. I guess that 50+ years of dreaming about, playing with, building and driving old cars helps. While I have built specials since I was 17 or 18 starting with Austin 7s then moving on to Morris 8s etc etc it is only since I was forced to retire at 59 ( Oil companies are Ba***ards to work for) that I have been working/playing full time completing two or three rebuilds per year.

Re the Book: This is a collection of the memories and histories of 75 members of the Rapier Register and their cars. The theory being that the Rapier being an essentially hand built car, no two are precisely the same. This effect is heightened when you consider that the factory sold all the cars as a chassis only with several coach builders building bodies to the customers requirements

Then you have all the cars that have been re-bodied or converted into racing cars since. It is planed to release the book at Brooklands on the ocassion of the 75 Anniversary of the Rapiers official release on July 18th, The Title Ever Keen was the Rapier Car Co's advertising slogan from 1936 to 39. (It is an "old English" expression relating to the sharpness of a knife or in this case a sword or "Rapier".) They took over the stock of un-assembled parts, construction and sales etc of the Rapier after the Lagonda Company was re-structured in 1935. 

Sorry to bore you with all this but you did ask....

I forgot to mention that there were slightly less than 400 Lagonda Rapiers and Rapier Car Company "Rapiers" built in total between 1934 and 1939. .Just two were built after WW2, of all these between 50 and 75% have survived the 75 years. Of the 22 that were imported into Australia all have survived except one that was stolen in 1949, reported "recovered" in the Police files 10 months later and has never been seen since! I have been conducting a search for it since 1979 including writing to the editors of every rural newspaper and every "old car" club in Victoria my home state and where the car's owned lived at the time. I have been interviewed on National radio and had the story printed in one of the major daily Newspapers all to no avail. I am still looking "in my spare time".

Cheers

Bernie J

(oldcar)

Hi Alan

Hi Alan

I guess that I am just old fashioned I don't own a Mig or Tig and I have been using gas welding all my life (almost) With Gas you can use the heat to make minor adjustments if necessary. The commercially available tube I use is generally 1.2 mm wall thickness. I prefer square to round although you must use round in some instances. I have an equally ancient arc welder that I use for heavy gauge fabrication.

As I said earlier I am an impecunious enthusiast! That is probably why I don't have a huge shed full of cars but limit myself to one car at a time, plus the Lagonda which I have now owned for almost 28 years. A LG45 Lagonda Drop Head coupe that I bought in the UK in 1976 for UK £4,000 his currently for sale for £79,000.

Cheers

Bernie J.

(oldcar)