74 Firenza Coupe (31 Mar 10 - Lucky Escape!)

Sweet!

If there was any car on this forum that could pull off a couple of fat speed stripes its your Dex

Gurds

 

I think Driveforward's car carries off the stripes pretty well....

 

I thought it was illegal to have race numbers on a road car?

 

It is a race car ....honest.

 

Not illegal - however the MSA frowns on competitors leaving an event with their numbers displayed.

(As it can cause confusion whether a car is competing - eg rally link stage, or on way to/from an event)

Since the car isn't MSA logbooked - not really an issue.

 

you sure? i only ever see "race" cars on the road with blank number boards or with tape over them. and a mate of mine has a 7 on his elise, but it was actually the words lotus and elise on an anlge, so technically not a number 7....

 

Couple of shots of the car on track at Curborough Sep '09 (Thanks for the pics Stella!)

 

Yes. I'm sure.

 

That is why they have to be covered over like dex said.

seen quite a few road cars with numbers on them, you can just about stick what you like on a "road" car.

 

I read all 13 pages!

Epic thread.

Whether calmly sleeping


or on the opposite lock!!


This is a classic car to never forget.

You built a great car there Dex.

 

'nuff stickers already! Florence looks better naked

 

What. no nose art?



Flying Florence?
Faultering Florence?
someithing else beginning with F Florence?

 

Eddie asked me where "Florence" comes from....


Firenza is an exotic sounding word (like cortina, capri etc) as was the trend in the 70s.

It's Italian, and is the name of a City. We call that city

Florence.

Hence - the 1974 Vauxhall Florence.

 

:

 

Thought I should add in a lil update...

So I had some alternator problems.

While waiting to get on the Ferry to the 'ring in Aug my battery light came on. "Damn, fanbelt's off" I thought. Except it wasn't. And all the wires were still connected and everything. Seemed very odd to me, but that's the voodoo of electrics.

So i'd got RallyeVR6 to bring me out a new Alt to the 'ring, and then to take it back again after the car seemed to still be charging ok.

Eventually, late last year the Alt finally decided it had really given up (1,000 miles after the Batt light came on) so I did a google search and found a big place called Wood Autos.

They supplied a new alt, I fitted it, all was well with the world. Except it died. After about 400 miles.

So I called them up, asked for a replacement (which I had to pay for until mine was returned and refunded) took the car to Pitstop to fit the new alt and check wiring etc to see if there was a fault.

Pitstop were happy the wiring was fine (it is only two wires) and fitted the new alt. All was well in the world

Until that Alt died as well. Pitstop removed it, sent it back to Wood Autos (who eventually refunded me) and Pitstop fitted one from their normal supplier. That one has now outlasted the last two Alternators put together, and cost all of about 8 more than the ones from Wood Auto. Guess I've learned a lesson on that one....

 

That you should have taken the one I delivered to you in Germany?

I did mess up slightly on that though - I should have added courier fee's. You'd have been hard pressed to find a courier as hansom as me that would have delievered it Next day.

 

Now that is a serious car

First pic is pretty recent, second shot is a very old one


That's the Transpeed Firenza - some call it an Old Nail replica, but it's not. It's Old Nail's sister car, built and developed in parallel for Tony Davies (who still races it - I watched it at Dunlop Great and British at Brands Hatch a few years back) it's a 2.5 twin cam, Blydenstein told me it was running about 280bhp. Most of the body is fibreglass, so it's probably around 800kg. And it's all period spec - so it's a genuine 35 year old technology running that sort of power and power/litre. Awesome.

Tony can seriously drive it too - you wouldn't tell it from the cut of his race suit but he's got a massive set of *******s on him.

When it was the Transpeed Firenza it was even famous! (well it was on TV) in a series called, I think, Racing Rivals - I think it was the car driven by "the bad guy" - but that was all before my time...

 

Not before mine, i think the italian policeman from allo allo was the mechanic, and the heroine drove an 8 port mini?

 

Yep the heroine drove an 8 Port mini! (Dunno about the mechanic)


Was I right on the name? I'm still trying to find a copy so I can watch the Transpeed Firenza...

 

Next part of the recent events update......



I had the car booked into Northampton Motorsport earlier in Jan for a car clinic thing (geometry, corner weights, rolling road, road test stuff)

Took the car down to Pitstop on the monday (car at NMS on the wednesday) so they could give it a quick look over and sort a couple of niggles from over xmas. Got a phone call an hour later (always gonna be bad!) telling me Head Gasket had gone

Turns out (our best guess) when the car had spat it's fan belt over xmas it had done it sooner than I thought - meaning I'd driven it for a while with no belt, so no water pump. D'oh.

Given this was monday mid morning, and I was booked int to be at NMS first thing wed - things weren't looking promising. Fair credit to Pitstop, they managed to pull the head, get it refaced, refit, all the various ancils off and on again, then run it around and check it out on the rollers to make sure they were happy so I could pick her up Tue evening ready to go to NMS first thing wednesday

Nice One Pitstop!


Might tell you about the epic 50 mile, 3 hour trip to NMS next (it was wed 13th Jan - when the new Snow had fallen!)