C-V8 FF Recreation

[John Staddon]

I am told the ad in the image below is from the current edition of Practical Classics. I have also previously been told that the project does come with an FF drive train including the all important transfer box.

C-V8 FF Recreation advert 11.2020.jpg (114.27 KiB) Viewed 4899 times

What I've always wondered is, if this is a C-V8 body on an FF chassis, which C-V8 was it, and which FF?

John

[Martin R]

This advert is indeed in the December 2020 edition of Practical Classics magazine. I wonder if Daniel Hopkins might be able to shed some light on things. Or, there's a number in the advert if you'd care to follow it up John?

[John Staddon]

I have corresponded with the owner of the car and that telephone number, and I've seen the car, I just didn't know it was for sale.

John

[Martin R]

I have corresponded with the owner of the car and that telephone number, and I've seen the car, I just didn't know it was for sale.

John

So you still don't know which FF chassis or C-V8 this is? It would be interesting to know.

[John Staddon]

No, I don't. It's a bare shell of a C-V8 with no identifying marks, the chassis is anonymous too. The person who would know is Ron Clay, he made it, but though I have discussed the car with Ron he didn't give any information away, it's not in his nature!

John

[John Staddon]

I have received an email from the seller of the car, who evidently follows the forum though they are not a member, to tell me that when Norman Paskin, who you will recall had lined up the C-V8 FF as his next project before his untimely death, bought the car he had it inspected by Ulric Woodhams who confirmed it was based on the chassis of FF 119/063 and it was "authorised with the DVLA". So now we know!

John

[Martin R]

That's great to hear!
I hadn't realised that Norman had bought the car.
It must be 2-3 years ago since he passed away. So sudden

[John Staddon]

Norman asked me not to tell anyone that he had bought the C-V8 FF project, and i am still sort of not doing that by not divulging the identity of the person selling it now!

I have a little more information, Ron Cay has been in touch to say the chassis is not from 119/063, he has also been in touch with the seller to tell them that.

Ron has also told me that the C-V8 body and front clip was acquired from Medway Interceptors some time in the late 1980s or early 1990s. but he never knew which car they came off. Checking the records there is a possibility and that is 112/2415 which was acquired in pieces by Medway and recorded there in 1993 and the register says "broken by Medway". Another possible candidate is 2460 which is recorded as suffering "major N S Front damage" in 1989 and was at "Cropredy Bridge Garage - Medway Interceptors" in 1990-92, but if the car suffered major frontal damage it is unlikely that it would donate it's front clip, and bonnet, to another project, particularly as Richard Calver has told me the car was in show condition prior to the accident so would surely have been repaired, but it hasn't been recorded since so i can't rule it out as the donor. Of course the body may have come from another car altogether as I know Medway broke many Jensens and the records may not list them all.

I think I have gone about as far as I can with this, it's not a C-V8, though it has a C-V8 body, and though I have seen it I only saw it while I was looking at another C-V8 and i didn't spend a lot of time on it, it was just in the workshop, I also don't know what other parts Norman acquired and what is being sold now. But I am receiving inquiries and emails about the car and it's starting to make me uncomfortable because i am not the one to say what it is (or what it's worth).

John

[Martin R]

A tricky one for sure!
It's not a C-V8 but it would be quite fun to recreate the FF C-V8 prototype, if it can be done properly.
I do know of someone who looked at it, initially thinking it might actually have been the original lost (scrapped) prototype but walked away when they saw it in person.
If Ron says it isn't 119/063, presumably Ron knows what FF chassis it actually is...
Hopefully, someone will buy it, complete it well and it will become an interesting if non-original car, but a faithful reproduction.

[Per]

The previous discussion here that I took part in was around 2007 but the the threads do not exist anymore. Anyway the start was an FF chassis with a C-V8 body where the bonnet and wings were yet to be modified. Looks like nothing much has happened in the meantime. The FF chassis in question was fairly rotten so Ron has probably built a virtually new one? This was the project that made me drop the idea of such a recreation as two would be pointless and the other guy had a head start.

The later 541 FF project foundered on more beauraucratic hindrances. Mind you now it might actually be possible, but the latest info still has a white patch regarding the first FF mule which may not have existed after all.

I do hope the project will be completed, but make no mistake: It is a mammoth task.

[Per]

Oh and it seems the prototype shown was not really scrapped but lived on under new guise(s), only formally scrapped in the books and for DVLA (or the predecessor of DVLA). Being a fairly common practice at the time I can believe it.

I still wonder though if that first chassis was the spare 541S chassis (or a front damaged one from a customer's car repaired with the spare chassis) modified by cutting off the front outriggers and adding the FF structure. The dimensions are very close indeed. Both that info and the timeframe goes against the first FF chassis being a bodyless lash up soon scrapped.

[John Staddon]

Ulric was quite sure that he could explain the origins of the C-V8 FF and what happened to it and he published the story on his website. Richard Calver didn't agree with Ulric. But at the launch of that book about Ferguson Formula last year Ulric met some of the people from Fergusons that worked with JML all those years ago and they told him things that caused him to remove the story from his website. Now I think Ulric is still trying to work out (what he considers to be) the real history of the C-V8 FF, and the prototype FF, and it will be interesting to see what he comes up with.

John

[Per]

The story by Ulric you refer to, is that "The sandbag FF" chapter in his trilogy? I suppose the truth is somewhere in between. Getting a complex chassis like the FF right first time round is not really likely. My guess is the front part ahead of the bulkhead really was scrapped at least once. The bulkhead backwards part most likely changed minimally. And if the start was a scrapped 541S chassis Jensen could argue their case well. Munro's book Traction for sale does not conclude either.

In these lockdown times I have time to speculate so maybe a scrap 541S chassis was used as a bodyless mule? (That is what an ex employee told me once.) Then the spare 541S chassis was used for the prototype proper?

Maybe we will never know for sure, but either way it would be nice to see the C-V8 FF recreation completed.

[Per]

The 2014 discussion on the recreation project had Ron stating it was based on a C-V8 chassis. And that it does not resemble a proper FF chassis.

[Chris_R]

When Mike Jones went to Italy in the first week of June 1966 to collect the prototype Interceptor he took some pictures while wandering around the Vignale factory. In one of those pictures were 2 C-V8 bonnets. One of them, with other C-V8 parts, clearly came from BEA 693C (the C-V8 that became the prototype Interceptor). The other is much darker and matches the shade of other pictures of EEA 72C (the C-V8 FF).
Documents that Shaun has record EEA 72C at Fort Dunlop a month later at the beginning of July for brake testing. So it appears that EEA 72C was in Italy at the beginning of June but back in the UK in one piece by the beginning of July. I seem to recall that the first FF from Vignale was brought back from Italy in August 1966. Probably EEA 72C was in Turin at the beginning of June for measurements so that Vignale could plan the front body modifications from the Interceptor version.
Mike Jones also told me there was an earlier C-V8 FF chassis that was a development mule that was used around the factory and was never made into a road going car.
This is Mike driving the C-V8 FF nearby the Jensen factory in early 1966.

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