Restore British vehicles from the couch

7 November, 2014

 

There are not many instances where you can ‘settle down’ to an evening of car restoration. But on Saturday, November 8 at 7.30pm, all you need to do is tune in to TV3, put your feet up, and quintessentially British vehicles will be restored right before your eyes in the new documentary series For the Love of Cars.

A car, with a little love needed to get it back to its glory-days look, is hunted out by restoration expert Ant Anstead, who takes it to his car restoration company and sets to work with his team to get the car looking new again. While this is all taking place, actor and car enthusiast Philip Glenister, from British TV series Life on Mars, meets up with people from owners clubs and the like to check in with how the restoration should actually result. Empowered, and slightly persuaded, by this gathered knowledge, Glenister guides Anstead to ensure the restoration comes out how he envisions.

Check out episode one this Saturday evening — we hear there might be a Ford Escort Mark I Mexico undergoing a bit of a makeover.

To finish first, first, you must build a winner

Can-Am royalty
Only three M20s were built, including the car that was destroyed at Road Atlanta. This car was later rebuilt. All three cars were sold at the end of the 1972 season. One of the cars would score another Can-Am victory in 1974, driven by a privateer, but the M20’s day was done. Can-Am racing faded away at the end of that season and was replaced by Formula 5000.
These days the cars are valued in the millions. It was unlikely that I would ever have seen one in the flesh if it hadn’t been that one day my editor asked me if I would mind popping over to Taranaki and having a look at a pretty McLaren M20 that somebody had built in their shed.
That is how I came to be standing by the car owned and built by truck driver Leon Macdonald.

Lunch with … Roly Levis

Lunching was not allowed during Covid 19 Lockdowns so our correspondent recalled a lunch he had with legendary New Zealand racing driver Rollo Athol Levis shortly before he died on 1 October 2013 at the age of 88. Michael Clark caught up with Roly and members of his family over vegetable soup