The Pleasure of having an 1800ES

After passing inspection and registering the car, I could start to enjoy and and to know better my old dream. The 1800 ES is surprisingly "heavy" to drive, especially compared with the much older PV544. The steering needs brute force despite a fairly big steering wheel, as the setup is entirely without any assistance. The car is also relatively noisy, and the low seating and relatively small windows gives a very different feeling from the inside compared to a modern car. On the other hand, once on the road and with some speed the true character of the car slowly starts to appear. It isn't extremely powerful, yet with some 130 SAE hp and a relatively moderate wheight the performance is definitely there. It's finally when the overdrive is engaged after a good accelleration that the climax is reached! This IS driving....

Climatic conditions in Norway combined with the ever increasing use of salt on our roads during winter simply prohibits any use of a classic car from October to April. And with 4 cars and garage space for only 2, the pleasure of owning becomes mixed with the hassle of how and where to keep the old warriors tucked away. I found some rented solutions which sort of worked out.

After going through the car over time when cleaning, polishing or just inspecting it carefully, it became apparent that 1) A new paint job would have to be done, as the old was beyond salvation as it had cracked up in areas, and 2) Even if appearing to have been stable for years, the patch repairs on the wings and the sills could show up to hide some nasty surprises. Otherwise the car confirmed basically to be in the sound mechanical condition which I had concluded on prior to the purchase with only a few minor issues. One such was the famous Auxiliary Air Slide, which controls fast idling on cold starts. On the Bosch D-Jetronic, this is a purely thermo mechanical construction with a wax-filled thermostat which opens and closes for extra air to allow faster idling during engine warm-up. Mine was as probably most B20E's not working at all, and some checks at the net soon confirmed that the part needed had not been available for many years. This can however be easily dealt with, as the engine very quickly warms up after start.

When I started to work abroad from May 2007 (West Africa), I also lost most of the momentum concerning my plans to work on the car, essentially the cosmetic interior and exterior issues which I had discovered. I therefore started to investigate possibilities of having the paint and eventual bodywork job outsourced to a workshop, and for a while I considered Poland as a good place to look for possibilities. There are quite a few experiences to find on the web, and not all are success stories. During 2008-09 I therefore started to look for workshops elsewhere, and I finally discovered Classicarco in Manchester and started a discussion with them. They came up with a reasonable estimate for doing the job after some exchange of emails and photos.

It was finally the announcement during 2009 by the landlady who rented me the winter garage for the 1800ES that she had decided to sell the space from April 2010 that forced me to act. I decided to drive the car to Manchester and settle for a Total Makeover of the 1800ES by specialists of the trade!