Car & Classic: The Rescues – A30

Not content with being the biggest classic car site in Europe, we thought we’d dip our toe into the world of video, too. Which brings us onto our first episode of Car & Classic: The Rescues, in which our Editor, Chris Pollitt and one half of the amazing Project Binky, Richard Brunning, come together to save old cars that have long since been forgotten. The first car to fall under the scrutiny of our lens was a rather tired and unloved 1953 Austin A30.

We wanted to do something around saving an old car, as the appetite for such antics is most definitely there. But where to start? Happily, a message on Twitter from Bristol-based James Blake presented the answer. He and his father have owned this car for decades, in fact James even learned to drive in it. When they bought it, some restoration was needed but nothing too severe. At the end of it all, the little Austin was put into use as a daily driver, and also as a competitor in European rallies. This plucky little car has racked up plenty of miles on many foreign adventures. And we like that.

James and his father, Ian, fitted a Gold Seal engine into the car after the old unit gave up the ghost. Sadly though, after just 800 miles covered, the car was put away in the garage you see here. You know how it is, life gets in the way, a couple of weeks turns into a couple of months, months into years and before you know it, decades have gone by. It’s a shame indeed, but happily the garage seems to have been the perfect place to hide the little Austin, as other than a lot of spiders, the car hadn’t deteriorated too much.

After much consideration, the pair decided it was time to let the Austin find life with a new owner, and that owner is now us. But we’d have to get it going first! After a quick recce it was decided that the little A30 looked like it had potential. The engine wasn’t locked up, and during its extended hibernation, nothing seems to have rusted away or been eaten by small critters. Parts were ordered; leads, plugs, dizzy cap, rotor arm, points and condenser and a battery.

Of course, to make this work, we needed another man. After some thought, we decided to approach Richard Brunning, one half of the amazing Project Binky. He’s a dab hand on the spanners, and has form when it comes to the old A Series engine, so he was the perfect man for the job. Even if he did have a ridiculous rider consisting of pickled eggs, an extraordinary amount of tea and of course, biscuits. But hey, these are the costs of top-flight video production.

Of course, on the day it absolutely bucketed down for hours on end. But that just seemed to make it more British than ever. Is there a more British pursuit than trying to fix an old car in the rain? Exactly.  And the rain made the car look shiny once we wheeled it out into the open for the first time in over ten years.

The car was, and still is, in remarkably good condition. It’s a bit musky, and as Chris found out, it is not built for tall people, but as a car, it’s solid and free of any serious rust. It just wasn’t a runner, but we could sort that. Or so we thought. You see, the initial train of thought was that, as an A Series, it would be an absolute doddle to get it running. It was not though. If we uploaded the unedited footage, it would be about six hours long. The distributor was in and out more times than a rat up a drainpipe. The points, the condenser, the plugs, then the carb was playing up, then… you get the idea. Plus, to get the full Project Binky vibe, we had poor Nik Blackhurst on the phone lots too, as we slowly lost our minds.

The big problem was that we weren’t getting a spark. But there was no godly reason for that to be the case. Everything was there, but no spark could be had. In the end, it turned out the non-original points were set too wide. In order for them to work, they needed to be indiscriminately close. How close? So close you could barely get a sheet of paper between them. When set to an operational gap, they look closed, put it that way. It was a head-scratcher. But in the end we succeeded and the little old Austin barked into life. We even got to drive it!

What we wanted to show with this now ongoing series is that rescuing old cars is hard graft, and hey throw up problems, they confuse you and you have to battle spiders and rain and things don’t go smoothly. Today’s age of car shows seem to overlook the real-world stuff, the nitty gritty of it. The fighting with one stubborn nut, or being baffled by a set of non-compliant points. Instead, they show shiny new parts and wrap it all up in a glossy workshop with pretty hosts.  In the real world, you get men that look like Chris and Rich. You have to contend with miserable weather. But even so, we like it, and we’re happy with what we’ve put together.

And yes, there will be more. We already have our next car lined up, we just need to put the wheels in motion (pun intended) and get a shoot date sorted out. Hopefully, it won’t rain.