Stephen had to move all his cars out into the street to access his classic motorbikes

OK–  I enclose some  photos . as said   the car looked  ok  from 30 feet away…

Once the  paint was off it an ugly truth came to the light–old  ‘get-it-thru -an-MOT-  1970’s bodgery

panel gaps that  were uneven, dings, ripples, creases in panels,

but most especially corrosion of epic proportions in the ( water-trap) sill structure,

as well as various small bubbles that turned into gaping chasms of rust-holes;

all this had bew metal laid in -at all time ensuring that the  door all fitted and everything was fair in plane.

The interior seating  had seat covers–which covered the ugly truth of the underying seats.

the original seating fabric  finish  was rust stained, split  , fragile and  torn

Thankfully the seats  were saved–they were repaired by a plastic welding lady and resprayed in a similar way to re-connolising seats

Even the interior headlining- which was stained and had some small tears in–was repaired and resprayed in situ in the car .

the door cards all had new  hard-board  -etra thin –which was varnished to prevent water ingress and consequent damage

all new brakes , new carburretor and soem extensive rewiring  has made the car a joy to thread though modern traffic.

despite being only a mere 843 cc–in a aircooled flat-twin, the Panhard  will travel  at 75mph on the motorway thansk to a very tall 4 gear

acceleration is fairly pedestrian–but the car will maintain  reasonable pace( and save its face! ) in modern traffic

I   enclose a few images  of the  car   as I bought her

along with a few  images of the scary  bits during the rebuild…

Along with the stunningly rotten  part donor that has since been sold on to assist another Panhard rebuild… and finally the finished product

Mini sprite shell, full roll cage, buckets , harnesses, mini clubman style fibreglass flipfront, Mighty Mini Challenge spec suspension and brakes, A+ series 1380cc stage 4 engine, 100BHP & 100Ft/lB , alloys , miglia arches and lots personal touches.

Here are some images and narrative from Jim, reference his latest project.

This is the project and below is an interesting article from Jim reference door card restoration

I next attacked the door cards..
I was initially intending to use  3 mm marine ply– but experimenting with the staple gun  showed it to shatter  and split

==> so a denser medium was required–ergo why they used hardboard in the first instance..?

Mindful of  comments that ordinarily available  hardboard is too thick (1/4 “)  I managed to source some 2.9 mm  very dense hardboard  from local specialist timber merchant  ( Bamptons Vespasian Road Southampton)

I had the boards cut by a local  kitchen fitter-( he is a good guy– german chap with excellent attention to detail)

-whose tools are good and sharp!( as was his precison and knowhow !)

I deliberately did not have the  D- shaped  clip apertures cut in
==>  as sprung clips are often the ruin of all door cards–

…. especially when one  needs to remove them from the door itself

( ie for window winder repairs or door lock fiddling )

The hardboard,even when not damp, old or distorted  tends to give way –as the  clip — by way of its mounting tends to set up a one-sided rotational  motion that endeavours to tear the clip  out of the hardboard, resulting in the usual array of retro desperation fixes of numerous screws through the edges of the door cards…

On motoryachts ( with which I work and come into contact with via my business)   all sidelinings and   headlinings these days are installed with 50 wide  mm velcro– this gives total area adhesion with no point-loadings.

I have endeavoured to replicate this methodology on the car also– using in this instance navy blue unbranded high grab velcro– that on the metal side of the door
will be ( after painting!)   be self adhesive velcro  onto a pre-cleaned surface.

On the PL 17 this will work  very well indeed as the upper edge rests in the  ally channel-giving a horizontal repeatable datum to work from

– requiring  only precise location  in the  vertical plain.

So as to be able to adjust this and finalise the exact location    I place a sheet of thin plastic sheeting twixt  the two sides velcro–and once alignment has been satisfactorily established make tiny datum marks at the  edges on the door itself

The high -tack velcro door panel is lowered into position   and the sheet of plastic is withdrawn–apply pressure  all round and the panel sticks extraordinarily well!

This should inhibit the typical waviness that is often exhibited on door cards twixt the point loaded clips.

The  rescued   and re-applied  53 yr old vynil will be re-coloured on Monday  to match the seats.

The door pockets were too soiled   and damaged to be re-used– so I made fresh items(in the  photos seen  taped to the plywood –with new  elastic moused into place)
I was able to locate a virtually identical grain pattern -albeit in a darker shade
This will be re-colored to match the other  old vynil so that all the furnishings in the car will have a homogenous colour

When fully dry and set the new pockets will be stapled into place
Since the images were taken the old screw holes in the vinyl have been repaired and rendered 95% invisible
Removal of panel is  reversal of above to a certain extent–  a plastic     blade  (  flat glassfibre  sail batten or plastic ruler is see-sawed between the  Velcro layers at the centre bottom working outwards –whilst a helpful assistant ( wife?!) starts  drawing up the plastic sheet  twixt the seperating velcro sides.
Car goes in next Saturday for  partial bare metalling ( roof and bonnet) and   complete  re paint —
I think I  am even more excited about this paint-job then I was on the  E-type ….I think!?? !  hheheh!:-D

enclosed the images of the boards–these were sprayed with  enamel varnish so as to make moisture ingress resistant

Richard also has a fleet of classic cars, 2 x MGB’s, 1 Singer and 1 Midge