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LEMON POPSICLE.
I bought my Pop as an unfinished project some 15 years ago. It was in a very sorry state. The steering column was held in place by a 3”x”2 piece of wood and nails -no I’m not joking! The Jag back axle was held in by the original cage as I pushed the car into my garage the axle fell off!
So the only thing left to do was to rebuild the whole thing, which I did over the next two years. I rebuilt a Rover 3.5 V8 engine and fitted it with an auto box and very short prop shaft. I had the original Pop radiator triple cored to help keep everything cool. There’s not a lot of room left under the bonnet of a Pop when you’ve shoe-horned a V8 in there, so they can suffer from overheating. The roof was chopped by 4 inches and looked great -I loved it. The wipers were cut down to a tiny 3 inches!
I also narrowed the Jag axle so it would sit under the Pop rear wings. I went to Donnington raceway to buy my wheels then I had to source some big rubber to go on them. I was very lucky to find a garage that had ordered some tyres in for a Bentley and the guy hadn’t come back in for them, so I got them cheap. The front “clip”, (axle & suspension), came from a Vauxhall Viva and was narrowed and welded onto the Pop rails.
I drove this car for two years and loved every minute of it. I sold it to buy a Fordson van, but that’s another story!
-Mouse |